Download Windows 7 and Office 2010 Assessment and Planning Toolkit v.5.0

Microsoft is offering a new version of a Solution Accelerator introduced concomitantly with Windows Vista, and designed to streamline the planning and migration process to the latest versions of the company’s offerings. The Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit is now up to version 5.0, and the agentless tool set up to perform automated discovery and assessments across IT networks has been tailored to play nice with Office 2010 RTM, in addition to Windows 7, and a variety of other technologies.

“This Solution Accelerator performs an inventory of heterogeneous server environments and provides you with usage information for servers in the Core CAL Suite and SQL Server, SQL Server 2008 discovery and assessment for consolidation, Windows 2000 Server migration assessment, and a readiness assessment for the most widely used Microsoft technologies—now including Office 2010,” explained Stephen L Rose, Sr. Community Manager - Windows IT Pro Client.

One important aspect of the MAP Toolkit’s evolution is that the resource is no longer focused exclusively on Microsoft products. MAP Toolkit 5.0 is also capable of performing network inventory of Linux operating systems, in addition to Windows platform. Furthermore, the toolkit was also adapted to Linux-powered LAMP stacks, with the expansion of its discovery capabilities.

Companies can leverage the toolkit not only when it comes down to migration assessment and planning, but also to manage their IT environments. The solution supports scenarios on which software usage is tracked across Windows Server, SharePoint Server, System Center Configuration Manager, Exchange Server, and SQL Server. Moreover, as far as SQL Server is concerned, the MAP Toolkit 5.0 will also offer customers the necessary information to help them consolidate database resources.

With the recent release of Office 2010, Microsoft is emphasizing the Office 2010 readiness assessment – capabilities. “Streamline your migration to Office 2010 with MAP 5.0’s hardware compatibility proposal document. The MAP Toolkit provides readiness details and specifics of your IT infrastructure inventory, including hardware and OS requirements and upgrade recommendations for planning a seamless deployment of Office 2010. The actionable recommendations and assessments presented shorten the time it takes to plan your Office 2010 migration and prepares your IT environment for Office 2010 deployment and migration scenarios,” Rose stated.

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 5.0 is available for download here.

Windows 7 RTM Enterprise 90-Day Evaluation is available for download here.