14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is offering customers the chance to test drive the next iteration of a solution accelerator designed to streamline the migration to its latest on-premises as well as private and public Cloud technologies.
The Beta program for Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 6.5 is now live on Microsoft Connect, where early adopters can join and start testing the release immediately.
MAP Toolkit 6.5 is the successor of MAP Toolkit 6.0, launched by the Redmond company earlier this year.
One of the first improvements that testers running the MAP Toolkit 6.5 Beta will notice compared to the previous release is the UI redesign. The software giant worked to clean up the interface as well as streamline the use of the MAP Toolkit.
Jeff Alexander, IT Pro Evangelist, Microsoft Australia, summarized the key features and benefits of MAP 6.5 Beta:
“Analyze your portfolio of applications for a move to the Windows Azure platform.
Accelerate private and public cloud planning with Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track On boarding.
Identify migration opportunities with enhanced heterogeneous server environment inventory.
Assess your usage of Microsoft software with the Software Usage Tracking feature.
Discover Oracle instances on Itanium-based servers for migration to SQL Server.”
The Redmond company stresses that the evolution of the MAP Toolkit is focused on helping customers embrace Microsoft’s public and private Clouds, especially if they’re currently relying on heterogeneous environments.
“Consolidate existing server workloads using the updated Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track capacity planning feature. The revamped Azure Migration feature in MAP 6.5 provides more in-depth analysis of the suitability of migrating on-premises applications to the Windows Azure platform,” Alexander stated.
“Other significant new features in MAP 6.5 include the discovery of active Windows devices, Software Usage Tracking for Forefront Endpoint Protection (FEP), and the discovery of Oracle instances on Itanium-based servers with HP-UX to assist in the planning of migration to SQL Server.”
Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 6.0 RTM is available for download here.