Help Buidling Server for Small Business

Currently a small medical practice uses an outdated Intel Server running Server 2003 with 15 clients. I'd like to upgrade the hardware, and wonder if there is some benefit to upgrading to Server 2008.

Is there?

From the research that I've done, it appears each User will need a CAL, and they are expensive. I read all the words from Microsoft and cannot help but wonder how they go about enforcing all these rules, etc... Does everyone pay this much, is this sort of a "wink-wink" situation, or are their serious risks at violating these rules?

 

I will be upgrading the hardware. The question is if the O/S needs to be upgraded with it. Tentatively planning a build centered on the Intel Xeon E3-1230 CPU, if this helps give some substance to the theory (it does for me). Thanks for the help.

 

You are correct. By "upgrade", I mean upgrading the whole Server. The question is whether they can continue to run their MS Server 2003 software. The demands on this Server are minimal. They only need the Server to run one particular, proprietary and industry-specific medical software, which may not run on Server 2012.

I'm trying to defer cost on the software upgrade, and thus far I have identified 3 issues:

1) Microsoft Server 2003 may or may not allow the business to remain HIPPA compliant, due to recent changes in the law/rules. At this point it's pure rumor. I can find nothing substantiating this, in fact Microsoft has a tool that will apparently tell you what configuration changes you need to make in order for 2003 to be HIPPA compliant. Still trying to find something authoritative and substantive on this question.

2) The cost of the CAL's of upgrading to Server 2008 (R2). They've already paid for CAL's for 2003. Preserving the value of that investment would be a good thing. Also the level of enforcement of CAL's for 2008. According to the wikipedia, Server 2008 does not have electronic checking of the CAL's, so I wonder how risky it would be to keep the CAL's to a bare minimum. Meaning, getting CAL's for every User and every device could be prohibitively expensive. They might call the whole upgrade thing off, and limp along another year with what they have.

3) Migrating the database of the proprietary software from 32-bit MS Server 2003 to 64-bit MS Server 2008. It might be a simple copy & paste, but it might not. And support from the software's authors is spotty, as they like to have their clients use one particular computer business to do all the upgrading, software migration, etc... and getting technical assistance from them may be difficult.