It’s time we sat down and had a chat, people.

SQL Server 2005.  You run it? Your company runs it?  It’s over 10 years old.  If this is on top of Windows 2003, that is already out of date.

Microsoft has published its timelines for software support lifecycles here.  SQL 2005’s end of life is April 12, 2016.

One of the important things as an IT professional, is to reduce risk in your environment.  Running 10 plus year old software should, in this day and age, be considered a risk.

Modern hardware, and modern applications do demand more from our software.  Also, the security vectors that hackers exploit have changed a lot over time.

Microsoft’s SQL Server team published a good blog with reasons for migration, and with links to various tools that can help you.

To help you get started around SQL 2005, Microsoft has published a few videos, specific to SQL 2005 and express, around how to upgrade.

To get educated around what SQL 2014 offers, follow this playlist.

Maybe you need a one page list of what has changed? This is a list of changes from 2012 to 2014, 2008r2 to 2014, 2008 to 2014, and 2005 to 2014.

Suffice it to say, there has been a lot of improvements.  Spin up some test machines, and run through upgrades before it is time to cut over.

Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn or Twitter to discuss this further!