Microsoft Assessment and Planning Tool 5.0 hits Beta 1

By Matt McSpirit - virtualboy. Microsoft Partner Technology Specialist for Virtualization;
http://blogs.technet.com/mattmcspirit

Way back in December, I blogged about the MAPs 5.0 Community Preview, and what was new to assist you on your infrastructure optimisation journeys.  Fast forward to March 2010, and Beta 1 is now available.  So, for those of you who need a recap…

MAP Toolkit 5.0 is an agentless tool designed to simplify and streamline the IT infrastructure planning process across multiple scenarios through network-wide automated discovery and assessments. This Solution Accelerator performs an inventory of heterogeneous server environments and provides you with usage information for servers in the Core CAL Suite, a data center infrastructure assessment survey, and a readiness assessment for the most widely used Microsoft technologies - now including Office 2010.  Other cool stuff includes:

• Heterogeneous Server Environment Inventory for Technologies including Windows Server, Linux, UNIX and VMware
• Ability to determine usage of deployed System Center Configuration Manager, a member of the Core Client Access License Suite
• Readiness assessment for migration or upgrade to Microsoft Office 2010.

So, with MAP 5.0, you’ve gained an ever greater level of insight around the desktop space over MAP 4.0, with Office 2010 capabilities, along with more non-Microsoft platform integration.  The fact that you can now inventory Linux and Unix, as well as VMware, is a powerful addition, and reinforces Microsoft’s push to embrace non-Windows OS’s through both virtualisation on Hyper-V, but also through monitoring and management with System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2.

You can grab the download and all the info here, and also join the review board, to influence future versions, here.  Click on the feedback link once signed up to leave your comments!