365 digital consulting logo

SharePoint 2010 End of Life: Everything You’d Better Know!

Office 365/ SharePoint support
Table of Contents

Over the years, SharePoint 2010 has become one of the most successful versions of the platform with businesses continuing to use it despite new launches by Microsoft. It introduced a large number of features that boosted information sharing and collaboration at the enterprise-level. 

Microsoft stopped the mainstream support for SharePoint 2010 in 2015 and the final date for extended support was April 13, 2021; That’s it! The date for SharePoint 2010 end of life! After then, no more updates and no more security patches will be available. Many organizations are still using SharePoint 2010 as the platform for their intranet, sharing knowledge, collaborating, and other critical business functions. Companies that rely on SharePoint 2010 after it goes off support are at severe risk for interruption of those critical business functions and security breaches. 

Reasons for Migrating from SharePoint 2010 

The Microsoft product line has developed considerably since the time SharePoint 2010 was released. The newer releases have added small capabilities to the platform making SharePoint 2010 significantly less capable than its successors. The availability of cloud technology with the introduction of SharePoint Online has accelerated the approaching departure of legacy systems like SharePoint 2010.

Here are some of the disadvantages of SharePoint 2010 regarding contemporary systems. 

  • Lower computational power. 
  • Incompatible hardware for emerging software applications. 
  • Inflexibility in making meaningful modifications resulting in instability. 
  • Greater resource consumption  
  • Higher maintenance costs due to the aging systems compounded by the lack of support. 

 

Even though Microsoft launched SharePoint 2013, 2016, and 2019 since the launch of SharePoint 2010, the server continues to be in use with a considerable number of business users. But this halt in supporting features and lack of updates would be a very strong reason to migrate from SP 2020 to SharePoint Online.

Risks of running SharePoint 2010 after its end of life 

Security risks

 

When Microsoft releases a new version ,the support cycle changes. Before knowing about the Support Cycle which Microsoft provides, you should know why support is important for SharePoint. To manage SharePoint well, you need to have deep knowledge & understanding of SharePoint’s features & functionalities. In this process of gaining deep insights, you will be encountered with situations where you will need some support.

  • One common example is, when you update your site with patches or new updates and suddenly realize that some of the features have stopped working
  • Another scenario is where your data and transaction log has increased and the application performance has degraded

Before moving forward, let’s take a look at all the SharePoint Server releases so far:

  • SharePoint Portal Server 2001
  • SharePoint Team Services 2002
  • SharePoint Portal Server 2003
  • Office SharePoint Server 2007
  • SharePoint Server 2010
  • SharePoint Server 2013
  • SharePoint Server 2016

A lack of support can lead to wastage of both your time and effort. Therefore, adapting and migrating to new versions is always safe and helpful.

To avoid such scenarios, it is best to undertake a regular upgrade process. During the extended support period, Microsoft products receive no critical updates; only security updates are provided.  When the extended support period ends, no security updates will be developed or released for SharePoint Server 2010.  

In addition, the operating systems that support SharePoint Server 2010 are reaching or have reached their end of support as well. Your organization is responsible for managing the security issues with those operating systems.  

Compliance risks 

Both virtualized and physical instances of SharePoint Server 2010 are at risk and will not pass compliance audits.  

Compliance failures can subject your organization to excessive fines, reputation damage and other consequences. 

Financial risks 

To try to patch the security gaps, your organization might need to implement intrusion detection systems, more advanced firewalls, network segmentation and other security measures to isolate the legacy server operating systems and SharePoint Server 2010. 

What are SharePoint 2010 upgrade options? 

Organizations that are still using SharePoint 2010 have four options: 

Stay on SharePoint 2010 indefinitely -You will have to accept the risk that your organization has zero support if anything goes wrong. 

Migrate to SharePoint 2013 or 2016– Keep in mind that you will have be facing the same situation again in a few years. Microsoft has published the following EOL dates for these products: 

SharePoint 2013: April 11, 2023 

SharePoint 2016: July 14, 2026 

Migrate to SharePoint 2019-This is the best option if you must keep your content on-premises. 

Migrate to SharePoint Online-This is the best option if you can move your content online. 

How can you get the most out of your migration to SharePoint 2019 or SharePoint Online? 

Take the opportunity to archive legacy SharePoint 2010 content and clean up the remaining content prior to migration. Focus on migrating the content that has the highest value to the organization. 

You should remember that SharePoint 2019 and SharePoint Online are rich collaboration platforms!  You may take advantage of the many new features and capabilities to improve user productivity and enhance business processes. For example, review your current business workflows and consider revising them to take advantage of the new workflow options in SharePoint Online. And at any stage, do NOT hesitate to contact our developers for giving you free consulting regarding your SharePoint Migration!

Recent Posts

If you would like to know more or just have a chat, give us a call, we will be more than happy to help.