Upgrade Help :)
**TL;DR: Small business running SQL Server 2016 on EverRun (EOL July 13, 2026). Need to upgrade software ASAP. Planning a hardware upgrade later. Looking for advice on the best path forward.**
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Hey everyone, looking for some community input on our infrastructure upgrade path. We're a small wholesale fragrance distributor in Miami (~20 users).
**Current Setup:**
- HPE ProLiant ML350 G9 (purchased 2017, ~$62K total investment with EverRun)
- Stratus EverRun 7.9.3 (fault-tolerant virtualization)
- 2× Xeon E5-2650 v4 (24 cores total, but EverRun only presents 21 vCPUs)
- 44 GB RAM (running at 73% utilization)
- 6× 300GB HDD in RAID 5 + 1× 800GB SSD
- Windows Server 2016 Standard (Volume MAK)
- SQL Server 2016 Standard (Server+CAL)
- Applications: Macola/Synergy ERP, KnowledgeSync, SSRS, IIS
**The Problem:**
- SQL Server 2016 reaches end-of-life on July 13, 2026 (less than 2 months away)
- No more security patches after that date
- Compliance/insurance risk if we don't upgrade
- System has been experiencing service crashes every 2-3 weeks
- EverRun eats 12-15% of CPU overhead and costs $2,400/yr in support
**Our Plan (2 Phases):**
*Phase 1 (NOW — $8,919):*
- Buy Windows Server 2025 + SQL Server 2025 licenses with 20 CALs each
- Use Microsoft downgrade rights to install 2022 versions (EverRun 7.9.3 only supports up to Windows Server 2022)
- In-place upgrade on existing hardware
- Keep EverRun for redundancy
- This is within our approved $17K budget
*Phase 2 (LATER — TBD budget):*
- New HPE ML350 Gen12 servers (2-node Windows Failover Cluster)
- Drop EverRun entirely
- Upgrade to 2025 versions using same licenses (no additional cost)
- NVMe or SSD storage
- HPE iQuote is showing ~$134K for a full 2-node cluster with HPE-branded SSDs which seems very high
**My Questions for the Community:**
**In-place upgrade vs clean install?** For going from Windows Server 2016 → 2022 and SQL Server 2016 → 2022 on EverRun, should I do an in-place upgrade or build a new VM and migrate? Any gotchas with EverRun?
**SQL Server 2022 vs 2025?** We're buying 2025 licenses for downgrade rights, but installing 2022 for now. Anyone running SQL Server 2022 on EverRun 7.9.3 successfully?
**HPE pricing reality check.** HPE iQuote shows 960GB NVMe drives at ~$15K EACH. Is this normal? The full 2-node cluster quotes at $134K. For a 20-user Macola/Synergy ERP environment, is this overkill? What would you recommend for Phase 2 hardware?
**EverRun vs Windows Failover Cluster.** Anyone migrated from EverRun to WSFC? How was the experience? Is the failover as seamless? We're currently getting crashes every 2-3 weeks and wondering if EverRun is part of the problem.
**Third-party drives in HPE servers.** HPE says using non-HPE drives can void the warranty. Has anyone actually had warranty claims denied for using Samsung/Intel enterprise NVMe drives in ProLiant servers?
**Cloud vs on-premise for ERP?** We looked at Azure (~$22K/yr for HA) but our ERP (Macola/Synergy) is designed for on-premise. Anyone successfully moved Macola to cloud? Was it worth it?
**Licensing sanity check.** For a 2-node failover cluster: 2× Windows Server licenses but only 1× SQL Server license (passive node is free). 1 set of CALs covers both nodes. Is this correct?
Any advice, war stories, or suggestions are welcome. Thanks!
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**Environment:** HPE ML350 G9 / EverRun 7.9.3 / SQL 2016 / Macola ERP / 20 users / Miami
**Budget:** $17K approved for Phase 1 (software). Phase 2 hardware TBD