14 DAY TRIAL // A new version of an upgrade tool designed to streamline the migration to Microsoft’s latest technologies has been released. Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 5.5 is available for download from the Redmond company, free of charge, just as it was the case with its predecessors.
The Toolkit is capable of assessing complex IT environments and protruding hardware and software inventories indicative of the migration readiness to the most recent Microsoft products including Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Internet Explorer 8, Hyper-V, and Office 2010.
The MAP inventory is generated automatically, and also covers device compatibility, in addition to information about the hardware and software investments. Obviously, the tool can be used at the early stages of migration planning.
“Desktop migration projects are easier with the hardware assessment for Windows 7 and Internet Explorer,” revealed Microsoft’s Nick MacKechnie.
“The MAP 5.5 Internet Explorer migration assessment inventories and reports on deployed web browsers, Microsoft ActiveX controls, and add-ons—and delivers the findings in a convenient migration assessment report and proposal.”
But at the same time, MAP Toolkit 5.5 does so much more than just helping enterprise customers get ready for the next iterations of on-premise Microsoft solutions.
In fact, the Toolkit is also designed to simplify the work of customers looking to embrace the Cloud.
MAP Toolkit 5.5 can “identify and analyze web application and database readiness for migration to the Windows Azure platform,” noted Microsoft’s Stephen L Rose.
“MAP identifies web applications, IIS servers, and SQL Server databases, analyzes their performance characteristics, and estimates resources required such as the number of Windows Azure compute instances, number of SQL Azure databases, bandwidth usage, and storage.”
Moreover, MAP Toolkit 5.0 can be leveraged in scenarios involving migration from a non-Microsoft data platform to SQL Server and for Hyper-V server consolidation.
“Now with heterogeneous database inventory and reporting capability, MAP 5.5 helps you accelerate migration to SQL Server from MySQL, Oracle, and Sybase instances,” Rose explained.
“Enhanced server consolidation capabilities help save time and effort when creating virtualization assessments and proposals.”
Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 5.5 is available for download here.