by myCREcloud | Jun 30, 2026 | Cloud, Company, Industry
For most businesses, an operating system update is background noise. A version number changes, IT handles it, everyone moves on. But when an operating system reaches true end of life, something different happens, and most construction executives don't find out what until it's already a problem.
Windows Server 2016 reaches the end of Microsoft's extended support on January 12, 2027. If your Sage 300 CRE or Sage 100 Contractor environment is still running on it, here is what that date actually means, why it matters more for a construction company than for almost any other type of business, and what a responsible plan looks like before the deadline makes the decision for you.
What "End of Life" Actually Means
When Microsoft retires support for a server operating system, it doesn't slow down. It stops, permanently. No more security patches. No more bug fixes. No more technical support if something breaks at the OS level. Every vulnerability discovered in Server 2016 after January 2027 stays open, on every machine still running it, indefinitely.
This matters because new vulnerabilities are found constantly, in every operating system, every year. On a supported platform, Microsoft closes them as they're discovered. On an unsupported one, they simply accumulate. The server doesn't stop working the day support ends. It keeps running, which is exactly what makes the risk easy to underestimate. Nothing visibly changes. The exposure builds quietly in the background instead.
Why Attackers Specifically Target End-of-Life Systems
This isn't a theoretical risk that only matters to security professionals. Threat actors actively look for infrastructure running outdated, unpatched operating systems, precisely because they know those systems have no upcoming fix. An end-of-life server isn't just more vulnerable in the abstract, it becomes an identifiable target the moment support ends.
Microsoft's own threat intelligence backs this up with hard numbers. According to Microsoft's Digital Defense Report, the overwhelming majority of ransomware attacks that succeed in fully encrypting a target's data begin on unmanaged, unpatched, or unsupported systems, the exact profile of a server running an end-of-life operating system. Ransomware groups favor this kind of infrastructure for a simple reason: it offers a long, predictable window to operate, with no patch cycle working against them.
Why This Hits Construction Companies Differently
Most generic advice about server end of life is written for a generic business. Construction firms running Sage carry a different and more concentrated kind of exposure.
Your Sage environment isn't a side application. It holds job cost data across every active project, payroll for every employee, banking and ACH details, subcontractor records, and in many cases certified payroll tied to public contracts. A ransomware event doesn't just lock files somewhere on a network. It can halt payroll runs mid-cycle, freeze billing during an active draw, and stall project approvals while the business works through recovery, all while jobs in the field keep moving regardless of what's happening on the server.
For a firm managing several projects simultaneously, even a short disruption compounds fast. And if the incident involves payroll or banking data, it can trigger breach notification obligations most construction firms have never had to navigate and aren't staffed to handle on short notice.
The Risk Doesn't Stay in IT. It Reaches Bonding, Insurance, and Compliance
This is the part that surprises most executives: an outdated operating system doesn't stay an IT problem. It can quietly become a liability in conversations that have nothing to do with technology.
Many cyber insurance policies require running supported, patchable software as a condition of coverage. If a breach is later traced to a known, unpatched vulnerability on an end-of-life system, that can give an insurer grounds to deny a claim entirely, at the exact moment a firm needs that coverage most. The same logic applies to compliance postures like SOC or PCI that some lenders, sureties, and general contractors now expect from their subcontractors and vendors as a condition of doing business. An aging OS sitting quietly in a server closet can show up later as a problem in a bonding conversation, a lender review, or a prequalification questionnaire.
The Cost of Waiting Compounds. The Cost of Planning Doesn't
The exposure here isn't flat, it steepens over time. Between now and January 2027, risk grows every month as new vulnerabilities are discovered and never patched on Server 2016. After the deadline passes, that curve gets steeper still, because the vendor safety net disappears completely and there is no longer any patch coming, ever, for anything.
Firms that get ahead of this on their own timeline get to do it on their own terms: planned testing, a controlled cutover window, no pressure. Firms that wait usually end up moving anyway, just under worse conditions, after an incident, under time pressure, with far less control over cost or scheduling. The deadline doesn't go away if it's ignored. It just shifts who's in control of how the transition happens.
