Microsoft Assessment and Planning How-To Series: Part 1 (Server Virtualization Candidacy Reporting) - Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit Team Blog - Site Home

Hi there,

This is the first installment of a series of how-to content to get you started with the Microsoft Assessment and Planning tool (MAP).

Today, we'll cover how users can use MAP to generate virtualization candidates for server virtualization (e.g. Virtual Server 2005 R2 or Hyper-V).

It's quite simple actually. All you need is to follow the 3-step process below and you're good to go!

#1 Server Inventory - collect information regarding all existing servers across your network
#2 PerfMon Capture - capture performance counters including CPU, Disk and Network Utilization of each server that you want to consider virtualizing (note: we recommend you run this for at least a few days if not a few weeks so you can capture all the "peaks and valleys" of utilization)
#3 Virtualization Candidates Reporting - generate a report with virtualization candidacy recommendations

If you're new to the MAP tool UI, take a look at this screenshot below and you'll know which link to click for this 3-step process to get virtualization candidacy recommendations.

In the end, you will get a set of virtualization candidates report and proposal document showing the results (see below). With results in your hand, you will then gain better understanding on how a reduction in physical machines via virtualization could translate into improved utilization of each machine - subsequently this will translate into space savings and cost savings (cooling and power).