Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 6.0 RTM Released

Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 6.0 RTM is now available for download. MAP is an agentless, automated, multi-product planning and assessment tool for quicker and easier desktop and server migrations and upgrades. This toolkit provides detailed readiness assessment reports and executive proposals with extensive hardware and application information, and actionable recommendations to help organizations accelerate their IT infrastructure planning process, and gather more detail on assets that reside in their current environment. MAP also provides for both private and public cloud planning assessments, and server utilization data for Hyper-V server virtualization planning; identifying server placements, and performing virtualization candidate assessments, including ROI analysis for server consolidation with Hyper-V.

MAP is one of the tools provided by the Microsoft Solution Accelerators team. The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit, Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, and Security Compliance Manager provide tested guidance and automated tools to help organizations plan, securely deploy, and manage new Microsoft technologies - easier, faster, and at less cost. All are freely available, and fully-supported by Microsoft.

The MAP Toolkit includes the following components:

• Microsoft_Assessment_and_Planning_Toolkit_Setup.exe. Installation package containing the tool, release notes, Getting Started Guide, Software Usage Tracker Guide and toolkit help (chm file).
• readme_en.htm. Available as a separate download. Provides information to read before installing the MAP Toolkit, including installation prerequisites and known issues.
• Getting_Started_Guide.en.doc. Provides information about toolkit installation, environment preparation, and assessment scenarios supported by toolkit wizards and the UI.
• Usage_Tracker_Guide.en.doc. Helps users configure the MAP Toolkit for using the software usage tracker feature. Once the tool is configured, this guide shows the user how to complete the inventory and analyze the results. Available as a separate download.
• MAP_Training_Kit.zip. Available as a separate download. Contains sample databases and training materials.
• MAP_Sample_Documents.zip. Available as a separate download. Contains sample reports and proposals.

Download Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 6.0 RTM
You can download the RTM version of MAP Toolkit 6.0 at Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit website.

New Features and Benefits from MAP 6.0 :
MAP Toolkit 6.0 will offer:

Analyze your portfolio of applications for a move to the Windows Azure Platform.
Are you considering a move to the public cloud for your portfolio of applications? The application evaluation process for migration to the public cloud involves many tools and considerations. The MAP 6.0 Windows Azure migration portfolio analysis makes the process easier by providing the ability to quantify and label applications and services in your organization's IT environment for Windows Azure migration consideration.

The Windows Azure migration portfolio analysis helps you:

• Catalog all of the applications in your environment.
• Estimate the needed capacity to run your applications on the Windows Azure platform.
• Evaluate applications based on migration difficulty.
• Stack rank applications in terms of migration suitability.
• Obtain a TCO-ROI analysis for the application.

Accelerate planning to private cloud with Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track onboarding.
Planning your private cloud just got easier. Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track onboarding, a new assessment available with MAP 6.0 , 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 P2V migration to Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track. Each assessment also provides guidance on next steps forward 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. Because SQL Server, SharePoint and Exchange run better on Hyper-V, 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 a move to the cloud with Microsoft’s award-winning business productivity solutions, 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 Office suites deployed in your environment with Office 365, via a hardware and software readiness assessment. This assessment helps you quickly determine which client machines in your environment are ready to use Office 365. The tool obtains machine level detail about why a given machine is not capable of using Office 365, and identifies whether the Office suites currently being used in your environment are 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 on 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 total cost of ownership for maintaining Oracle and the potential ROI from switching to SQL Server.

Source:
Microsoft Assessment and Planning on TechNet