News

Microsoft Releases Windows Assessment, Deployment Tools into Beta Testing

• By Kurt Mackie
• 06/02/2011

Microsoft announced two toolkit beta test releases for Windows-based deployment and migration planning that are part of the company's free Solution Accelerator series for IT pros.

The Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2012 beta 1 can be downloaded at the Microsoft Connect site here (requires Windows Live ID). Microsoft describes MDT as a component that "works with the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit and Security Compliance Manager to help you plan, securely deploy, and manage new Microsoft technologies."

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 6.0 beta is available here (requires Windows Live ID). Microsoft describes MAP as an "agentless, automated, multi-product planning and assessment tool for quicker and easier desktop and server migrations."

Both betas include improvements over earlier releases.

MDT 2012 beta 1 integrates into the new Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2012 console, which itself is only available as a beta 2 release. MDT 2012 beta 1 offers a better user experience for Lite Touch installations. It supports new Microsoft operating systems such as Windows ThinPC and Windows POSReady 7, according to a Microsoft blog post. It also supports computers that use the unified extensible firmware interface BIOS and it can help deploy a Windows 7 image to a virtual hard disk. Supposedly, it is easy to upgrade to the MDT 2012 beta 1 release too. The test period for this beta will extend through August of this year, according to a System Center blog post.

MAP Toolkit 6.0 beta includes some new features to help with public and private cloud planning, as well as assessing the readiness of the computing environment's infrastructure for such migrations. Highlights of the new features in the MAP Toolkit 6.0 beta include:

• The ability to analyze apps to move to Microsoft's Windows Azure cloud computing platform;
• Private cloud migration planning support, especially to clouds using Microsoft's Hyper-V hypervisor technology;
• Server inventory support, including reporting on VMware technologies;
• Office 365 readiness assessments;
• Internet Explorer 9 browser compatibility analysis when moving to Windows 7; and
• SQL Server migration assessments when moving from Oracle products.

This Microsoft partner blog provides a fuller description of the new features in MAP Toolkit 6.0 beta. The review period for this beta extends through mid-July of this year.

Those looking for more descriptions of the various free Microsoft Solution Accelerator tools can find some links at this Microsoft TechNet page.