Universal Forwarder Upgrade status

[anandhalagaras1]

In our environment we have three client machines which are running with the below mentioned versions:

6.2.15

6.3.14

In which one of the server is Windows 2008 Standard version 32 bit Operating System running with Splunk Universal Forwarder version 6.2.15.

And the other two servers are Windows 2008 Standard version 64 bit Operating System running with Splunk Universal Forwarder version 6.3.14.

So we are currently with Splunk Cloud 7.2.9.1 version and we are planning to upgrade our core to 8.0 and above.

So these servers are acting as a Road blocker for upgrade. So  just want to know what is the difference between Windows Server 2008 Standard with Windows Server 2008 R2.

And also what is the recommended version which I can go and upgrade the Splunk Universal forwarder for those client machines which are running with Windows 2008 Standard version (32 bit as well as 64 bit).

Kindly help on the same.

[richgalloway]

According to the UF compatibility chart at https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Forwarder/8.0.5/Forwarder/Compatibilitybetweenforwardersandind... , version 6 forwarders are not compatible with version 8 indexers.  They should be upgraded to version 7 or newer.  

The biggest difference between Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 is the latter is 64-bit only.

Windows Server 2008 is equivalent to Windows Vista whereas Windows Server 2008 R2 is equivelent to Windows 7.  Both are not supported by Microsoft.

[anandhalagaras1]

@richgalloway 

So can i go ahead and upgrade the Universal Forwarders from 6.x version to 7.x version for the servers which are running with Windows 2008 Standard version (32 & 64 bit).

Kindly let me know so that i can test the same.

[richgalloway]

32-bit operating system are not supported. Support for Windows 2008 R2 is deprecated so it may be dropped in a future release. See https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/7.2.9/Installation/Systemrequirements#Supported_Operati....
My advice is to upgrade the OS on those servers.