Are You Ready for SharePoint 2013's End of Life Deadline?
As the April 11th, 2023 deadline fast approaches we take a look at the business risks associated with using SharePoint Online 2013 after the end of the extended support date.
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From document management to business analytics, SharePoint has become synonymous with business collaboration. A business-critical solution, Microsoft has continued to invest in and further expand the capabilities of this leading platform, with multiple versions launched over the years to better meet the needs of today's modern businesses. As with the SharePoint solutions that came before it SharePoint 2013 is reaching the end of life, with an extended end-of-life deadline of April 11th, 2023.
For those businesses yet to take action, now is the time to make the switch, to ensure seamless migration prior to the April 11th deadline. Why the urgency? Here are just some of the risks of running critical business processes on an unsupported SharePoint 2013:
Increased Vulnerability to Cyber Threats:
To ensure the integrity of its products, Microsoft periodically releases updates and security patches with these updates and patches based on current vulnerabilities that are identified. However post the support deadline, SharePoint 2013 will no longer receive such security patches making the version unstable and prone to security breaches.
Rising Cost of Ownership:
Similar to the lack of security patches, a lack of support will have a significant impact on the cost of ownership for any SharePoint 2013 installations. In the absence of regular updates and direct support, organisations still using SharePoint 2013 will find themselves heavily reliant on third-party vendors and a dwindling pool of IT professionals skilled with the knowledge required to support the system going forward. This reliance on third-party vendors and a diminishing skills pool will drive up the cost of ownership.
Compatibility Issues Going Forward:
As with any legacy technology, once SharePoint 2013 reaches end-of-life support, adding new features will prove challenging. Compatibility issues, limitations around data integration and extensibility could slow business growth as manual workarounds or complex customisations are required to keep pace with evolving business needs.
Business Disruption:
With the challenges mentioned above, one of the most critical factors to consider when evaluating the need to migrate from SharePoint 2013 is business continuity. Where critical business processes and users are heavily reliant on SharePoint, delays due to added complexity and the heightened security threat can result in unavoidable downtime, affecting business operations and business profitability.
When deciding on your migration strategy, consider legacy migration barriers and differences in feature sets and functionality. While migration to SharePoint 2019 will provide a temporary reprieve from the aforementioned challenges, it is important to consider what happens when SharePoint 2019 reaches the extended end-of-life support on July 14th, 2026. For this reason, we encourage business users to bite the bullet and complete their cloud migration with SharePoint Online, an evergreen technology that benefits from regular data backups and security patches. Alternatively, consider SharePoint Server Subscription Edition if you would like to continue to store your data on-premise.
To find out more about SharePoint Migration and why now is the time to consider making the move to the cloud, download the SharePoint Migration ebook.
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