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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

Microsoft's announced a new “Premium Assurance” plan for Windows Server and SQL Server [theregister.co.uk].

Redmond currently offers five years of Mainstream Support on the aforementioned products, during which new features are added and updates are made for reasons of security or just to fix things up. Next comes five years of extended support, during which the security fixes and functionality tweaks keep flowing.

The new support offering will see bugs rated “critical” or “important” patched for the six-year duration of the Premium Assurance plan.

The outcome of the new plan is that operating systems like Windows Server 2008 R2 will now be supported until the year 2026. SQL Server 2008 can now be supported until 2025.

Microsoft's billing Premium Assurance as a comfort to those running applications that may not be easy to evaporate into a cloud. By offering extended support, Redmond reckons, you can just keep them running without worrying about migration.

Original Submission