Microsoft Planning Tools for Your Server Virtualization Projects

Baldwin, just posted a great load of info about using the IPD for your server virtualization projects over here. But to recap here is what he said…

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Planning is a crucial part of every successful IT project.  Unfortunately, who can ever find enough time to plan? 

Well, Microsoft has developed a set of planning tools (called Solution Accelerators) to help you. Whether you are considering Windows Server 2008 R2 OS migration, consolidation your servers with Hyper-V, or virtualization management with System Center Virtual Machine Manager, you will find these 2 planning tools very helpful to accelerate your planning process, save some valuable time so you can focus on the actual deployment work.

Tool #1: Infrastructure Planning and Design Guides (IPD) for Windows Server Virtualization and Management

The IPD Guides are the Microsoft best practice to help you ask the right questions during the planning phase of your projects and offer you step-by-step guidance through flow-charts and diagrams.  This is especially useful if you have not designed an infrastructure for Windows Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V or System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 before.

Tool #2: Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit (MAP) for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V

The MAP Toolkit is an agent-less inventory tool that not only discovery machines on your network for device/hardware compatibility checks regarding Windows Server 2008 R2 migration.  It can also collect performance metrics to determine where your under-utilized servers are and which ones are the best virtualization candidates through the use of Hyper-V hypervisor technology.  Also, this MAP Toolkit can analyze your desktops for Windows 7 hardware compatibility as well!

Enjoy reading these guides and start tooling up for your Virtualization Projects!

Baldwin Ng (Sr. Product Manager, Microsoft Solution Accelerators)