Extended Security Updates

Microsoft is offering the option for you to stay put on SQL Server 2008 and pay for extended security updates. They even have a “little” FAQ with over 15/20 questions answered. Short story? Three years of some limited updates – mostly around security – critical or important security updates. Here are some pros and cons to this approach:

Pros

  • You don’t have to do anything. Just stay where you are!
  • No new license (just the fees to Microsoft for “support”
  • Limited testing

Cons

  • The “Support” is limited as far as what kind of patches and updates – in fact, it isn’t even “support” – it’s just security updates for a few years – and you are paying Software Assurance each of those 3 years to get them.
  • No new features
  • You aren’t fixing longstanding issues
  • Same hardware or infrastructure
  • You are going to be on an 11-year-old database platform and you are doubling down on it and saying “Yes, I quite like it here. Let’s stay here until 2023!”
  • A lot of SQL Server ecosystem vendors (monitoring tools, analytics tools, etc) often follow the product lifecycle. It is likely that you’ll lose access eventually to many tools you may rely on.

Good if you…

You have no choice – maybe a vendor app just can’t be upgraded, and you are looking to move away from it. Maybe you have zero budget to do anything new, but you can afford those security patches.