Your options explained.

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Guide to Windows Server 2003:

Your options explained.

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How will end of support impact me?

71% of companies see rising demand for

IT projects in 2013 -

Information Week

70% of CIOs will embrace a ‘cloud first’

strategy in 2016 -

IDC

45% of total IT services will be spent on

cloud services by 2020 -

Forrester

No updates

37 critical updates were released in 2013 for Windows Server 2003/R2 under Extended Support. No updates will be developed or released after end of support.

No safe Haven

Both virtualised and physical instances of Windows

Server 2003 are vulnerable and would not pass a compliance audit. Many applications (including those from Microsoft) will also cease to be supported once the operating system they are running on is unsupported. Running the latest SQL on Windows Server 2003/R2? It won’t be supported. No compliance

Lack of compliance with various standards and regulations can be problematic. This may include non-compliance with key standards, or having to pay high penalties and

transaction fees. For example, if your customer is required to be PCI compliant and continues to run an out-of-support platform, Visa and MasterCard can withdraw their services. Most organisations also have obligations relating to data privacy and protection.

No savings

A Support Agreement may have a high minimum entry cost, while customers also face added costs for intrusion detection systems, more advanced firewalls, network segmentation, and other security measures – all simply to isolate Windows Server 2003 servers. As a reseller offering support services, there may be a financial advantage to supporting non-critical legacy applications on legacy servers. This should be balanced with a high level of protection and a comprehensive disaster recovery plan.

Reduce costs and get the most out of your IT investment

Run more applications on a single server, helping save on hardware costs and power bills, with built-in virtualisation from Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012 R2. Further reduce capital expenses by leveraging infrastructure cloud services such as Azure, instead of purchasing new hardware, wherever it makes sense for your business.

Know you’re open for business even if disaster strikes 40 percent of businesses never reopen after disaster strikes. Get effective data backup, cut data loss and recover quickly without significant capital investment in hardware and backup media through Windows Server 2012 R2 and Microsoft Azure’s automated backup solution. Azure is Microsoft’s public Cloud, a global network of Microsoft-managed datacentres, connected and integrated with your existing IT environment.

Get easy and cost-effective data storage You work with all kinds of files and data today, from presentations, to spreadsheets, to photos and videos. Consolidate and maximise use of existing storage infrastructure, and control storage costs resulting from expanding data requirements. Virtualise your storage and deliver reliable and scalable SAN-like storage solutions at a fraction of the cost using Storage Spaces technologies built-into Windows Server 2012 R2. Forrester Research1_{studied the effects of upgrading to}

Windows Server 2012 R2 from Windows Server 2008 on a range of organisations, and calculated a return on investment of 270%. Its analysis reveals that server management costs can be expected to decline by 35% and payback achieved within six months2_.

1 The Total Economic Impact of Windows Server 2012 R2: A Forrester Total Economic Impact™ Study Commissioned By Microsoft

Introduction

Globally, when the end of support for Windows Server 2003 was confirmed, there were around 9.1 million instances of Windows Server 2003 and Small Business Server 2003 still in operation. Despite the average corporate install taking 300 days and the average SMB install taking 100 days, 60% of end user customers do not have an upgrade plan in place. In the UK that amounts to 30,000 physical servers that are at risk. Despite launching in the same year as the launch of Adobe Creative Suite and MySpace, and predating the launch of the original iPhone and the mobile working revolution by some 4 years, refreshing an IT software and hardware infrastructure is low down on priorities for most IT Directors. While there are suggestions that the IT Directors are too busy listening to Busted (who had their big break in 2003, while Justin Bieber was 9 years old), there are valid reasons to invest in an infrastructure change which will yield genuine business benefits.

Removing your dependence on Windows Server 2003 ahead of the formal end of support on July 14th, 2015 will ultimately lead to a more efficient business, and a migration which happens on your own terms, not determined by a hardware failure or lack of planning which can leave you exposed.