What This Means If You're Hosted With myCREcloud
If your Sage environment is hosted with myCREcloud, this transition looks different than it would for a firm managing its own on-premise infrastructure, and it's worth understanding why.
A firm running Sage on premise that wants to get ahead of this deadline has to do all of it themselves: source and budget for a new server OS license, plan and execute the OS-level rebuild, and then handle the Sage migration on top of that, usually while also juggling whatever else is competing for the IT budget that quarter. That's a real project with real cost before the Sage piece even starts.
For myCREcloud clients, the OS layer is something we manage as part of hosting your environment, not something you have to plan, budget, or execute on your own. As Server 2016 approaches its end of life, we're building current, supported environments for affected clients at no cost for the new server OS itself. The remaining piece, migrating your Sage application and database into that new environment, is a real project with real scope, but it's one we can schedule around your calendar rather than a hard deadline forcing the timing.
The point isn't that the work disappears. It's that being hosted means you're not solving this alone, on your own infrastructure, against your own clock.
A Readiness Checklist Before Your Migration Conversation
You don't need every answer before reaching out, but having these on hand makes the first conversation more productive:
- Your current Sage version and which modules are active
- Your user count and where they're located
- Your full list of integrations (Procore, hh2, Autodesk, Microsoft 365, or others)
- When your backups were last tested with an actual restore, not just confirmed as completed
- Whether any custom reports, macros, or workflows depend on specific file paths
- Your current remote access method, if any
- Where Sage already feels slow or painful today, since that often points to other improvements worth making during the same project
The Bottom Line
January 12, 2027 isn't a soft target. It's the date Microsoft stops protecting Server 2016 against every vulnerability discovered after it. The risk isn't hypothetical and it isn't a future problem sitting safely down the road, it's a clock that's already running, and it gets harder to manage the closer it gets to zero.
The fix isn't complicated: a planned, tested move to a current, supported environment before the deadline forces the timing. If you're hosted with myCREcloud, that move is already underway for affected environments, and the only real decision left is when it fits your schedule.
If you have questions about where your environment stands, reach out to your myCREcloud contact directly, or request time on our calendar to walk through it together.
Sources: Microsoft Digital Defense Report (microsoft.com); Microsoft Windows Server Blog, "Planning ahead for Windows Server 2016 end of support"; Microsoft Lifecycle documentation for Windows Server 2016.
by myCREcloud | Jun 23, 2026 | Company
myCREcloud Achieves SOC 2 Compliance Certification
June 1, 2026 - myCRECloud, a provider of cloud-based Sage hosting and IT services for construction professionals, today announced it has successfully completed its SOC 2 Type II audit, achieving certification that validates the company's commitment to data security, availability, and confidentiality. The certification, awarded following an independent audit by a licensed CPA firm, confirms that myCREcloud's systems and processes meet the rigorous standards set by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).
"Earning our SOC 2 certification is a meaningful milestone for our team and our customers," said Tanner Evenrud, Founding Partner, Chief Revenue Officer, at myCREcloud. "It reflects the work we've put into building a platform that our clients can trust with their most sensitive business data. Security has always been a priority for us, and this certification provides independent verification of that commitment."
The SOC 2 audit examined myCREcloud's internal controls related to security, processing integrity, and data protection over an extended review period. With this certification, customers and partners can have greater confidence that their information is managed with the highest level of care. myCREcloud remains dedicated to continuous improvement of its security practices and looks forward to maintaining this standard as the company grows. For more information, visit www.mycrecloud.com or contact sales@mycrecloud.com.
by myCREcloud | Apr 20, 2026 | Company
The AI boom has quietly become a cloud infrastructure boom. As companies race to roll out AI tools, the biggest line items in tech budgets are no longer flowing into software. They are pouring into chips, servers, power systems, and the massive data centers needed to run large models at scale.
The numbers keep getting bigger
According to figures cited by Reuters, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft are collectively on pace to spend around $650 billion on AI-related infrastructure in 2026. That is up from roughly $410 billion in 2025, a leap that shows just how quickly the center of gravity in tech spending has shifted toward physical capacity.
