Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 6.0 – Now Available!

Article
07/21/2011

I know this is a little bit off topic but I thought many of you would be interesting in knowing that the next version of the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit—version 6.0— is now available for free download.

Planning your journey to the cloud just got easier. The Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 6.0 includes assessment capabilities to evaluate workloads for both public and private cloud platforms. With MAP 6.0, you now have the ability to identify workloads and estimate the infrastructure size and resources needed for both Windows Azure and Hyper-V Fast Track. Also new to MAP 6.0 is an Office 365 client assessment, enhanced VMware inventory, and Oracle Schema discovery and reporting. Expanded assessment and discovery capabilities from MAP help you simplify planning for your next migration project. Plan what's next with MAP.

New Features and Benefits from MAP 6.0 help you:

Analyze your portfolio of applications for a move to the Windows Azure Platform.
Accelerate private cloud planning with Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track Onboarding.
Identify migration opportunities with enhanced heterogeneous server environment inventory.
Assess your client environment for Office 365 readiness.
Determine readiness for migration to Windows Internet Explorer 9.
Identify web browser compatibility issues prior to Windows 7 deployment.
Discover Oracle database schemas for migration to SQL Server.

MAP works with the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit and Security Compliance Manager to help you plan, securely deploy, and manage new Microsoft technologies—easier, faster, and at less cost. Learn more.

Next steps:

· Download MAP 6.0

· Learn more about the MAP Toolkit

· Send your questions or comments to the MAP Team.

Get the latest tips from Microsoft Solution Accelerators—in 140 characters or less! Follow us on Twitter: @MSSolutionAccel.

MAP 6.0 - New Features & Benefits

Analyze your portfolio of applications for a move to the Windows Azure Platform.

Are you considering a move to the public cloud for your application portfolios? The application evaluation process for migration to the public cloud is loose and involves many tools and considerations. The MAP 6.0 Windows Azure migration portfolio analysis feature makes the process easier, with the ability to quantify and label applications and services in your organization's IT environment for Windows Azure migration consideration.

The Azure Migration Portfolio Analysis helps you:

1) Catalog all of the applications in your environment

2) Estimate the needed capacity to run your applications on the Windows Azure platform

3) Evaluate applications based on migration difficulty

4) Stack rank applications in terms of migration suitability

5) Obtain a TCO-ROI analysis for the application

Accelerate private cloud planning with Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track Onboarding.

Plan your private cloud with Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track Onboarding, a new assessment available with MAP 6.0. This assessment provides consolidation guidance and validated configurations with preconfigured Hyper-V Fast Track infrastructures, including computing power, network and storage architectures. Get a quick analysis of server consolidation on Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track infrastructures to help accelerate your planning of physical to virtual (“P2V”) migration to Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track. Each assessment also provides guidance on the next steps forward in using Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track.

Identify migration opportunities with heterogeneous server environment inventory.

MAP has expanded its heterogeneous server environment inventory to include VMware Server, vSphere and VMware vCenter. Inventory and reporting on the number of servers and guests deployed and managed by VMware infrastructure helps you identify migration opportunities and accelerates the migration planning process. SQL Server, SharePoint and Exchange run better on Hyper-V, so MAP 6.0 has the added capability of identifying Microsoft workloads deployed on VMware guests.

Assess your client environment for Office 365 readiness.

If you are considering business productivity solutions via the cloud, MAP 6.0 can help make your planning process easier and faster. MAP 6.0 includes an Office 365 Client Assessment which evaluates the compatibility of the Office suites deployed in your environment with Office 365, via a hardware and software readiness assessment. This assessment helps you quickly know which client computers in your environment are ready to use Office 365. The tool obtains machine level detail about why a given computer is not capable of using Office 365, and quickly identifies whether the Office Suite software currently being used in your environment is compatible with Office 365.

Determine readiness for migration to Windows 7 and Windows Internet Explorer 9.

Simplify your organization's migration to Windows 7 and Windows Internet Explorer 9 with MAP 6.0. The MAP Internet Explorer migration assessment—now updated for Internet Explorer 9 migration—inventories your environment and reports on deployed web browsers, Microsoft ActiveX controls, and add-ons, and then generates a migration assessment report and proposal for easier migration to Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 9.

Discover heterogeneous database instances for migration to SQL Server.

MAP 5.5 brought you heterogeneous database inventory and reporting capability to help you accelerate migration to SQL Server from MySQL, Oracle, and Sybase instances. MAP 6.0 adds to this capability with Oracle schema discovery and reporting of the size and use of each schema. Reporting also provides an estimate of the complexity of migration and suggests candidates for migration to SQL Server. Use this information to determine the total cost of ownership in maintaining Oracle and the potential ROI from switching to SQL Server.

Solution Accelerators background information

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit, Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, and Security Compliance Manager provide tested guidance and automated tools to help you plan, securely deploy, and manage new Microsoft technologies—easier, faster, and at less cost. All are freely available, and fully-supported by Microsoft.

Planning your migration to new Microsoft technologies

Use the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit to inventory your IT environment and assess your hardware readiness for migration to Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V, Microsoft Office 2010 and Office 365—in just a few hours. MAP automatically generates detailed reports on hardware, device, and application compatibility—information you can immediately put to work in your migration plans.

Securely Deploying and Managing new Microsoft technologies

The Microsoft Deployment Toolkit and the Security Compliance Manager are the essential toolset to automate your desktop and server deployment of new Microsoft technologies. Using MDT and SCM, you can significantly reduce the costs and time to securely deploy and manage Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V, and Microsoft Office 2010 across your organization.

Enjoy!

J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer

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Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 6.0 – Now Available!

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