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4 Option 1: Do nothing

Firstly, doing nothing at all should NOT be an option. Even if your current servers are not connected to the internet or externally available, and even if data is already backed up, there is a risk involved, and vulnerabilities will be exposed over time.

• The workloads and applications running on Windows Server 2003 now will become more expensive to manage and maintain

• Security patches and hot-fixes will no longer be available, leaving servers and applications vulnerable to security threats and downtime

• Outdated software will create compliance risks

• You’ll lose the opportunity to take immediate advantage of new IT infrastructure and applications developments, management tools, and cloud options

Doing nothing is also going to be a more expensive option. Fees for a custom support agreement after Windows Server 2003 EoS would typically range from $200,000 (around £150,000) in the first year and can compound, doubling or tripling annually1_.

Inertia will also impact your productivity – and therefore your competitiveness and growth prospects. SMBs who employ technology achieve approximately 11 points higher in revenue growth than SMBs who use less

technology2_{. About 72 percent of 500 small businesses surveyed}

believe new technologies will offer a bigger return on their investments than new employees3_{, so upgrading will be a better}

way to use investment and gain long-term returns than simply increasing your headcount.

Delaying your upgrade or doing nothing is simply putting off the inevitable. OK, you defer the cost and the hassle for a while, but sooner or later, something will go wrong and it could be expensive and difficult to recover. You’ll then be forced into rushing through an unplanned migration. Mistakes are more likely to be made.

On the other hand, stepping up to Windows Server 2012 R2 now will mean you can plan, minimise disruption and get it right. You can align the migration with your goals. It’s an ideal opportunity to reconfigure your data centre infrastructure, to expand virtualisation and automation, modernise applications and/or set up a private or hybrid cloud environment. Windows Server 2003 signals the end of traditional Client/Server networking and the official move to Cloud network principles and virtualisation capability

When the project is complete, you’ll be ready to work with the latest solutions and services. You’ll reduce management overheads and costs, so you can focus on your real business and priorities, and you’ll have a platform on which you to build a new IT infrastructure to meet your current and future needs.

1 AppZero State of Readiness for Windows Server 2003 End of Support Survey, 2013

2 Huffington Post, For Small Business, Technology is Creating, Not Costing, Jobs, April 16, 2014 3 PRNewsWire, Fifth Annual Brother Small Business Survey, March 19, 2014

Upgrade options

Full cloud:

• Windows Azure virtual machines + reseller services to do the migration: • Pre migration • Migration

• Post migration support • + Office 365 & device

refresh.

Hybrid:

• 64bit server (file & print & DC server)

• + Office 365 • + Azure backup • Services opportunity:

• Server change

• Pre & post for Office 365.

On Premise:

• Multiple replacement servers • Virtualisation • On prem office, SQL, Exchange etc... • Services opportunity:

• Pre & post.

No Hardware/Software

Upgrade

(mission critical server apps already migrated): • 3rd Party Software

Opportunities on security/ storage & Mobility

• Bridging the gap to eventual hardware/refresh/migration opportunity

• Services opportunity.

WS2003 + 32bit Server

The core benefits of Windows Server 2012 R2

Windows Server 2012 R2 is designed for modern data centre and applications. It provides vastly improved performance and support for conventional on premise servers and applications, and it is designed to support virtualised infrastructures and hosted services too.

This means you can use any combination of on premise and private or public cloud services and scale your systems as you need to. In terms of efficiency and management capability, Windows Server 2012 R2 offers tremendous advantages over previous versions, so as well as enabling you to embrace new solutions and services, it will also help you reduce your costs.

• Enterprise-class – a proven and scalable enterprise-class platform for the data centre and virtualisation • Application focused – helps you build, deploy and scale applications and websites quickly, easily, and flexibly. • Provides stable supports for mission-critical applications and enhanced support for open standards.

• User-centric – empowers end users by giving them secure access to all resources on any devices from any location. • Deploy Microsoft SQL Server 2014 – for an 80 percent performance increase over past generations and 30x faster

transaction processing, resulting in 45 percent lower TCO.

• Run the latest Microsoft Exchange – boost performance and productivity, improve data protection and restore times, and make significant savings on storage requirements.

