Victorian government paying $4.4m to Microsoft to extend Windows 2003 support

[ahhming]

Victorian government has paid Microsoft $4.4 million for extended support for the now-defunct Windows Server 2003 operating system, in a move which sharply demonstrates the extreme cost of running operating systems which are no longer formally supported by their vendors.

Microsoft server 2003 which is suppose to end support for on July 14.

This payment means the state is still running the operating system in a number of critical instances and requires ongoing security support, and perhaps other services, to help keep those platforms functional for the time being. The cost represents one year of support.
 

Microsoft has not publicly stated the cost per server instance for custom support for Windows 2003, but in February The Register reported figures published by a Microsoft licensing expert, Paul DeGroot of Pica Communications. DeGroot alleged the cost would be at least $600 per server for custom support after June 14 this year.

The Register reported the cost would double for each year that organisations required the custom support — meaning, if true, that the Victorian Government could be facing a bill of as much as $8.8 million at this time next year if it does not upgrade its systems over the next 12 months.

 
 

Microsoft refused to comment on the $600 price. In a statement, the company said simply custom support prices vary depending on “specific customer needs.”

 
Source:
 
http://delimiter.com.au/2015/07/20/vic-govt-instantly-blows-4-4m-on-windows-2003/
 
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/16/windows_server_2003_600_dollars/

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/406739,vic-agencies-to-spend-millions-on-win-2003-custom-support.aspx

[beach_boy98]

Will be the same in the UK when windows 7 life time's up.

[Razarza]

That 4.4m could have been used getting some Technicians a job of upgrading all the servers to a modern server OS.

[TrigrH]

This payment means the state is still running the operating system in a number of critical instances and requires ongoing security support, and perhaps other services....

 

Not surprised #Australia

[Syntaxvgm]

They probably can't afford to upgrade to 8 since it, like everything else digital, likely costs way too much in Australia. 

Come at me brah 

[PerfectTemplar]

Victorian government is not the Australian government.

 

 

They probably can't afford to upgrade to 8 since it, like everything else digital, likely costs way too much in Australia. 

Come at me brah 

 

Government has had Windows 8 for a long time now, a lot of systems still don't use it though.

[mr moose]

Not surprised #Australia

 

At the rate at which Australia adopts new technology it will likely be the first of many to face such issues. 

 

They are probably just making sure they don't mess things up by upgrading before all the departments are ready.  Because a glitch like that could cost significantly more in the long run than paying for extended service, (which we don't seem to actually have an official figure on yet.

 

edit: @PerfectTemplar the education department do, many schools almost exclusively, however you are right, many are lagging which is probably why they have to delay upgrading their servers

[Florb]

They probably can't afford to upgrade to 8 since it, like everything else digital, likely costs way too much in Australia. 

Come at me brah 

Volume Licensing.

 

That 4.4m could have been used getting some Technicians a job of upgrading all the servers to a modern server OS.

Not Supporting Aus, but compatibility between .Net 2 and 4.5, shouldn't be much of an issue though.

[YT2002]

Victorian government has paid Microsoft $4.4 million for extended support for the now-defunct Windows Server 2003 operating system, in a move which sharply demonstrates the extreme cost of running operating systems which are no longer formally supported by their vendors.

Microsoft server 2003 which is suppose to end support for on July 14.

This payment means the state is still running the operating system in a number of critical instances and requires ongoing security support, and perhaps other services, to help keep those platforms functional for the time being. The cost represents one year of support.

 

 

 

 

Source:

 

http://delimiter.com.au/2015/07/20/vic-govt-instantly-blows-4-4m-on-windows-2003/

 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/16/windows_server_2003_600_dollars/

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/406739,vic-agencies-to-spend-millions-on-win-2003-custom-support.aspx

they could use that 4.4 million to buy new os'es. Did you think of that?

[Nineshadow]

Windows Sever 2003? Jeez.

[Atmos]

Either is the severe lack of sleep, or the inherent ignorance of my americaness. But... Victorian Government? What country is that?

[Syntaxvgm]

Victorian government is not the Australian government.

