Microsoft Assessment & Planning

On your menu for 2008: Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Hyper-V, Windows Essential Business Server, Server Virtualization, Applicaton virtualization (aka SoftGrid).

How do you cope?

Microsoft Assessment & Planning, or MAP!

In the short Windows Vista™ timeframe so far, one of the ways Microsoft has helped ease the appraisal and architecting processes for migration to the new operating system was the creation of the Solutions Accelerators program, of which I have blogged, and written extensively.

One of the most important components in the Solutions Accelerators program has been the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment tool. Windows Vista Hardware Assessment (WVHA), is an agentless method of querying and inventorying your enterprises’ database with a view to gleaning a greater understanding of what exactly your company possesses in hardware for Windows Vista™ readiness.

What we found, in our testing and utilization of the tool was that WVHA enabled us to accomplish in mere minutes what had taken us an appreciable number of time to accomplish manually: the tool is almost unbelievably fast, and the results are incredibly detailed, making poring over them easy.

Version 2+ of the tool introduced the ability of an admin to inventory organizational units within the whole enterprise among other improvements.

Today, Microsoft steps up to the plate again, and hits another home run, with the introduction of Microsoft Assessment & Planning Solution Accelerator.

What is MAP?

MAP is the logical evolution of WVHA, extending the assessment capabilities of that previous tool to entirely new realms. MAP will provide assessment and planning data for the following targets: Windows Server 2008, Windows Server Virtualization, Terminal Services, SoftGrid, System Center Virtual Machine Manager, Windows Vista, and 2007 Microsoft Office.

Very seldom have I been hit with a realization of the obviousness of an idea. This is one of them.

Baldwin Ng is the program manager for MAP on the Solutions Accelerators team. I was able to chat with him about this impressive product.

[John Obeto]: In a nutshell, what is the (Microsoft) Solutions Accelerators, program, and where does MAP fit into it?

[Baldwin] Microsoft Solution Accelerators are free automated tools and technical guidance designed to help IT professionals and Microsoft Partners accelerate the assessment, planning and deployment of the latest Microsoft technologies. For the upcoming release of Windows Server 2008 and the Hyper-V virtualization technology, we will release a full set of solution accelerators between now and early Spring.

One of these solution accelerators that I’m currently working on is called the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator (or MAP). MAP is the expanded version of the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment tool released in February this year. It is an inventory and assessment tool that can discover and analyze servers, client machines, applications and network devices for migration to Windows Server 2008, Hyper-V, Virtual Server 2005 R2, Microsoft Application Virtualization, System Center Virtual Machine Manager, Windows Vista, 2007 Microsoft Office and more. Upon completion of the network-wide inventory and assessment, it would auto-generate specific technical guidance in the form of proposals and detailed assessment reports.

For example, you may use MAP to determine if your existing servers can migrate to Windows Server 2008 and use the hardware upgrade recommendations report to help you plan the server migration. In addition, if you are considering server consolidation using the Hyper-V virtualization feature of Windows Server 2008, you will find MAP very useful as well. It can collect performance data from a select list of physical servers over a fixed period of time and generate virtualization candidates recommendation according to the specs of the hosts. The beta bits for MAP will be available in the coming days at: http://www.microsoft.com/map

To learn more about other solution accelerators for Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, SharePoint and more, customers may visit us at: http://www.microsoft.com/solutionaccelerators

[John]: Since WVHA was agent-less, can we assume that the MAP will be the same?

[Baldwin]: Yes. The agent-less inventory feature will remain in MAP as well. This zero-touch way to identify and assess computers via Active Directory, WMI and other Windows 32 networking protocols has been well received by our customers and partners using the previous versions of WVHA.

[John]: WVHA has a requirement that two components of Microsoft Office, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel, be installed on the console system in order for installation and running of WVHA. Will this same requirement be necessary for MAP?

[Baldwin]: WVHA and MAP leverage the Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel API to generate actionable reports and proposals for each assessment scenario. Users with the following versions will be able to take advantage of the reporting features:

· Microsoft Word 2007 or Microsoft Word 2003 SP2

· Microsoft Excel 2007 or Microsoft Excel 2003 SP2

[John]: Can the same result be achieved with a browser implementation using Silverlight and the results delivered in the XPS document format? For the few without Microsoft office.

[Baldwin]: For future releases of MAP, we will definitely consider adding the creation of reports in XPS. We have not received a strong demand for this at this point, however.

[John]: Does the roadmap for MAP, public or internal, include the adding of storage assets to the already impressive feature list of assessment targets?

[Baldwin]: MAP has the capability to identify and inventory devices that are SNMP-enabled. If the storage devices as SNMP-enabled, MAP will be able to find them.

I am impressed that Microsoft is taking a very proactive approach to the needs of (IT) administrators everywhere even as it ushers in the age of general virtualization availability. With the forecasted boom in virtualization looming, we administrators need all the help we can get in order to make the right choices.

The development of a tool to accomplish the easing of IT pain points as MAP would do, coupled with the ease of server setup Windows Server 2008 promises, will definitely ease the concerns of many a server admin.

Looking at the exclusive screenshot below, you see the UI is at once familiar, and workmanlike.

Tasks are laid out logically, and it follows an almost Windows Server 2008 role-like convention.

One thing we can also take from this is the moving of Application Virtualization, formerly SoftGrid to the fore in the list of Microsoft technologies designed to help ease compatibility woes.

This MAP 1.0 beta is now open to all, and the link to join the beta on Microsoft Connect is here.

Copyright © 2007, John Obeto II for SmallBizVista.com