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Option 2: On-premise upgrades

Option 3: Hybrid IT

A hybrid infrastructure is nothing new, and with the growth in cloud-based services over the past few years it has now become the standard, allowing customers to retain on-premise control while taking advantage of the benefits of cloud technology. Moving to a hybrid infrastructure takes careful planning but it can be managed very smoothly as long as you plan ahead. If you are only taking one or two applications into the cloud, it will be fairly straightforward.

You’ll need to select hosting providers to deliver the cloud-based applications, services, storage and infrastructure that you require. Some software vendors offer their own SaaS options and many applications are also available on Microsoft Azure as well, so this is an option worth serious consideration. Custom applications may need to be specially migrated via the Microsoft ISV Upgrade Campaign programme or run from an on premise private cloud or hosted server. There may be other important aspects to consider as well. If you have any concerns over data governance for example, you may need to work with a location-specific provider.

Taking a structured approach will really make the process much easier. Here is an example of what your project might look like:

With subscription-based models you remove the large capital outlay of new hardware. The hybrid model provides predictable monthly costs and allows you to scale up (or down) the requirements as business needs dictate.

With a CAPEX investment you face going through an expensive process not just now, but again in 5-8 years – with IT as a service and the OPEX model this is eradicated.

On premise platform options

HP Converged Infrastructure

HP Converged Infrastructure solutions provide lower costs, simplified

management and increased performance and capacity for Microsoft virtualisation and private cloud deployments.

• The latest generation of HP Gen8 and Gen9 ProLiant servers. Running Windows Server 2012 R2, deliver 70% more compute capacity per watt, with embedded management that improves server deployment and update times by 3X.

• HP Converged Storage simplifies the management of Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V deployment so customers can spend up to 90% less time managing storage and reduce capacity requirements by 50%. HP 3PAR storage, which doubles Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V VM density relative to traditional storage platforms, and HP StoreOnce technology that delivers 3X faster backup and 5X faster restore times than competitive EMC solutions are both options. • HP FlexNetwork architecture dramatically increases performance and lowers latency,

delivering up to 80% faster VM performance than standard networking architectures.

Legacy servers running Windows Server 2003, and in particular multiple installations, offer a significant opportunity to consolidate a server estate. Opting to upgrade like-for-like is expensive, and 64-bit current hardware will outperform a group of aged servers under any benchmark, while providing a solid infrastructure for upcoming technologies.

Windows Server 2012 R2 requires more powerful hardware, refreshing your existing server environment will be essential if you plan to keep all applications and services on-premise. You may be concerned with the immediate financial impact of

migrating. But when you look at the numbers, this is a move that with a quick payback and long term benefits.

For example, HP has calculated that migrating from HP ProLiant G6 with Windows Server 2003 to HP ProLiant Gen8 servers with Windows Server 2012 R213 will produce the following savings over three-years.

• Overall TCO savings of 43 percent • Power and cooling savings of 92 percent • Admin labour cost savings of 96 percent HP estimates that such an investment would achieve a nine month payback. Windows Server 2012 R2 provides more

virtualisation options, so this is something you will want to consider. HP ProLiant Gen9 Servers running Windows Server 2012 R2 and Microsoft Hyper-V, for example, will deliver 70% more compute capacity per watt and deploy servers and updates three times faster.

There are other vendor options for virtualisation of course, as well as Microsoft Hyper V, you could choose VMware ESX, Citrix XEN and Scale Computing KVM. You will also need to select one of the four editions of Windows Server 2012 R2 that are available.

HP SMB Flex-Bundles for Microsoft HP SMB Flex-Bundles for Microsoft workloads are complete, prebuilt solutions. They are available with Microsoft Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V, Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 and Microsoft Lync. Fair market value

Cisco Nexus

Automate communication between network and server administrators using Cisco Nexus 1000V integration with System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2012 SP1 and the Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch.

