Soon you are going to be seeing a lot of information and advertisements for Windows 8 and the wide variety of new hardware devices. John Breeden from GCN has written a great article titled “5 ways Windows 8 can be great for agencies”. This is a very good read for those who are in the public sector and are evaluating Windows 8 for their agency.
The Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit team is pleased to announce that MAP 7.0 is now available for download.
The Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit is an agentless, automated, multi-product planning and assessment tool for quicker and easier desktop, server and cloud migrations. MAP provides detailed readiness assessment reports and executive proposals with extensive hardware and software information, and actionable recommendations to help organizations accelerate their IT infrastructure planning process, and gather more detail on assets that reside within their current environment. MAP also provides server utilization data for Hyper-V server virtualization planning; identifying server placements, and performing virtualization candidate assessments, including ROI analysis for server consolidation with Hyper-V.
The latest version of the MAP Toolkit adds several new scenarios to help you plan your IT future while supporting your current business needs. Included scenarios help you to:
· Plan your deployment of Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 with hardware and infrastructure readiness 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 SQL Server 2012
· Virtualize your existing Linux servers onto Hyper-V
· Identify opportunities to lower your virtualization costs with Hyper-V using the VMware migration assessment
· Assess user and device access for Lync 2010 Standard licensing
Key features and benefits of MAP 7.0 help you:
· Determine your readiness for Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8
· Migrate your VMware-based virtual machines to Hyper-V
· Size your server environment for desktop virtualization
· Simplify migration to SQL Server 2012
· Evaluate your licensing needs for Lync 2010
· Determine active users and devices
Assess Windows Server 2012 readiness
MAP 7.0 assesses the readiness of your IT infrastructure for a Windows Server 2012 deployment. This feature includes detailed and actionable recommendations indicating the machines that meet Windows Server 2012 system requirements and which may require hardware updates. A comprehensive inventory of servers, operating systems, workloads, devices, and server roles is included to help in your planning efforts.
Determine Windows 8 readiness
MAP 7.0 assesses the readiness of your IT environment for your Windows 8 deployment. This feature evaluates your existing hardware against the recommended system requirements for Windows 8. It provides recommendations detailing which machines meet the requirements and which machines may require hardware upgrades.
Key benefits include:
· Assessment report and summary proposal to help you to understand the scope and benefits of a Windows 8 deployment.
· Inventory of desktop computers, deployed operating systems, and applications.
Virtualize your Linux servers on Hyper-V
MAP 7.0 extends its server virtualization scenario to include Linux operating systems. Now, MAP enables you to gather performance data for Linux-based physical and virtual machines and use that information to perform virtualization and private cloud planning analysis for both Windows and Linux-based machines within the Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track scenario.
Key features allow you to:
· Incorporate non-Windows machines into your virtualization planning.
· View consolidation guidance and validated configurations with preconfigured Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track infrastructures, including computing power, network, and storage architectures.
· Get a quick analysis of server consolidation on Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track infrastructures to help accelerate your planning of physical to virtual (P2V) migration to Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track.
· Review recommended guidance and next steps using Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track.
For a comprehensive list of features and benefits, click here.
Next steps:
· Download MAP Toolkit 7.0.
· Send your comments to the MAP Team.
· Learn more about MAP.
Get the latest tips from Microsoft Solution Accelerators—in 140 characters or less! Follow us on Twitter: @MSSolutionAccel.
This evening Microsoft unveiled a new tablet called Surface. This will be available as a Windows on ARM and an Intel based device. There is just way too much cool here to put in this blog. Go over to the official Surface web site and check it out!
Check out the full press release and keynote video here or check out the advertisement video below.
Disclaimer: The information found in this blog post is not endorsed, recommended, or supported by Microsoft. If you run into any issues with this configuration you are on your own! You have been warned.
This blog post outlines how you can get SharePoint 2010 running on Windows 8 RP for development purposes. I put this together as a way to test out Visual Studio 2012 RC with SharePoint 2010 on Windows 8 RP.
To get started, please review the MSDN document called Setting Up the Development Environment for SharePoint 2010 on Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008. These are the basic steps required for getting SharePoint 2010 running on Windows 7. To get SharePoint running on Windows 8 RP there are a few additional steps which I have outlined below. Some of the steps will reference information in the MSDN article linked above.
Note:
I would like to hear feedback If you try running SharePoint 2010 on Windows 8 RP for development evaluation purposes.
Yesterday afternoon Microsoft launched the much anticipated Windows 8 Release Preview. This is the final pre-release and includes new Windows 8 apps, hundred of new apps in the Windows store, and Internet Explorer 10.
Read about the road map towards Release to Manufacturing (RTM) on the Building Windows 8 Blog while you are downloading your copy of Windows 8!
Windows 8 Release Preview: Download Here
Windows 8 Release Preview: Download here
Product Key: TK8TP-9JN6P-7X7WW-RFFTV-B7QPF
Are you wondering what new features Windows 8 will bring to your business and the enterprise? Check out this post over on the Windows for your Business Blog.