For organizations seeking guidance on product support, Microsoft held an Azure Web presentation, 'Prepare for Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server End of Support,' on July 12. Typically, moving such workloads and upgrading to new server software is big pain for IT departments, both in terms of planning and executing the move. Windows Server 2008/R2 will lose support on Jan.SQL Server 2008/R2 will lose support on July 9, 2019.Here are the product lifecycle deadlines that organizations are facing: Losing such support means that quality and security updates won't arrive for these servers, leaving them potentially vulnerable to attacks. Organizations soon will be facing product end-of-life issues for the 2008-branded server products as they will be falling out of 'extended support,' which is the last five-year phase of Microsoft's total 10-year product lifecycle support scheme. They can even use it when moving workloads to Azure Stack, Microsoft's cloud-in-a-box appliance sold by Microsoft's hardware partners. Organizations can use Extended Security Updates plans when moving workloads from their own datacenters ('premises' environments) or from hosted service providers. They don't apply to the older server products. 'We will no longer sell Premium Assurance, but we will honor the terms of Premium Assurance for customers who already purchased it,' Microsoft explained in its FAQ document (PDF) for Extended Security Updates, dated July 2018.Įxtended Security Updates plans only apply to SQL Server 2008/R2 and Windows Server 2008/R2 products. Even though Premium Assurance has been available for a year and four months, Microsoft disclosed plans to replace it with the new Extended Security Updates program. The Premium Assurance plans had let organizations purchase extended product support for up to six years, although it was a nuanced and expensive option.

The Extended Security Updates plans may seem somewhat familiar as Microsoft had begun selling a support offering called ' Premium Assurance plans for SQL Server and Windows Server' last year.

Microsoft on Thursday announced new Extended Security Updates plans that add three years of patch support for organizations using SQL Server 2008/R2 and Windows Server 2008/R2 products.

Sql server 2008 r2 license key