The improved apps

performance you

can expect

For Microsoft SQL Server 2014

• 80% performance increase over past generations

• 30X faster transaction processing • 45% lower total cost of ownership

For Microsoft Exchange

• Save on storage with 6.6X more mailboxes

• Boost productivity with 2.7X faster performance

• Protect your data with 2X faster restore time

Cisco UCS

As a single converged system, Cisco UCS configures and manages your infrastructure using a unified management framework to ease administration and simplify deployment of applications and

Cisco & Microsoft options

Cisco and Microsoft have teamed up to provide a combination of their solutions that offer the best of both on premise and cloud-based services. These solutions comprise of the following components:

• A highly manageable Cisco computing and networking platform – the Cisco Unified Computing System™ (Cisco UCS®₎

and Cisco Nexus®_{provide the optimal infrastructure for deploying and managing a Microsoft private or hybrid cloud.}

• Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2 offer unified management across your data centers, service provider data centers, and Windows Azure from one consistent platform.

• Fast Track – a Cisco-validated design and Microsoft Fast Track certified solution that speeds your transition to the cloud. These solutions are built upon validated designs by both Cisco and Microsoft and consist of either FlexPod with Cisco and NetApp or VSPEX with Cisco and EMC.

For additional information, we can provide you with a copy of our migration technical playbook, which outlines in detail the steps that need to be taken when considering a full migration. Once you have drawn up a plan, you can set priorities and execute the migration methodically.

What does the Migration process look like

Align

Align the migration with your long term business vision

1 Discover

Catalogue hardware, software, processes, workloads and skills

2 3 Assess

Catagorise hardware, software, processes, workloads and skills

Target

Identify your destination(s)

4 Migrate

Make the move

5 6 Train &

Educate

Set aside budget and time to train new users

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8 Option 4: Full Cloud

While many businesses opt for a Hybrid IT environment, it is now feasible to run an entire IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service) and SaaS (Software as a Service).

IaaS involves purchasing or renting infrastructure from providers as virtual resource. Offerings from many resellers or third parties such as Rackspace provide a solid, scalable and flexible platform for the cloud business.

Microsoft Azure can provide virtual machines, SQL Databases, websites & Active Directory and provides a platform on which you can create and deploy custom apps, databases and line-of-business services, and is available for a free one-month trial here: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/free-trial/

Office 365 and the Power BI analytics tools are also available as a free trial here: http://bit.ly/1vlUNUU OneDrive for Business, included with Office 365, provides 1TB per user space for storage and collaboration.

The Microsoft datacenter transformation vision, enabled by the Microsoft product set, gives your organisation the opportunity to have a datacenter without boundaries. This means your organisation can go beyond the resources available on-premises by more easily accessing cloud resources when it makes the most sense. Take advantage of a datacenter without boundaries to: • Build new applications or websites that require global scale in a snap

• Scale infrastructure at a moment’s notice to meet the most demanding business requirements • Reduce storage, backup, and recovery costs

Adopting transformational technologies

Storage. By placing storage needs in tiers, your organisation can take advantage of a combination of enterprise on-premises and public cloud storage to create a hybrid cloud storage solution.

Compute and network virtualisation. Microsoft Hyper-V enables movement to and from environments while maintaining a centralised management interface.

Identity. Microsoft technology maintains a single identity across multiple clouds to continuous services and connected devices for simple and fast access to resources and data.

By adopting the Microsoft vision for Cloud OS, not only can your organisation continue to meet existing compliance standards and regulations, but it will gain the advantages of a datacenter without boundaries – consisting of Windows Server 2012 R2, Microsoft Azure, and Office 365 – that enables innovation and supports the growing demands of today’s businesses.

Architecting a datacenter that supports infrastructure and application innovation will have a direct and positive impact on your organisation’s business productivity, employee efficiencies, and customer retention.

The Microsoft vision provides IT professionals with a consistent experience that spans datacenter and cloud deployments, enabling them to take advantage of their existing skills in a hybrid environment and use the same virtual machine format as Windows Server 2012 R2 within the Microsoft Azure IaaS offering.

