As you may know, Microsoft's ERP product line "Dynamics" has been rebranded as "Dynamics 365" and continues to receive functional updates through regular version releases. Meanwhile, older Dynamics products such as "Dynamics AX" and "Dynamics NAV" are reaching their End of Support Lifecycle (EOSL) from Microsoft, and many user companies are facing the need to replace their ERP systems.
In this column, based on our company's extensive experience in executing numerous Dynamics product version upgrades, we will introduce key considerations from both the user company's perspective and our perspective as an implementation support vendor.
First, as of 2024, only the following four versions of older Dynamics products have not reached EOSL:
| Product Name | Extended Support End Date |
| Dynamics NAV 2015 | Jan 14, 2025 |
| Dynamics NAV 2016 | Apr 14, 2026 |
| Dynamics NAV 2017 | Jan 11, 2027 |
| Dynamics NAV 2018 | Jan 11, 2028 |
Note: All versions of Dynamics AX have already reached EOSL
While most Dynamics products have already reached EOSL, many companies continue to use these unsupported versions for various reasons. We frequently receive consultations about "late version upgrades" from such companies.
So, what are the risks of continuing to use products that are no longer supported? Here are some key points:
The primary concern is security risk. After EOSL, Microsoft no longer provides security update patches. If serious security vulnerabilities are discovered in the product, there will be no way to address them.
This increases the threat of security attacks and the risk of system unavailability at unexpected times.
Each version of Dynamics is basically designed to be compatible with server OS (Windows Server) and database (SQL Server) versions available in the market during its support period.
If a Dynamics server purchased more than 10 years ago physically crashes and becomes unrecoverable, newly purchased servers may not be compatible with the old OS and database. This means that even if you have backup data, you may not be able to build a server environment to restore it.
Additionally, if the security risks mentioned above materialize, there may be no way to recover the system.
Dynamics products undergo changes in functionality and system architecture with each new version. When upgrading from an old version to a new version of the same product, the version gap significantly impacts implementation costs.
If the version difference is only one version, automatic conversion tools can handle much of the data and source code conversion. However, when upgrading from an unsupported version to the latest version, there may be too many errors in automatic source code conversion, requiring all source code to be rewritten manually, which greatly increases development workload.
As a result, some companies struggle with budget allocation as costs increase significantly due to postponing version upgrades for many years.
The risks of continuing to use unsupported product versions, as described above, can be summarized as "business continuity risks."
While it may be difficult to strongly recognize this during normal daily operations, ERP is a core business system. Having a situation where recovery might be impossible if it crashes, while the costs for version upgrades continue to increase, is more serious than it might appear.
In the next article, we will introduce the benefits and key points to consider when upgrading Dynamics products to the successor product, Dynamics 365.
10-09-2024
