This blog post was authored by Sue Hartford, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Windows Server.

Don’t let the name fool you. Azure Site Recovery (ASR) can be used as an Azure migration tool for 30 days at no charge. It has been used for years to support migration of our 64-bit versions of Windows Server, and we are pleased to announce it now supports migration of Windows Server 2008 32-bit applications to Azure Virtual Machines.

This is good news for organizations that wish to take advantage of the new 2008 End of Support option to get three additional years of Extended Security Updates for free in Azure. The 2008 and 2008 R2 versions of Windows Server will reach End of Support on January 14, 2020. But customers who migrate these versions to Azure Virtual Machines will continue to get free security updates until January 2023. This buys customers more time to upgrade or modernize, while starting to gain the benefits of cloud.

Did you know that if you have Software Assurance, you can use existing Windows Server licenses to save on Azure? In fact, if you are using the Datacenter edition of Windows Server on-premises, you can keep it running on-premises and save on Azure Virtual Machines at the same time. Find more details on our Azure Hybrid Benefit web page.

With the end of support for Windows Server 2008 in January 2020 fast approaching, now is a great time to begin modernizing your applications and infrastructure with the power of Azure. For more information about migration with Azure Site Recovery or other great tools from our partners, check out the Azure Migration Center.