Once customers see what’s possible with cloud capabilities, they will want to take advantage of cloud innovation everywhere. Microsoft Global Foundation Services supports more than one million businesses running on Microsoft Cloud Services in 76 markets worldwide. Ultimately, the insights Microsoft gains from this experience end up in Microsoft products, both in the datacenter with Windows Server and in the cloud with Microsoft Azure.

Microsoft world-class infrastructure, which includes dynamic application delivery, enables IT professionals to respond to business needs with greater speed and agility. Enhanced automation enables them to provision, deploy, monitor, and manage applications and infrastructure from a consistent platform within their hybrid environment.

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Windows Server

2012 R2 Datacentre Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials Windows Server 2012 R2 Foundation

Processor-based and CAL Processor-based and CAL Per Server Per Server

Licensing Model

License the physical server with Datacentre edition for unlimited virtualisation

1 processor based licence allows the running of 2 virtual machines and licences can be stacked to gain rights to run extra virtual machines

Host virtualisation rights and rights to run in a single or virtual OSE

No host virtualisation rights and can only be run in the physical OSE

Virtualisation Rights • Same functionality as Standard edition • Same functionality as Datacentre edition • A step-up licence to Datacentre is available for customers with Software Assurance on Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard

• Only runs on servers with up to 2 processors • Restricted to 25 user

accounts and 50 devices

• Available through the OEM channel only • Runs on single

processor servers only • Restricted to 15 user

accounts

Notes

Options for medium and large organisations

Options for small organisations

Server licence options

If you are choosing to upgrade an on-premise server, or a partial upgrade with a move to hybrid, you will need to choose a licence type and agreement type. If you have an existing agreement you may wish to extend or upgrade the agreement, while for smaller businesses OEM may be the best option. A lot of information is available online, or pick up the phone and speak to an expert. The Foundation edition of Windows Server 2012 is suitable for physical installation on a single processor server, and only available through the OEM program for installation on a new server. Essentials can be installed on a physical or virtual server with up to 2 processors, but can only have 25 user accounts – this is available through the Open License and Open Value and Subscription License offerings. Standard and Datacentre are the full-featured versions, available through all the Microsoft Licensing Programs. A summary is included below, but as always, look for expert advice if you have any doubts about the best route for your business.

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Target your destination

You must choose a migration destination for each application and workload. There are four destinations for migration:

• Windows Server 2012 R2 • Microsoft Azure

• Cloud OS Network • Office 365.

Different workloads and applications will logically lead to certain targets. Others could offer the possibility of migration to one or more of these destinations. The choice will be driven by factors such as speed and ease of migration, cost, and desired functionality in the migrated solution.

Migration Process

The first step is to discover and catalogue all of the software and workloads that are running on Windows Server 2003/R2. Do you have a good grasp on exactly what is still running on Windows Server 2003/R2? A thorough discovery process is essential because you cannot address the problem if you do not know what the problem is. There are several self-service tools that can help with the discovery process. For example, the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit, a free downloadable tool from Microsoft, provides you with a secure, agentless, and network-wide inventory that scales from small businesses to large enterprises. You can use the MAP Toolkit to collect and organize system-wide information from a single,

networked computer. Microsoft Services offers JumpStart for Windows Server 2003, which includes discovery.

Assess your inventory

Once you have a catalog, you will need to assess what is in that catalog. This means categorising your applications and workloads in several ways and doing a thorough analysis of what is there.

We suggest you consider categorising your applications and workloads in four ways:

• By type: Microsoft Server Roles, Microsoft Applications, Custom Applications, and Third-party Applications • By criticality: Can Be Retired, Marginal, Important, and Mission Critical

• By complexity: Low, Medium, and High • By risk: Low, Medium, and High.

With this categorisation complete, you can begin to understand the scope of the problem and can prioritise your workloads and applications. The categorisation will also reveal some potential opportunities, as well as potential issues.

The criticality category, for example, might raise concerns about what to migrate when and in what order. The complexity and cost categories will indicate which migrations might be the easiest and quickest to accomplish. A cross-category analysis provides even more insight. For example, an important application with low complexity and only medium risk might be a good

candidate for early migration.

