14 DAY TRIAL // Following the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft made available the first solution accelerators, designed to streamline deployment of the new operating system. The Redmond company focus grew in time and diversified to included additional technologies along with the new Windows releases. In this regard, version 4.0 of the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit comes with support for not only Windows 7, but also Office 2007, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Hyper-V, Microsoft Application Virtualization, SQL Server 2008, and Forefront Client Security and Network Access Protection. IBM managed to embrace the MAP 4.0 for its own server products, and is currently offering IBM Hardware Pack for Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit version 1.1.
Specifically, version 1.1 of the IBM Hardware Pack for Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit, is designed to permit customers running IBM hardware with a deep insight into their IT infrastructure, according to a member of the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit team. The solution offered by IBM will help with the consolidation of workloads for IBM System X and Blade servers using MAP 4.0.
“IBM Hardware Pack for Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit, Version 1.1 helps to assess your current IT infrastructure and determine the right resources for your IT needs. The tool provides guidance on consolidating workloads with Microsoft virtualization technologies on IBM System x and BladeCenter servers which can help increase utilization of your hardware, making your operations more efficient and helping you save money,” IBM revealed.
According to IBM, there is a consistent volume of reference material made available for customers. In this sense, companies running IBM System x3250 M3, IBM System x3550 M2, IBM System x3650 M2, IBM System x3755, IBM System x3850 M2, IBM System x3950 M2, IBM BladeCenter HS22 and IBM BladeCenter LS42 will be able to leverage IBM Hardware Pack for MAP 4.0 v1.1.
“Key Features Include: - Discovers systems to analyze manually or automatically - Performs a secure assessment of Microsoft Windows environments without the use of any software agents - Gathers performance metrics and generates server consolidation recommendations that identify candidates for server virtualization and how physical servers might be placed in a virtualized environment - Provides information on IBM System x and BladeCenter servers which are ideally suited for virtualized Microsoft environments and IBM best practices tips,” the hardware manufacturer explained.