SharePoint 2010 will reach end of life (EOL)
on October 13, 2020. As Microsoft prepares to sunset the collaboration platform,
users need to know what steps to take before extended support is no longer
available. If your organization is still using SharePoint 2010, keep reading to
learn everything you need to know before the shutdown.
The good and bad news about the SharePoint 2010 EOLIf you’re bracing for an apocalyptic end to
SharePoint 2010, don’t worry; the platform won’t stop working right at midnight
on October 13, 2020. The end of extended support means that Microsoft will no
longer issue security patches or bug fixes nor will they offer support for
operating systems.
Unfortunately, that means that a critical
vulnerability could be disastrous. Microsoft is warning SharePoint 2010 users
about increased costs to protect the legacy system, mitigate risks, avoid penalties
for non-compliance and maintain old software and hardware.
What
are the options?Microsoft is offering two solutions for
customers looking to avoid catastrophe: on-premise and the cloud.
On-prem
solutionOn the surface, migrating from SharePoint 2010
seems straightforward enough, with the solution being to migrate to a new
version of SharePoint, either 2016 or 2019. That said, it’s a multi-phased
upgrade that often poses more risks than rewards.
In order to upgrade to SharePoint 2016 or
2019, the organization would first have to upgrade to SharePoint 2013. Only
then could the organization upgrade to 2016, then 2019, if it wishes.
Each migration opens the organization up to
human error and data loss, not including extensive manual labor and end-user
training. If that doesn’t seem daunting enough, neither SharePoint 2016 nor
2019 can run on the same hardware that SharePoint 2010 uses. A new server is
required, and those servers already have EOL dates:
- SharePoint 2013: April 11, 2023
- SharePoint 2016: July 14, 2026
- SharePoint 2019: TBA
Organizations who are considering staying
on-prem need to understand that, as technology evolves, on-prem legacy systems
will decline and present more and more problems, including but not limited to:
- A lack of agility
- Incompatibility issues
- Greater instability
- Lower performance and higher
consumption of resources
- Big investment with hidden costs
Companies are moving to the cloud because it’s
more secure, agile, efficient and scalable. And on-prem systems are a dying
breed that come with exorbitant costs and aren’t as safe or user-friendly as
cloud-based options.
The
cloud solutionMicrosoft understands that legacy systems are
a dying technology, leading the company to recommend that customers migrate to
either cloud-based SharePoint Online or a hybrid of SharePoint servers and
SharePoint Online. Though Microsoft offers a content migration tool to assist
organizations with their transition to the cloud, it’s not perfect.
One reason is that SharePoint Online isn’t
cheap. There are high costs associated with the platform’s implementation,
licenses, optimization and maintenance. Second, SharePoint Online is more rigid
than SharePoint on-prem servers, so customization and third-party web parts
will be lost.
What about the hybrid system of a SharePoint
server and SharePoint Online? Though SharePoint is a market leader with a
massive user-base, the platform was created before the cloud existed.
Non-cloud-native systems can’t keep up with evolving modern technology and
enterprise content demands. Since migrating from SharePoint to SharePoint
Online won’t cost any less than transferring to another cloud-based
alternative, I recommend considering all the available options.
Bottom
lineMigrating from SharePoint 2010 is a complex
process that can be dread-inducing. No matter which direction an organization
is heading, cloud or on-prem, there are plenty of
content services platform choices available.
Sticking with a familiar solution, like SharePoint, might be easier, but
enterprise demands require 21st-century solutions. By not investing in a
digital transformation now, you could be limiting your organization’s growth.
Stéphane Donzé is the founder and CEO of AODocs