Migrate

There is no method for directly upgrading operating systems from a 32 bit platform (Server 2003) to a 64 bit platform (Server 2008/2012), though the move from 32-bit physical environments to 64 bit virtual environments is not particularly difficult and there are inexpensive tools that can assist or automate this process (including the ‘Physical to Virtual wizard’ in System Center 2012.) For a detailed technical overview of the migration process, we recommend you obtain a copy of our technical migration playbook. The largest risk is in downtime or data loss either during or as a result of migration and for that reason a side by side migration is recommended. Third party vendors such as Veeam can assist here – the Veeam Availability Suite can assist you in the form of data protection through backup, and the reduction of downtime through testing in virtual lab environments as you plan and implement migrations.

Several vendors offer do-it-yourself tools to assist in the decision-making process and in the migration itself, including Dell ChangeBASE, Citrix AppDNA, AppZero, Bluestripe, and Microsoft Services JumpStart for Windows Server 2003.

Windows Server

2012 R2 Microsoft Azure Cloud OS Network

Evaluate options for each

application and workload

By type Microsoft

server roles Microsoft applications Custom applications Third-party applications By criticality

By complexity and risk

Low Medium High

Can be retired X Marginal + Important ! Mission Critical 3

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12 Key differences between Windows Server 2003

and Windows Server 2012:

Scale and performance

• Windows Server 2003 R2

– Scales to 64 logical processors and 1 terabyte of memory (x64 versions).

– Scales to 320 logical processors and 4 terabytes of physical memory (x64 versions) – Scales to 64 logical processors and 1 terabyte of memory on a virtual machine.

Hyper-V Network Virtualisation

– Not available

– Enables isolation of network traffic on a shared infrastructure, with reduced need for virtual local area networks (VLANs) – Enables moving of virtual machines as needed within virtual infrastructure, while preserving virtual network assignments.

Low-cost, highly available file-based storage

– Not available

– Offers new SMB 3.0 protocol enhancements and low-cost, “commodity” hardware with new File Services for storing server application data such as SQL databases and VHDs for Hyper-V on file shares

– Enables leveraging of commodity storage into virtual storage pools, which can then be provisioned as Storage Spaces

– Provides virtualised drives that can be formatted and accessed just like a physical drive, which can also be dynamically resized with the addition of more physical drives to the storage pool

– Includes storage tiers, write-back cache, parity space support for failover clusters, dual parity, and the ability to automatically rebuild storage spaces from storage pool free space.

Backup and recovery

– The backup utility (Backup) in Windows Server 2003 helps back up directories, selected files, and system state data, including Windows Server 2003 operating system registry information (very simple utility).

– Provides a set of wizards and other tools to perform basic backup and recovery tasks for the server it is installed on – Windows Server Backup role in Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 has the following enhanced features:

- Ability to back up and restore individual virtual machines from a Hyper-V host server - Improvements to managing backup versions and backup retention

- Ability to back up volumes greater than 2 terabytes and with 4-KB sector sizes - Support for backup of Cluster Shared Volumes (CSVs)

- Ability to report system state components

– Hyper-V supports incremental backup (backing up only the differences) of virtual hard disks while the virtual machine is running – Microsoft Azure Online Backup (cloud-based backup service) offers offsite protection against data loss from failure

with a cloud-based backup solution, which allows files and folders to be backed up and recovered from the cloud.

Hybrid applications

– Requires virtual private networks (VPNs) or other form of point-to-point connectivity for communication among geographically separated parts of an application.

– Protects existing investments in on-premises applications – Unifies application management

– Provides flexibility to build and deploy hybrid applications on-premises and in the cloud

– Provides a common development environment for .NET developers to build cloud (Azure) and on-premises applications.

Windows PowerShell 4.0

– Provides more than 100 cmdlets.

