Windows Server, SQL Server and .NET End-of-Support Migration

Get every Windows Server 2012/2016, SQL Server 2016/2017 and .NET Framework or .NET 8 workload onto a supported version before the deadlines, with the licence savings found along the way. Inventory, retire, upgrade or modernize, decided application by application.

Overview

January 2027 is a cluster, not a single deadline: Windows Server 2016, IIS 10 on 2016, .NET Framework 4.6.2, BizTalk 2016, System Center 2016 and TFS 2017 all reach end of support within days of each other, after SQL Server 2016 and .NET 8 in 2026 and before SQL Server 2017 in October 2027. Windows Server 2012 R2's last paid updates ended in October 2026. We get the estate onto supported versions, and use the work to cut licence cost rather than just reset the clock.

What we do

Inventory and triage

• Systems Manager inventory of every Windows instance and SQL Server database: version, edition, installed software, connections, last logon

• An owner and a decision for each: retire, upgrade in place, rebuild, replatform or modernize

Upgrade and migrate

• In-place upgrades or clean rebuilds on current Windows Server, tested on cloned instances first

• SQL Server upgrades to RDS for SQL Server, with edition right-sizing (Enterprise to Standard where features allow)

• Babelfish or full Aurora PostgreSQL conversion for in-house databases where the licence saving justifies it

• AWS End-of-Support Migration Program packaging for applications that cannot be reinstalled

Modernize where it pays

• .NET Framework to .NET 10 on Linux containers with AWS Transform, starting with the applications on the largest Windows instances

• Containment for anything that must stay on an old version for a while: no public access, Session Manager only, tight security groups

Deliverables

• The inventory and decision log, the upgraded or migrated workloads, and a licence and cost comparison before and after