VIRTUALBOY BLOG
Do you know some of the key IT Migration Challenges? Heard these?
These are just some of the key challenges around migrations, but by no means all! How can you start to address these challenges easily? The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator can help, and the newest version has just launched.
So what is it?
Well, I’ve already talked about it before, way back when it was the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.1. As the name suggested, it focused pretty much on Vista, and that was it. MAP is much more than that.
“Microsoft Assessment and Planning is an integrated portal with a suite of automated tools and guidance to help your migration needs, from desktops to servers and now also include virtualisation. Its unique agent-less inventory technologies allow remote assessment of clients, servers, applications, devices and roles – all without deploying any software agents to the machines on your network. The auto-generation of readiness assessments and proposals makes it easier for you to prepare for your IT project planning process with more specific information about your existing environment than before. You can now take advantage of this multi-product assessment tool to help you get a quick assessment done in just an hour or so”
So, is it a tool just for technical people? No. It doesn’t just generate technical information, but it actually generates professional reports for the Business Decision Makers among you. See below as an example:
This particular report highlights the machines in your organisation that could run Windows Server 2008, with and without hardware upgrades. The same kind of reports are produced for Vista and Office too.
What other reports are generated?
Note - The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator will generate localised reports for Windows Vista migration, Office 2007 migration, and non-Windows devices if the Display Language, configured on the computer generating the reports is set to German, French, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and Portuguese.
New features specifically in MAP 3.1 include:
So, where can you get it?
Here.
How much does it cost?
Nothing. Get it here.
Where can I read more info?
Baldwin’s MAP blog, specifically, this post all about MAP 3.1.
I had an email drop into my inbox a few days back, detailing a couple of new additions to the Infrastructure Planning and Design Guides that have been available for a while. Before I introduce the new additions, it’s worth understanding what the Infrastructure Planning and Design Guides are all about.
“The Infrastructure Planning and Design (IPD) guides are the next version of Windows Server System Reference Architecture. The guides in this series help clarify and streamline design processes for Microsoft infrastructure technologies, with each guide addressing a unique infrastructure technology or scenario”
Basically, they are there to provide background information, design ideas, key decision areas etc, that are important prior to rolling out the technologies.
“Each guide leads the reader through critical infrastructure design decisions, in the appropriate order, evaluating the available options for each decision against its impact on critical characteristics of the infrastructure. The IPD Series highlights when service and infrastructure goals should be validated with the organization and provides additional questions that should be asked of service stakeholders and decision makers”
You can download the individual guides, or you can download them in one big lump. Either way, you have the option of getting:
I’ve taken an example diagram from the Internet Information Services IPD, and it shows the steps that the IPD will take you through to plan a deployment of IIS.
Each of these steps are well documented, and provide a good level of background information around the topic.
Best of all, the guides are all free, so download them here.
Mark has been to 2 of our briefings this week (he’ll be sick of my voice!) and has a great write-up: Microsoft releases Hyper-V to manufacturing
I’ll be following up with my views when I get a chance, hopefully tomorrow afternoon, and trust me, I’ve got a lot to say :-)
It’s been a while coming, but it’s here. It’s shipped months early. It’s performance figures are blowing competitive technologies out of the water. It’s accessible, cost-effective, performant, powerful, and it’s here. It’s Hyper-V. Get it, here.