As an ongoing effort, Miro will deliver the Microsoft products reaching end-of-life (EOL) in or by September 2024 in a clear, concise way.
There are two (2) things that are very important – and potentially critical – to your organization:
We wanted to call your attention to the classic Azure Cloud Services and to Year 2 of the Extended Security Updates for SQL Server 2012.
Azure Cloud Services
Microsoft gives its customers two (2) choices for its classic Azure Cloud Services:
- Azure Cloud Services with Extended Support
This avails the customer to providing feature parity with Azure Cloud Services. However, the deployment must have been using Azure Service Manager.
But within this choice are two (2) options:
- Redeployment – This option is essentially a lift and shift migration which offers more flexibility but requires additional time to migrate.
- In-place migration – This option is an automated migration which offers quick migration but less flexibility.
See Microsoft’s document on Migrate Azure Cloud Services (classic) to Azure Cloud Services (extended support) for more information.
- Being Aware Azure Guest OS Retirement Policy
Note that this relates only to the Azure Guest operating system for Cloud Services worker and to web roles. It does not apply to Virtual Machines, which are part of an IaaS infrastructure.
Once the announcement of retirement has been made and the date reached, customers have one (1) year before the Azure Guest is removed from service. New deployments and redeployments of Azure Guests will not be allowed.
See Microsoft’s document on Azure Guest OS supportability and retirement policy for more information.
Year 2 of the Extended Security Updates for SQL Server 2012
SQL Server 2012 was originally released on May 20, 2012.
Year 2 of the Extended Security Updates (ESU) for this product will end on July 9, 2024. You must purchase Year 3 of SQL Server 2012 ESUs which have an end date of July 8, 2025. After that, no more security fixes will be available for SQL Server 2012 (unless Microsoft changes its mind, but don’t bet on it).
Perhaps this is not an issue for your organization. Indeed, some Clients are running SQL Server 2012 – and even earlier versions – for legacy applications that a) are being decommissioned; and/or, b) are not connected to the Internet.
Enterprise, Datacenter, Standard, Web, and Workgroup editions of SQL Server 2012 (11.x) are eligible for ESUs for both x86 and x64 versions with the latest Service Pack. For previous versions, your organization will either have to upgrade to a supported version or upgrade to 11.x of SQL Server 2012.
You must have active Software Assurance on the on-premises instances that you want to cover. The exposure is contingent on the licensing program and when you sign up. Contact Miro for additional details.
If the deployments are in Azure there no additional charge (above the cost of running the Azure service) And Software Assurance is not a requirement.
SQL Server 2012 ESU are not available via Unified Support.
The graphic that appears below illustrates the more common Microsoft products that will reach end-of-life (EOL) in or by September 2024.
| Product | Release | Start Date | Mainstream End Date | Extended End Date |
| Azure Cloud Services (classic) | 10/27/2008 | |||
| Dynamics 365 Business Central on-premises (Modern Policy) | 2022 wave 2, version 21.x | 10/1/2019 | ||
| Machine Learning Studio (classic) | 5/18/2015 | |||
| Microsoft .NET and .NET Core | .NET 7 | 6/27/2016 | ||
| Microsoft Configuration Manager | Versions 2207 & 2211 | 12/8/2015 | ||
| Microsoft SQL Server 2012 | Extended Security Update Year 2 | 5/20/2012 | 7/11/2017 | 7/12/2022 |
| SQL Server 2014 | Service Pack 3 | 6/5/2014 | 7/9/2019 | 7/9/2024 |
| Visual Studio 2022 | Version 17.4 (LTSC channel) | 11/8/2021 | 1/12/2027 | 1/13/2032 |
| Visual Studio for Mac | Visual Studio 2022 for Mac | 5/10/2017 | ||
| Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2013 | Update 5 | 1/15/2014 | 4/9/2019 | 4/9/2024 |
The red font in the graphic above illustrates past dates for Mainstream or Extended Support. Also, where the Mainstream End Data or Extended End Date is blank indicates that this product is on the Modern Support Policy. This means that Customers must stay current as per the servicing and system requirements published for the product or service.
Not all versions or releases expire. For more details, see Lifecycle data export – Microsoft Lifecycle | Microsoft Docs.
Contact Miro, your trusted software licensing advisor, for more information.