Robert Smit MVP Blog   Azure and Microsoft Windows Insider Server Cloud Blog

The latest release from the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) team provides organizations with tools to assess readiness for Windows and Windows Server 2012 Beta.

Accelerate your move to the Private Cloud with MAP 7.0 Beta

The MAP Toolkit’s new capabilities help you to assess the readiness of your environment for deploying Windows as well as Windows Server 2012 Beta.  This update adds new scenarios specifically, the ability to plan for virtualization assessment of Linux servers and readiness assessment for desktop virtualization. Along with the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter and MAP 7.0, now you can easily migrate VMware VMs to Hyper-V for the best roadmap to the cloud. In addition to the above features, MAP 7.0 strengthens the SQL Server migration scenario with support for SQL Server 2012 discovery, and migration planning.

Key features and benefits of MAP 7.0 Beta help you:

Source:  Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit Team Blog

Symptom/Cause:
MAP creates a worker thread to request information from a target machine. The number of simultaneous worker threads created is dependent on CPU and Memory availability, but MAP has a cap that prevents it from maxing out a CPU and will throttle itself if it exceeds that cap. If MAP is installed on a machine with a lot of resources, it is possible for MAP to reach the maximum thread count of 300 for 64-bit and 200 for 32-bit. However, MAP does not track how much network bandwidth it is using and, therefore, may saturate networking resources between the machine running MAP and the target computers which can lead to the symptoms mentioned in the title.

Workaround:
You can use the method below to throttle MAP so it uses less system and network resources. If this workaround does not solve the problem, please email us at the address provided in the support section.

1. Shutdown MAP if it is running
2. Edit the %Program Files%\Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit\bin\Microsoft.AssessmentPlatform.UI.Console.exe.config file and add the following lines into the “<appSettings>” section.

<add key="Microsoft.AssessmentPlatform.InventoryEngine.InventoryService.DefaultMaxThreadsX86" value="52" />
<add key="Microsoft.AssessmentPlatform.InventoryEngine.InventoryService.DefaultMaxThreads" value="52" />
<add key="Microsoft.AssessmentPlatform.InventoryEngine.InventoryService.DefaultMinThreads" value="3" />
<add key="Microsoft.AssessmentPlatform.InventoryEngine.InventoryService.MaxThreadsLowerBound" value="2" />

NOTES:
The first two lines will set the maximum number of machines to inventory at the same time. You can adjust the maximum value up or down as needed to maximize the performance while maintaining system stability. Changing these values may increase the inventory time.
The third line sets the minimum number of threads that MAP will use, changing this value is NOT recommended.

The journey to the cloud is now smoother than ever with the MAP Toolkit 6.5. The MAP Toolkit’s new capabilities help users to securely assess heterogeneous IT environments while enabling the evaluation of workloads for migration to Microsoft’s private and public cloud platforms. Consolidate existing server workloads using the updated Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track capacity planning feature. The Database Consolidation Appliance Assessment allows you to simplify SQL Server migration planning for the private cloud. The revamped Azure Migration feature in MAP 6.5 provides more in-depth analysis of the suitability of migrating on-premises applications to the Windows Azure™ platform. Additional new features in MAP 6.5 include the discovery of active Windows® devices, Software Usage Tracking for Forefront® Endpoint Protection (FEP), and the discovery of Oracle instances on Itanium-based servers with HP-UX to assist in the planning of migration to SQL Server®.

Key features and benefits of MAP 6.5 help you:

• Accelerate private and public cloud planning with Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track Onboarding.
• Simplify SQL Server migration planning for the private cloud through the Database Consolidation Appliance
• Analyze your portfolio of applications for a move to the Windows Azure platform.
• Identify migration opportunities with enhanced heterogeneous server environment inventory.
• Assess your usage of Microsoft software with the Software Usage Tracking feature.
• Discover Oracle instances on Itanium-based servers for migration to SQL Server.

Download the MAP Toolkit 6.5: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=217916

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=7826

Learn more
Visit the MAP home page: www.microsoft.com/map
Get the latest news straight from the MAP team: http://blogs.technet.com/mapblog

MAP works with the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit and Security Compliance Manager to help you plan, securely deploy, and manage new Microsoft technologies—easier, faster, and at less cost. Learn more atwww.microsoft.com/solutionaccelerators

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