The Microsoft Assessment and Planning (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 and SQL Server, SQL Server 2008 discovery and assessment for consolidation, Windows 2000 Server migration recommendations, and a readiness assessment for the most widely used Microsoft technologies—now including Office 2010.
What’s new with MAP Toolkit 5.0 Beta 2?
Software usage tracking for Exchange Server and SQL Server
SQL Server discovery and assessment for consolidation
Migration recommendations for Windows 2000 Server
MAP Toolkit 5.0 Beta 2
The MAP Toolkit 5.0 Beta 2 includes the following features:
Heterogeneous Server Environment Inventory: Know what’s in your IT environment. The Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit performs a network inventory of IT assets remotely without the use of agents, identifying heterogeneous server environments consisting of Windows Server and Linux operating systems, including those running in a virtual environment. MAP 5.0 also automates the discovery of Linux-powered LAMP stacks. 
Software Usage Tracker: Right-size your IT environment with MAP Toolkit 5.0 and simplify software license management and compliance processes. MAP 5.0’s new usage tracking feature provides consistent software usage reports for key Microsoft server products: Windows Server, SharePoint Server, System Center Configuration Manager, Exchange Server, and SQL Server. Run updated reports whenever you need to accurately assess current software usage and client access history in your environment. This reduces time and administrative costs for managing your server and client access licenses (CALs) and helps you to streamline the management of your software assets.
Microsoft Office 2010 Readiness Assessment: Streamline your migration to Office 2010 with MAP 5.0’s hardware compatibility proposal document. The MAP Toolkit provides readiness details and specifics of your IT infrastructure inventory, including hardware and OS requirements and upgrade recommendations for planning a seamless Office 2010 deployment. The actionable recommendations and assessments presented shorten the time it takes to plan your Office 2010 migration and prepares your IT environment for Office 2010 deployment and migration scenarios.
Database Discovery for SQL Server Consolidation: MAP 5.0’s new database discovery feature gives you the information you need to optimize your database resources and investments. MAP helps you simplify database administration and provides wide-ranging details of databases and server instances—information you can leverage for consolidation. Use the MAP Toolkit’s proposals to better utilize hardware and database resources, reduce administrative costs, and streamline your software licensing needs— all essentials for cost effective IT planning and operations.
Migration Recommendations for Windows 2000 Server: As support for Windows 2000 Server ends soon, MAP 5.0’s Migration Assessment feature helps you prepare for migration to Windows Server 2008 R2 by assessing the Windows 2000 Server environment and legacy workloads in the form of proposals and reports. The MAP Toolkit’s actionable recommendations help you to understand the potential business impact of maintaining legacy workloads and the benefits of migrating to the robust Windows Server 2008 R2 environment. With migration to Windows Server 2008 R2, you’ll be able to utilize the increased IT flexibility and efficiency from such technologies as Hyper-V and Remote Desktop Services, as well as tap into power-savings features to decrease TCO.
Even non Hyper-V machines are scanned
This beta review program is now open. Beta 2 will run through mid-June, 2010. Download the beta materials today, and tell us what you think!
More Info Can be found here :
http://blogs.technet.com/b/mapblog/
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/solutionaccelerators/dd537566.aspx
