Here’s a great new update to the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit that will be demoed here at #WPC10 for partners that I think you may be interested in.  For those of you that follow my Blog regularly or subscribe to my RSS feed, you may recall previous posts I have done about the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit, which is an integrated planning toolkit that makes it easier for Microsoft customers and partners to quickly identify what servers, workstations, and network devices are in their IT environment. This agent-less and scalable toolkit has the ability to discover all computers within Active Directory and workgroup environments. It performs key functions that include hardware and device inventory, hardware compatibility analysis, and generation of actionable, environment-specific IT proposals for migration to most major Microsoft technologies. 

Well, this week at #WPC10, our Worldwide Licensing and Pricing (WWLP) team will be demonstrating a new free software usage tracker feature of the Microsoft Assessment Planning (MAP) tool, which helps customers evaluate their software asset management needs.  In a session on Thursday from 1:00 – 2:00 in WCC-201 here at #WPC10, Denis Ford, senior product manager of worldwide licensing and pricing, will demonstrate this new functionality for partners.  With this latest update to the MAP tool, customers can easily view software license reports on actual usage of five key Microsoft server products (Windows Server, Exchange Server, SharePoint Server, SQL Server and System Center Configuration Manager), in addition to all of the other reporting and discovery already included in previous versions of the MAP Tool.  Here is a sample screenshot of this new software usage reporting from the new MAP tool:

image (Click image for full size) – Notice that you can see how many Users and Devices have accessed the Windows Servers during the reporting timeline.  Very helpful information when determining User or Device CALs and how many!

This new usage based reporting will help address several issues:

  • Software Usage Tracking capability of the MAP tool provides Volume Licensing customers with the information they need to help verify their CAL license positions
  • Helps partners meet one of the top Volume Licensing customer pain points of tracking and managing licenses with the Software Usage Tracker and accompanying licensing guidance information
  • Provides Volume Licensing customers with help to balance their usage with their Server and CAL license information.  This in turn helps partners produce faster sales cycle times during agreement renewal negotiations

Want to learn more about the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit and give it a try?  Here you go:

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Thank you and have a wonderful day,

Eric Ligman – Follow me on TWITTER, LinkedIn, and RSS and see “What I’m thinking”
Global Partner Experience Lead
Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

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