Microsoft has released version 8.5 of its Assessment and Planning Toolkit (MAP). This version is the follow up of version 8 which was released in December last year. MAP is Microsofts capacity planning tool, which Microsoft provides for free as a so called solution accelerator. MAP uses Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), Active Directory, SMS Provider, and other technologies to collect data in your environment and inventories computer hardware, software, and operating systems in small or large IT environments without installing any agent software on the target computers.
Version 8.5 provides the following scenarios allowing:
- Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 with hardware and infrastructure readiness assessments
- Assess environment for Office 2013 and Office 365
- Plan migration to Windows Azure Virtual Machines
- Track Lync Enterprise/Plus usage
- Size desktop virtualization needs for both Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and session-based virtualization using Remote Desktop Services
- Ready information platform for the cloud with SQL Server 2012
- Virtualize existing Linux servers onto Hyper-V
- Assess Microsoft Volume Licensing compliance