Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator

Posted on January 25th, 2008 by Anthony Clendenen.
Categories: Application Virtualization, Beta, Docs, Downloads, Hyper-V, Microsoft, Server 2008, Virtual Server, Virtualization, Vista.

Use this new version of the WVHA to determine if your hardware is ready to migrate to Vista and determine if you can migrate to Server 2008. It can also help you assess if you can virtualize servers by migrating them to Virtual Server or Server 2008’s Hyper-V and if you can safely migrate your applications into the virtualization world as well using Microsoft Application Virtualization.

You can download Server 2008 RC1 with Hyper-V here.

Microsoft Assessment and Planning Overview

Introduction

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator (MAP) is the expanded version of the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment solution accelerator (WVHA). This new version of the network-wide assessment tool gives you not only the original capability of hardware inventory and assessment for desktops, but also expanded features including server migration recommendation with Windows Server 2008, virtualization workload placements for server consolidation with Hyper-V or Virtual Server 2005 R2, and application virtualization recommendations with Microsoft Application Virtualization.

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning tool is based on agent-less infrastructure scanning technology that makes it easier to set up the inventory without the requirement of installing any software agents on each machine being inventoried. In addition, this tool can generate localized desktop readiness reports in North American English, German, French, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Download Microsoft Assessment and Planning Beta Now!

Features Overview

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator performs three key functions, including hardware and device inventory, compatibility analysis, and readiness reporting.

Figure 1. Three Main Functions of Microsoft Assessment and Planning

Secure and Agentless Inventory

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning tool provides secure, agent-less and network-wide inventory for up to 100,000 computers. It collects and organizes system resource and device information from a single networked computer. Assessment tools often require users to first deploy software agents on all computers to be inventoried but this tool does not.

It is capable of discovering and assessing computers and devices on a network that supports Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) and the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and those that run on the following operating systems:

Windows Vista

Windows XP® Professional

Windows Server 2003™ or Windows Server 2003 R2

Windows 2000 Professional or Windows 2000 Server

Non-Windows (SNMP-enabled)

Comprehensive Hardware and Device Compatibility Analysis

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning provides detailed analysis on hardware and device compatibility for migration to Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office. Specifically, this tool analyzes each machine’s readiness for the migration by looking at the specific hardware and device compatibility requirements that Microsoft published.

For customers interested in server consolidation and virtualization technologies such as Hyper-V or Virtual Server 2005 R2, this tool helps gather performance metrics and generate server consolidation recommendation reports that identify the best candidates for server virtualization. It also provides assessment reports for SoftGrid.

In-Depth Readiness Reporting

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning tool generates custom reports containing both high-level and detailed assessment results for migration to many products. The results are provided in both Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word formats:

Hardware assessment and upgrade recommendations for migration to Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office

Server consolidation and workload placement recommendations using Hyper-V or Virtual Server 2005 R2

Application virtualization candidate recommendation report for Microsoft Application Virtualization

Inventory of Non-Windows or heterogeneous environment

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning tool can generate desktop readiness reports in seven languages including North American English, German, French, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Source.

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E

http://configmgr.com

© Anthony Clendenen

Technorati Tags: Vista,Server 2008,Hyper-V,Virtualization,Virtual Server,Application Virtualization,configmgr

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Windows Server 2008 RTM on Jan 16

Posted on January 4th, 2008 by Anthony Clendenen.
Categories: Config Manager, ConfigMgr, Microsoft, NAP, News, Server 2008, Virtual Server, Windows Server Virtualization.

Visual Stu2008 ws2008logo

If the other offerings RTM at the same time we should see server 2008, Vista SP1, Visual Studio 2008, and SQL Sever 2008 all in a few weeks. This means NAP, Hypervisor, multicasting…

Source.

If you would like to attend the launch event in Los Angeles on Feb. 27th or any of the other launch events you can register here.

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E

http://configmgr.com

I Recommend These Books!
SMS 2003 Administrator’s Reference: Systems Management Server 2003 - SMS 2003 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach - Microsoft SMS Installer (Book/CD-ROM package) - Pro SMS 2003 - Professional MOM 2005, SMS 2003, and WSUS - Start to Finish Guide to Distributing Software With Systems Management Server 2003 - Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 - Administrator’s Companion

And you can check out more books and gadgets at my Amazon store here.

Technorati Tags: Windows Server 2008,SQL Server 2008,Visual Studio 2008,NAP,Network Access Protection,Hypervisor,RTM,Launch Events,Multicasting,ConfigMgr

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Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 SCSI Driver Demystified

Posted on October 7th, 2007 by Anthony Clendenen.
Categories: Beta, Blogroll, ConfigMgr, Downloads, Free!, How-To, Microsoft, Server 2008, Virtual PC, Virtual Server, Virtualization, Windows Server Virtualization.

There seems to be a lack of information around the virtual SCSI driver in Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, or at least information that is easy to find so here are some tips on getting the most out of this driver and how it compares to the IDE driver.

You don’t have to have a physical SCSI card or SCSI hard drives to use SCSI in Virtual Server 2005. The SCSI driver is a virtual SCSI driver for a virtual SCSI bus, it does not need to use a real SCSI card.
The SCSI driver only has limited support. Using this driver with non-Windows OS’s may not work, or even older Windows versions. YMMV
There is no SCSI driver for Virtual PC.
The performance of the SCSI driver is very slow until you have the virtual machine additions installed. The virtual machine additions contain the accelerated SCSI driver but you can install this driver during your setup of 2003, 2000, and XP by installing VS 2005 R2 and using the virtual floppy to load the accelerated SCSI driver or "shunt driver" during setup just as you would install any SCSI driver by using the F6 key when setup first starts.