Other efforts are adding to the pile. Stargate, a joint project backed by OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle, aims to put as much as $500 billion into AI infrastructure across the United States over the coming years. On the venture side, the Stanford AI Index Report pegged global private investment in generative AI at $33.9 billion for 2024, an 18.7 percent jump over the year before.
The bottleneck has moved
Training and running modern AI models is enormously compute intensive. It typically means thousands of GPUs working in parallel across distributed facilities, which makes the networking between chips matter nearly as much as the chips themselves.
That context helps explain Nvidia's recent decision to commit $2 billion each to photonics firms Lumentum and Coherent. Photonics uses light instead of electrical signals to move data, which can be faster and more power efficient. As AI clusters grow, those internal links increasingly dictate how quickly a system can actually learn and serve predictions.
The lesson for the industry is clear. For most teams building AI, the limiting factor is no longer code. It is whether the underlying hardware, facilities, and power supply can keep up.
What this means for enterprises
Enterprise adoption is a major piece of the story. Businesses are folding AI into customer support, analytics, and internal productivity tools, and very few of them can host that workload on their own servers. They rent capacity from cloud providers instead, often through multi-year commitments worth billions.
For IT leaders, this shifts how cloud decisions get made. GPU availability, data center location, energy supply, and long-term compute costs are all becoming central to vendor evaluations. The next chapter of cloud computing will be shaped less by clever software and more by who has the physical capacity to run it.
Want to learn more about the cloud? Contact Tyler at Tyler.mathis@mycrecloud.com or 619.704.2969!
by myCREcloud | Apr 3, 2026 | Company
Your server is the backbone of your business. It runs your applications, stores your data, and keeps your team productive. When it starts to fail, everything slows down or worse, stops completely.
The good news is that you do not need to be highly technical to perform a basic health check. Here is a straightforward walkthrough of the key areas you should review.
1. Check Your Server License Status
Start with your server’s licensing.
Make sure your operating system and any critical software are properly licensed and up to date. Expired or unsupported licenses can prevent updates, expose you to security risks, and even cause compliance issues.
If you are unsure, you can:
- Check your license key or tag in system settings
- Confirm renewal dates
- Verify support status with your vendor or IT provider
2. Monitor Server Temperature
Heat is one of the biggest threats to server health.
Optimal temperature range:
Between 64°F and 81°F (18°C to 27°C)
Warning signs of temperature issues:
- Server room feels hot or poorly ventilated
- Fans constantly running at high speed
- Unexpected shutdowns or restarts
Suboptimal temperatures, especially prolonged heat, can significantly shorten the lifespan of your hardware.
3. Evaluate Overall Performance
A slow server is often the first noticeable sign of trouble.
A good real world indicator is how your business applications perform, especially Sage.
Ask yourself:
- Is Sage taking longer to open or load data
- Are reports slower than usual
- Are users experiencing lag or freezing
If performance is degrading, it may point to resource constraints, aging hardware, or underlying system issues.
4. Check Storage Capacity
Running out of space can cripple your server.
Look at:
- Total storage capacity
- Percentage of space used
- Growth rate of your data
Best practice:
Keep at least 15 to 20 percent of storage free at all times.
When drives get too full:
- System performance drops
- Backups may fail
- Applications like Sage can become unstable
5. Listen for Unusual Noises
Your server can tell you a lot if you listen.
Be aware of:
- Clicking or grinding sounds from hard drives
- Loud or inconsistent fan noise
- Any new or unusual sounds
These can indicate hardware failure, especially with older spinning drives.
6. Review Your Operating System
Ensure your server operating system is current, supported, and receiving regular security updates.
Verify the following:
- The OS version currently in use
- Whether the OS is still within vendor support lifecycle
- That security patches and updates are actively being released
Risks of running an outdated operating system:
- Increased exposure to cyberattacks
- Compatibility issues with modern applications and services
- Reduced system stability and performance
Important note:
Windows Server 2016 will reach end of extended support on January 12, 2027. After this date, Microsoft will no longer provide security updates, patches, or technical support.
Recommendation:
Begin planning an upgrade or migration before the support deadline to avoid security and compliance risk
7. Consider the Age of Your Server
Age is one of the most important factors.
