Microsoft has released version 9.1 of its capactiy planning tool the Assessment and Planning Toolkit (MAP). This version is the follow-up of version 9.0 which was released in December last year. Microsoft provides the Assessment and Planning Toolkit as a so called solution accelerator for free.
The MAP Toolkit uses Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS), 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. The data and analysis provided by MAP streamline the planning process for software migration, help assess device driver availability, and allow you to make hardware upgrade recommendations. The MAP Toolkit also gathers performance metrics from computers you are considering for virtualization and includes a feature to model a library of potential host and storage hardware configurations
Version 9.1 provides the following new features:
- Discovery and reporting of Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2
- Windows Server 2012 R2 as a platform for server virtualization
- Expanded discovery of SQL Server to include components installed independent from the database engine.
- Discovery of SQL Server 2014