technical solutions and commentary

Simplify planning for upgrade or migration to the latest Microsoft products and technologies with the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 5.5 Beta. This tool is now includes assessment for easier migration to Windows Azure and SQL Azure, heterogeneous database discovery (of MySQL, Oracle and Sybase instances) for SQL Server migration projects, Internet Explorer 8 upgrade assessment, and more.

• Assess your environment for upgrade to Windows 7 and Windows Internet Explorer 8 (or the latest version). Helps to simplify the organization’s migration to Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8. The MAP 5.5 Internet Explorer Upgrade Assessment inventories the environment and reports on deployed web browsers, Microsoft ActiveX controls, plug-ins and toolbars, and then generates a migration assessment report and proposal. Information needed to more easily migrate to Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8 (or the latest version).
• Identify and analyze web application, and database readiness for migration to Windows Azure and SQL Azure. Simplify the move to the cloud with the MAP 5.5 automated discovery and detailed inventory reporting on database and web application readiness for Windows Azure and SQL Azure. MAP identifies web applications, IIS servers, and SQL Server databases, analyzes  performance characteristics, and estimates required cloud features such as number of Windows Azure compute instances, number of SQL Azure databases, bandwidth usage, and storage.
• Discover heterogeneous database instances for migration to SQL Server. Now with heterogeneous database inventory supported, MAP 5.5 helps accelerate migration to SQL Server with network inventory reporting for MySQL, Oracle, and Sybase instances.
• Enhanced server consolidation assessments for Hyper-V. Enhanced server consolidation capabilities help save time and effort when creating virtualization assessments and proposals. Enhancements include:

• Updated hardware libraries allowing you to select from the latest Intel and AMD processors.
• Customized server selection for easy editing of assessment data.
• Data collection and store every five minutes for more accurate reporting.
• Better scalability and reliability, requiring less oversight of the data collection process.
• Support for more machines.

If you are interested in previewing this before the RTM, you can join the MAP 5.5 Beta here.