Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 8.5 Beta Now Available

This week the Solution Accelerator Team announced the Beta version of Microsoft Assessment and Planning 8.5 (MAP) Toolkit. This new version of the Microsoft® Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit provides agentless discovery, inventory and assessment for a variety of scenarios. Some of the key features in this release are:

• Newly designed user interface makes it easier to find and use the right tool for the job.
• Added support for Lync 2013, SharePoint 2013, and Exchange 2013 Usage Tracking.
• Advances in Virtual Machine Discovery to improve VM inventory results.
• New Windows Volume Licensing scenario helps identify the licensing status of computers running Windows Vista SP1 or newer.

This latest version of MAP adds new scenarios to help plan your environment with agility while lowering the cost of delivering IT. Included in MAP 8.5 are hardware and infrastructure readiness assessments to assist you in planning the deployment of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, preparing your migration to Windows Azure Virtual Machines, readying your environment for Office 2013 and Office 365, and tracking your usage of Windows Server, Lync, SharePoint, and Exchange.

The key to a successful experience using the MAP Toolkit is to complete a phased approach of six steps sequentially.

Newly designed user interface

The MAP Toolkit 8.5 Beta features a newly designed user interface which provides a more intuitive user experience. Scenarios have been organized into Scenario Groups to allow quick navigation and display at-a-glance summaries on individual scenario tiles. Details for each scenario can be found in the Scenario Detail Pages along with a checklist of steps needed to maximize your results and enable one-click report generation.

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

Groundbreaking new releases of Lync, SharePoint, and Exchange have been brought to market this year. These products provide IT organizations and their end users greater efficiency, productivity and flexibility than ever before. With the release of the MAP Toolkit 8.5 Beta, the usage tracking scenarios within MAP have been updated to leverage new usage tracking capabilities provided within Lync, SharePoint, and Exchange resulting in less  administrative effort and greater accuracy to collect and report on end user access to these servers.

Enhanced Virtual Machine discovery

Server virtualization has become the standard method for optimizing an organization’s resource utilization, availability, and agility. The MAP Toolkit 8.5 Beta assists in the effort to virtualize with added discoverability of virtual machines for software asset location and reporting to facilitate license compliance for highly virtualized environments. Additionally, the MAP Toolkit now includes enhanced inventory reports which detail the virtual machines discovered, as well as the total number of virtual machines running on each host.

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

Microsoft Volume Licensing gives you flexible, cost-effective access to the Microsoft products and services that your business is built upon. The MAP Toolkit 8.5 Beta provides the ability to detect and report on the volume license status of client computers in your enterprise so you can rest assured that you are in full compliance with your volume license agreement.

December last year I wrote a post which provides an more in-depth overview of the key components of the MAP Toolkit.

Join here the beta review program for Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 8.5 Beta at Microsoft Connect. The MAP Toolkit 8.5 Beta can be downloaded here