– Provides more than 3,000 cmdlets in over 100 modules and includes several significant features that enable easier and more comprehensive control and management of Windows-based environments

– Enables the deployment and management of configuration data for software services and the environment in which these services run through Desired State Configuration (DSC).

Simplified, feature-rich Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

– Not available

– Provides simplified wizard-based setup procedures for Remote Desktop Services deployment

– Includes a unified management console for virtual desktops, session-based desktops, and applications

– Simplifies the creation, assignment, and patch management of pooled and personal virtual desktops and provides a richer experience on different devices, in various locations, and over changing network conditions

– Provides online storage deduplication and session shadowing.

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How can Tech Data help?

Tech Data’s Microsoft team

Tech Data’s specialist Microsoft team has worked closely with Microsoft and key vendor partners to ensure that all the information, resources and skills are in place to support Microsoft reseller partners as they help customers migrate to Windows Server 2012 R2 and the latest applications and hardware platforms.

That means you can be sure that all the support and capabilities needed to make your transition

successful will be readily available.

We have specialists in different areas, such as Microsoft licensing and Office 365, and some of the most experienced and knowledgeable Microsoft Solutions Architects in the world. Every one of our team is full trained and up-to-speed on Microsoft’s latest developments and channel initiatives. We have a really close working relationship with Microsoft and communicate at all levels with their teams, all the time.

All of our team are ready to help you understand how to get the very best from Microsoft products and programmes.

Making the transition easy

Most of our vendor partners have already set out extensive programmes to support their reseller partners and customers to ensure the transition can goes smoothly for everyone. HP and Microsoft, for example have created a programme to help customers smoothly transition from Windows Server 2003 to newer versions – cost-effectively, quickly and with confidence.

It includes planning workshops, migration services, management, converged infrastructure and converged

Meet the Microsoft team

Dwayne Earl

Business Unit Manager

Dwayne has overall responsibility for all Microsoft business at Tech Data. He works with the management team to ensure the needs of Microsoft partners are being met.

Email: [email protected]

Codie Gill

Senior Office 365 Specialist

Codie is the Office 365 guru. Her role is to educate and support partners on everything Office 365 – from webinars to on-site training and workshops. Codie is a Microsoft Small Business Sales Specialist and also holds an MLSS accreditation. Email: [email protected]

Sean Taylor

Microsoft Solutions Architect

Sean is recognised as one of the foremost Microsoft Solutions Architects in the world. He provides technical leadership and works closely with Microsoft partners to provide an in-depth insight into Microsoft solutions and technologies.

Samantha Day

Microsoft Licensing Solution Specialist

On joining the team last year, Samantha quickly gained MLSS accreditation and is expecting to attain her MLSE certificate imminently.

Emily West

Office 365 Specialist

Emily joined Tech Data earlier this year after travelling around south-east Asia for a few months. She specialises in Office 365 and assists the sales teams on pre-sales queries and training. She holds both MLSS and Small Business Sales Specialist accreditations.

Maryna Reshetnyak

Office 365 Specialist

Maryna provides resellers with pre-sales advice and information. She holds a Microsoft Licensing Solution Specialist accreditation. Email: [email protected]

Tech Data can help you understand the migration options and support you through the migration of your customers. Our licencing team and Solution Architects can assist to the level you need, providing support at all stages of the migration process. We have a full array of specialists across our business who can help, and professional services capability to deliver invisible support when you need it most.

In addition to the extensive Microsoft team (details on following page), depending on your specific requirements, our specialist teams are here to help:

Enterprise Software 0845 356 3030 [email protected]

System X 0845 356 3033 [email protected]

Cisco 01256 864 374 [email protected]

HP 01256 864359 [email protected]

Component Storage 01256 864220 [email protected]

Consultancy and Services Call your Account Manager [email protected]

Earning recognition from Microsoft

Last year, Tech Data was named winner of the 2014 Microsoft Distribution Partner Award. This was in recognition of the work we did in promoting and supporting innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology. This was a reflection of the close working partnership we have with Microsoft. For reseller partners it is further confirmation that Tech Data is the best distribution partner to work with on Microsoft solutions.

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