 

 

 

Government has had Windows 8 for a long time now, a lot of systems still don't use it though.

 

 

Volume Licensing.

 

Not Supporting Aus, but compatibility between .Net 2 and 4.5, shouldn't be much of an issue though.

https://www.google.com/search?q=exaggeration&oq=exaggeration&aqs=chrome..69i57.212j0j9&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8

[Salty]

Either is the severe lack of sleep, or the inherent ignorance of my americaness. But... Victorian Government? What country is that?

it's a state in Australia

[lak]

they could use that 4.4 million to buy new os'es. Did you think of that?

It would be great if it was as easy as that However, in practice there are many dependencies in enterprise ecosystems that can hinder or prohibit constant technical refreshes - budgets, legacy systems, application compatibility, lack of knowledge, politics/red-tape, culture, etc. Traditionally, enterprise on-boards these kinds of technologies in a lagging manner, however, this is slowly starting to change as technology becomes more of a focal point in broader strategies and visions. Usually it is too much of a cost to upgrade and stay up-to-date as there can be little to no return, thus certain companies will stagnate and try to hold onto their current technologies as long as they can. But it can also come about due to a lack of planning, where an upgrade path or vision is not clearly defined, if not completely absent. I'm sure there are other reasons, but I just wanted to shed some light on the fact that sometimes there can be more to it, than meets the eye. While this is a common issue for a lot of companies, I have a feeling that once companies make the leap to more modern platforms (>2012), future upgrades will meet less resistance.

[mr moose]

It would be great if it was as easy as that However, in practice there are many dependencies in enterprise ecosystems that can hinder or prohibit constant technical refreshes - budgets, legacy systems, application compatibility, lack of knowledge, politics/red-tape, culture, etc. Traditionally, enterprise on-boards these kinds of technologies in a lagging manner, however, this is slowly starting to change as technology becomes more of a focal point in broader strategies and visions. Usually it is too much of a cost to upgrade and stay up-to-date as there can be little to no return, thus certain companies will stagnate and try to hold onto their current technologies as long as they can. But it can also come about due to a lack of planning, where an upgrade path or vision is not clearly defined, if not completely absent. I'm sure there are other reasons, but I just wanted to shed some light on the fact that sometimes there can be more to it, than meets the eye. While this is a common issue for a lot of companies, I have a feeling that once companies make the leap to more modern platforms (>2012), future upgrades will meet less resistance.

 

This is a good explanation,  too many people just assume it is stupidity that leads to this sort of thing happening, usually it is quite a complex array of smaller issues that compound.

 

Another reason it tends to happen (or did happen) is that technology advances a lot faster than budgets can keep up with.  When you have tax payers trying to keep Ambulance, Police, Fire and 7 other crucial departments in bleeding edge technology, there is going to be budget issues thus certain unseen components of the entire IT system will get neglected for as long as possible.

[Razarza]

Either is the severe lack of sleep, or the inherent ignorance of my americaness. But... Victorian Government? What country is that?

 

Victoria is a state in Australia, we also have Queensland, New South Wales, Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia and the two territories Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory (ACT).

[Techhog]

Am I the only one who finds running a severely outdated OS on a server to be a really dumb idea? It likely also means that the servers are ancient...

[LlamaDom]

I don't understand why companies/governments haven't switched over to a new server OS yet when they knew well in advance when end of support was going to happen.

[dalekphalm]

I don't understand why companies/governments haven't switched over to a new server OS yet when they knew well in advance when end of support was going to happen.

It's not that simple.

 

These are servers running Windows Server 2003 - even if the server was physically capable of running Server 2008 R2 or Server 2012 R2, they would be ridiculously slow.

 

It's quite apparent that most of the users commenting in this thread have never worked in a proper corporate IT setting (even a smaller one). They see $4.4 Million and think "Well fuck, just spend that money on OS's!".

Well, I hate to tell you, but the actual cost of the OS is the least expensive part about upgrading. No, they have to replace thousands of PC's and servers too. They need to physically upgrade their systems along with their OS's.

