Archive for the ‘MAP’ Tag

Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 9.0 #MAP #MSA

Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit. This release of the MAP Toolkit helps increase the agility and cost effectiveness of deploying the latest Microsoft technologies. It also enhances usage tracking to include accounting for Remote Desktop Services as well as Server and Cloud Enrollment licensed deployments. MAP 9.0 additionally helps organizations assess their environment for Office 2013 and Office 365, track usage of Windows Server 2012, Lync Server 2013, SharePoint Server 2013, Exchange Server 2013, System Center Configuration Manager 2012, and SQL Server 2012. The Windows Azure assessment report has also been updated to include the latest Azure sizing.

New Server and Cloud Enrollment scenario helps to simplify adoption

Server and Cloud Enrollment (SCE) is a new offering under the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement that enables subscribers to standardize broadly on one or more Microsoft Server and Cloud technologies. The MAP Toolkit 9.0 features an assessment scenario to identify and inventory SCE supported products within an enterprise and help streamline enrollment.

New Remote Desktop Services Licensing Usage Tracking scenario creates a single view for enterprise wide licensing

With an increase in enterprises deploying Remote Desktop Services (RDS) across wider channels, RDS license management has become a focus point for organizations. With the new RDS Licensing scenario, the MAP Toolkit rolls up license information enterprise-wide into a single report, providing a simple alternative for assessing your RDS licensing position.

Support for software inventory via Software ID tags now available

As part of the Microsoft effort to support ISO 19770-2, the MAP Toolkit now supports inventory of Microsoft products by Software ID (SWID) tag. SWID enhanced reports will provide greater accuracy and assist large, complex environments to better manage their software compliance efforts by simplifying the software identification process and lowering the cost of managing software assets.

Improved Usage Tracking data collection for SQL Server Usage Tracking scenarios

As part of our ongoing improvement initiatives, Usage Tracking for SQL Server 2012 has been enhanced to use User Access Logging (UAL). UAL is a standard protocol in Windows Server 2012 that collects User Access information in near real time and stores the information in a local database, eliminating the need for log parsing to perform Usage Tracking assessments. UAL vastly improves the speed and helps to eliminate long lead times for environment preparation associated with running Usage Tracking assessments.

Download the MAP Toolkit 9.0 now!

Posted December 17, 2013 by Robert Smit in MAP Toolkit

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Microsoft Assessment and Planning #MAP Toolkit 8.5 #Hyperv #WS2012 #SQL #Cloud

 

Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 8.5 is now available for download!

Download MAP 8.5:

downloadDownload now!

Or visit the MAP Download Center page for more information including install instructions and system requirements.

 

The MAP team is pleased to announce the availability of Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 8.5! This release adds new scenarios to help organizations assess their environments with greater agility and lower their cost of delivery. MAP Toolkit 8.5 includes hardware and infrastructure readiness assessments to help organizations plan their Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 deployments. It also helps organizations assess their environment for Office 2013 and Office 365, track usage of Windows Server 2012, Lync Server 2013, SharePoint Server 2013, and Exchange Server 2013, and preparing a migration to Windows Azure virtual machines.

For a comprehensive list of features and benefits, click here.

Key Features and Benefits

Windows Volume Licensing scenario helps to assess license status of computers running Windows Vista SP1 and newer

For organizations licensing Windows, MAP Toolkit 8.5 detects and reports on the version of Windows running on client computers within the organization.  This helps customers to manage investments in Software Assurance and deploy upgrades appropriately.

Usage Tracking for Lync 2013, SharePoint 2013, and Exchange 2013

Groundbreaking releases of Lync, SharePoint, and Exchange were brought to market this year. MAP 8.5 leverages new usage tracking capabilities provided by these products to achieve greater accuracy collecting and reporting on end user access without the need to parse log files, resulting in a faster and more efficient usage tracking process.

Enhanced Virtual Machine discovery

As organizations leverage server virtualization to optimize their resources, availability, and agility, the added virtual machine discovery and reporting capabilities of MAP Toolkit 8.5 help organizations manage assets and license compliance across virtualized environments. Enhanced inventory reports list the virtual machines discovered and the number of virtual machines running on each host. Because licenses are allocated to the physical host specifying the number that can be run, these reports directly support license compliance. 

New and improved user interface

The updated user interface in MAP Toolkit 8.5 provides a more intuitive user experience. Scenario groups help users quickly navigate and view at-a-glance summaries on individual scenario tiles. Details for individual scenarios appear on the scenario detail pages along with a checklist of steps users can use to maximize results and enable one-click report generation.

Improved Documentation

As part of our ongoing attempt to improve documentation, the Getting Started Guide for the MAP Toolkit is now available as part of our MAP Toolkit Wiki.  Our new live documentation method allows us to deliver relevant and up-to-date product information, timely usage examples, and adapt to changing technologies between releases.

Download these resources to get you started with the MAP Toolkit:

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 at www.microsoft.com/solutionaccelerators.

Posted July 9, 2013 by Robert Smit in MAP Toolkit

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Accelerate your move to the Private Cloud with MAP 7.0 Beta

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:

· Understand your readiness to deploy Windows in your environment with hardware and device readiness assessments

· Determine Windows Server 2012 Beta readiness

· Investigate how Windows Server and System Center can manage your heterogeneous environment through VMware migration and Linux server virtualization assessments

· Size your desktop virtualization needs for both Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and session-based virtualization using Remote Desktop Services

· Ready your information platform for the cloud with the SQL Server 2012 discovery and migration assessment

· Evaluate your licensing needs with usage tracking for Lync 2010,  active users and devices, SQL Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 Beta

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 at www.microsoft.com/solutionaccelerators.

Follow Solution Accelerators on Twitter to get the latest tips and updates: @MSSolutionAccel

Posted May 17, 2012 by Robert Smit in MAP Toolkit

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