Watch out, the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 5.5 will be in a store near you real soon. Microsoft just sent out emails about the start of the MAP 5.5 beta:
“What’s new with MAP Toolkit 5.5?
Assess your environment for upgrade to Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8 (or the latest version)
Are you looking for a tool to simplify your organization’s migration to Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8—and, in turn, enjoy improved desktop security, reliability and manageability? The MAP 5.5 IE Upgrade Assessment inventories your environment and reports on deployed web browsers, Microsoft ActiveX controls, plug-ins and toolbars, and then generates a migration assessment report and proposal—information you need to more easily migrate to Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8 (or the latest version).
Identify and analyze web application, and database readiness for migration to Windows Azure and SQL Azure
Simplify your move to the cloud with the MAP 5.5 automated discovery and detailed inventory reporting on database and web application readiness for Windows Azure and SQL Azure. MAP identifies web applications, IIS servers, and SQL Server databases, analyzes their performance characteristics, and estimates required cloud features such as number of Windows Azure compute instances, number of SQL Azure databases, bandwidth usage, and storage.
Discover heterogeneous database instances for migration to SQL Server
Now with heterogeneous database inventory supported, MAP 5.5 helps you accelerate migration to SQL Server with network inventory reporting for MySQL, Oracle, and Sybase instances.
Enhanced server consolidation assessments for Hyper-V
Enhanced server consolidation capabilities help save time and effort when creating virtualization assessments and proposals. Enhancements include:
- Updated hardware libraries allowing you to select from the latest Intel and AMD processors.
- Customized server selection for easy editing of assessment data. Data collection and store every five minutes for more accurate reporting.
- Better scalability and reliability, requiring less oversight of the data collection process.
- Support for more machines”.