If your server is more than 5 years old, it should be seriously evaluated for replacement.
Why this matters:
- Hardware performance declines over time
- Failure rates increase significantly
- Warranty coverage is usually expired
- Modern software demands more resources
Your server is not just another piece of equipment. It is your business’s lifeline. Waiting until it fails can lead to costly downtime and lost data.
Schedule a free call with Tyler →
Or request a Sage hosting quote →
by myCREcloud | Apr 2, 2026 | Company
INDUSTRY INSIGHT
The global technology supply chain is under pressure like never before. Here's what's driving costs up, and how mycrecloud protects you from the fallout.
If you've noticed conversations in the industry about rising infrastructure costs, you're not imagining things. Across the world, businesses that rely on cloud hosting are grappling with the same reality: the hardware that powers modern computing is more expensive, more scarce, and harder to source than it was just a few years ago.
At myCREcloud, we host Sage solutions for hundreds of businesses across the US. We want to be transparent about what's happening in the market and why choosing a specialist, committed cloud partner matters more than ever.
- 43% Average server cost increase since 2022
- 2–3× Lead times for enterprise hardware
- Bllions | Global AI chip demand surge
The AI boom is consuming the world's chips
The extraordinary rise of artificial intelligence has fundamentally disrupted the semiconductor market. Hyperscale cloud providers such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta are purchasing graphics processing units (GPUs) and high-performance CPUs in staggering volumes to power their AI training infrastructure. This has created a cascading effect throughout the entire supply chain.
Even conventional server hardware, the kind that reliably runs business-critical applications like Sage has become harder to source and significantly more expensive. Manufacturers are prioritising AI-adjacent components, leaving the broader enterprise market squeezed.
"A single AI data centers build can consume more server components than an entire country's enterprise IT refresh cycle and that pressure ripples down to every hosting provider."
Supply chain fragility hasn't gone away
The disruptions that began during the pandemic years fundamentally exposed the fragility of global semiconductor supply chains. While some normalisation occurred, the underlying vulnerabilities remain. Much of the world's advanced chip manufacturing is concentrated in a small number of facilities in East Asia, making geopolitical tensions, particularly around Taiwan — a persistent risk factor that infrastructure pricing reflects.
Energy and raw material costs have also remained elevated. The metals and rare earth elements used in server components — copper, cobalt, lithium — have seen sustained price increases. These costs compound at every stage of the supply chain and eventually land in the price of a rack of servers.
Energy costs: the hidden hardware multiplier
Running modern hardware isn't just about buying it; it's about powering it, cooling it, and maintaining it. Energy prices across the US have remained volatile following the disruptions of 2022, and data centers are energy-intensive by nature. The cost of electricity, cooling infrastructure, and power redundancy systems all factor into what it takes to keep your Sage environment running reliably 24/7.
Responsible hosting providers — those who don't cut corners on redundancy or uptime guarantees absorb these costs in their infrastructure investment. That investment is what keeps your business running when everything else is under pressure.
What this means for businesses running Sage
For companies hosting Sage 100 Contractor, Sage 300, or Sage Estimating on-premise or with a budget provider, these market pressures represent real risk. Under-resourced hosting environments cut corners on hardware refresh cycles, leaving you running on aging infrastructure with higher failure rates and slower performance. Security patching gets delayed. Redundancy gets reduced.
This is precisely where mycrecloud is different. Rather than passing unpredictability on to you, we:
Plan our hardware procurement years in advance, locking in pricing and availability before market spikes hit
Maintain dedicated Sage-optimized infrastructure, not oversubscribed generic cloud pools
Guarantee predictable, transparent pricing so you can budget with confidence
Provide enterprise-grade redundancy, US-based data centers, and Sage-accredited support as standard
Specialist hosting: now more valuable than ever
When the market is under pressure, generalist providers reduce quality to protect margins. Specialist providers like myCREcloud do the opposite; we double down on what we know best. Our entire infrastructure exists for one purpose: to give Sage users the fastest, most reliable, most secure cloud experience possible.
The complexity of today's hardware market is an argument for choosing your hosting partner carefully, not for going it alone or picking whoever is cheapest today. Reliability and expertise, delivered consistently over years, is what protects your business when conditions are difficult.
