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Microsoft has announced Extended Security Updates for Windows Server 2008 and 2012, and for SQL Server 2012 and made it free if you run them in its Azure cloud.

The current extended support offering for Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 ends on October 10, 2023. However, Monojit Bhattacharya, a product management leader for Azure and member of Microsofts Windows Server Team, has revealed that Redmond is offering Extended Security Updates for three years.

SQL Server 2012, for which extended support ends on July 12, 2022, has also been given an extra three years of security updates.

Microsofts made this an offer thats hard to resist by making it free if users move their workloads into Azure. They also must apply the Azure Hybrid Benefit a scheme that allows use of on-prem licences acquired under Software Assurance.

Azure Hybrid Benefit includes lower Azure prices than are available with other offers. Microsoft seldom tires of pointing out that the Benefit therefore makes Azure the cheapest place to run Windows Server and SQL Server in the cloud.

If you persist in running on-prem, Microsoft will ramp the price of the extended update offering. In year one itll cost three quarters of your licence costs, in year two the price will be at parity, and in year three Extended Security Updates will cost 125 per cent of the license cost.

Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server has also been given a little extra love, with one more year of updates offered but only in Azure.

SQL Server and Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 Extended Security Updates are currently scheduled to end on July 9, 2022, and January 14, 2023, respectively.

News of the Extended Security Updates was revealed at Microsofts partner centric Inspire virtual gabfest which, in addition to the announcement of cloudy Windows 365 desktops, saw Redmond reveal:

Inspire continues tomorrow.

Excerpt from:
Microsoft extends security updates for Windows and SQL Server 2012 and 2008 - The Register