 

Servers are fucking expensive. A proper high end server can range anywhere from $5,000 to $35,000 or even more. That's per unit. Then you're also likely looking at $1000-$1500 per workstation. You might think "That's so expensive! Ripoff!". Wrong. For a number of reasons:

1. Business class support - it isn't cheap! A business - especially government, needs things to be reliable and quickly fixed. That means they need to buy the optional multi-year warranty (Usually 3 or 5 year warranty) that offers next day, on-site support. That means that when a PC's motherboard dies, the OEM (Dell, HP, whatever) will send a technician to the building the next day with a replacement part and will do the swap in person for you.

2. Overbuilding computers - An office computer is expected to be in use for at least 3 years - 5 years is more realistic. That means in 4.5 years, the PC still has to be decently fast enough to use. That means that a workstation that would only need an i3 today, get's an i7 instead, so that in 3 years when new software comes out, it can still run that software well.

 

It's cheaper in the long run for them to spend an extra $250-500 per workstation NOW, then have to re-buy computers too soon because they aren't meeting staff needs.

[Curufinwe_wins]

Just letting people know the USA DoD signed a very similar contract with Microsoft a while back so they aren't quite the first to have this issue.

[dalekphalm]

Just letting people know the USA DoD signed a very similar contract with Microsoft a while back so they aren't quite the first to have this issue.

Also remember that Microsoft only offers these extended service contracts if the business in mind has a practical upgrade plan that will get them off the legacy system within 1-2 years.

 

Eg: An actual upgrade plan, w/ documentation, on how they will be upgrading to x OS in 3 months, y Server OS in 6 months, deploying c amount of computers over z timeframe.

 

Despite getting $4.4 Million out of it, Microsoft REALLY doesn't want to support their old legacy crap.

[LlamaDom]

It's not that simple.

 

These are servers running Windows Server 2003 - even if the server was physically capable of running Server 2008 R2 or Server 2012 R2, they would be ridiculously slow.

 

It's quite apparent that most of the users commenting in this thread have never worked in a proper corporate IT setting (even a smaller one). They see $4.4 Million and think "Well fuck, just spend that money on OS's!".

Well, I hate to tell you, but the actual cost of the OS is the least expensive part about upgrading. No, they have to replace thousands of PC's and servers too. They need to physically upgrade their systems along with their OS's.

 

Servers are fucking expensive. A proper high end server can range anywhere from $5,000 to $35,000 or even more. That's per unit. Then you're also likely looking at $1000-$1500 per workstation. You might think "That's so expensive! Ripoff!". Wrong. For a number of reasons:

1. Business class support - it isn't cheap! A business - especially government, needs things to be reliable and quickly fixed. That means they need to buy the optional multi-year warranty (Usually 3 or 5 year warranty) that offers next day, on-site support. That means that when a PC's motherboard dies, the OEM (Dell, HP, whatever) will send a technician to the building the next day with a replacement part and will do the swap in person for you.

2. Overbuilding computers - An office computer is expected to be in use for at least 3 years - 5 years is more realistic. That means in 4.5 years, the PC still has to be decently fast enough to use. That means that a workstation that would only need an i3 today, get's an i7 instead, so that in 3 years when new software comes out, it can still run that software well.

 

It's cheaper in the long run for them to spend an extra $250-500 per workstation NOW, then have to re-buy computers too soon because they aren't meeting staff needs.

 Fair enough.

[Dabombinable]

That 4.4m could have been used getting some Technicians a job of upgrading all the servers to a modern server OS.

TBH, they would probably make the servers even more broken than they currently are.

[Ehsteve]

And the taxpayer yet again has the foot the bill for the government's inability to keep their own house in order, so we're forking out for extended support without any real benefit. There's no cost saving here, in fact it's just a stopgap before we have to pay for an upgrade.

 

Now a reminder that they want to *raise* the GST another 5% in the near future and lower the theshold for GST on imports.

 

It's stuff like this that just shows that they're not responsible enough with taxpayer money they're receiving right now, let alone the increase they are proposing.

[Razarza]

TBH, they would probably make the servers even more broken than they currently are.

Maybe if the government gets the same clowns that do the roads the systems would get worse.