Ready to move your Sage to the cloud?
Talk to our team about a tailored hosting solution. No jargon, no hidden costs — just reliable Sage hosting from specialists who understand your software.Get in touch with mycrecloud ↗
by myCREcloud | Mar 12, 2026 | Company
Thirty years of lessons, and why they matter right now.
Almost no one believed in Cloud Computing at first. In the late 1990s, the idea that businesses would hand their data and software to a remote server, managed by someone else, seemed absurd. Critics laughed. Analysts hedged. CIOs said it would never fly.
Then it did. And it changed almost everything.
It also went by a dozen names along the way. On Demand. Utility Computing. Application Service Providers. Alternative Delivery Models. Web Services. Software as a Service. The technology found its footing long before it found its identity. Sound familiar?
We are in a similar moment with AI. The hype is enormous. The skepticism is real. The terminology is all over the place. And nobody quite knows how it will reshape the world, only that it will.
Ben Pring has a front row seat to both eras. He wrote the first analyst notes on Cloud Computing in 1997, produced the first market forecast of the Cloud's growth potential in 2002, and has spent decades advising both buyers and sellers through the noise. In his recent piece, he draws eleven lessons from the Cloud story that he believes will help leaders navigate what is coming with AI.
Here is what stands out.
The Technology That Wins Is Rarely the One That Arrives First
Cloud Computing was not a sudden invention. It built on decades of mainframe thinking, client-server models, and early internet infrastructure. What changed was the moment when the cost, the connectivity, and the cultural readiness all lined up at once.
AI is the same. The algorithms behind today's large language models are not new. What is new is the compute power, the data availability, and the interface design that made it accessible to everyone. The lesson: do not mistake the moment of mainstream arrival for the moment of invention. There is always more history than the headlines suggest.
Skepticism Is Not the Same as Being Wrong
Early Cloud skeptics were not fools. Their concerns about security, reliability, and vendor lock-in were legitimate. Many of those concerns took years to resolve. Some are still being resolved today.
The same will be true of AI. People who raise concerns about accuracy, bias, intellectual property, and workforce displacement are not technophobes. They are identifying real problems that the industry will need to solve. The difference between a healthy skeptic and someone who gets left behind is whether they stay engaged with the answers as they develop.
The Names Will Keep Changing. The Direction Will Not.
When Salesforce launched in 1999, it did not call itself a Cloud company. When AWS launched in 2006, the term Cloud was still niche. The category found its name years after the category existed.
Today we argue about whether to call things AI, Generative AI, Large Language Models, or Agentic AI. None of it matters much. The underlying shift, machines taking on cognitive work, is the thing to track. Do not let the branding debates distract you from the substance.
The Platform Wars Are Coming. Pick Carefully.
Cloud did not stay fragmented for long. It consolidated around a small number of dominant players: AWS, Azure, Google Cloud. Everyone else either niched down, got acquired, or disappeared.
The AI landscape will likely follow a similar path. Right now it feels wide open. In five years it will probably not be. Businesses making deep integrations today are placing bets whether they realize it or not. Understanding which platforms are likely to persist is one of the most important strategic questions of the next few years.
The Real Value Is in What Gets Built on Top
Cloud infrastructure was not the destination. It was the foundation. The value came from what companies built once they had access to scalable, affordable computing: Netflix, Uber, Airbnb, Spotify, and thousands of others that would have been impossible in a pre-Cloud world.
AI will work the same way. The models themselves are infrastructure. The interesting question is what becomes possible once that infrastructure is widely available and cheap. The companies that figure that out first will define the next decade.
The Lesson Beneath All the Lessons
Pring's broader point is one worth sitting with. The Cloud era took about 25 years to fully mature. It was messy, non-linear, and full of false dawns and unexpected turns. The companies and leaders who navigated it best were not the ones who predicted every twist. They were the ones who stayed curious, stayed engaged, and updated their thinking as the evidence changed.
That is the actual skill. Not predicting the future. Staying oriented within it.
The AI era will reward the same qualities. Read the full article for all eleven lessons. It is worth your time.
