In the system enhancement scenario, you can add select Microsoft Provisioning System (MPS) providers to your existing system to enhance the provisioning functionality that it contains. In this scenario, these conditions apply:

  • You have an existing provisioning system that performs certain tasks, such as creating Web sites.
  • You want to start using MPS providers such as SQL, Internet Information Services (IIS), Active Directory, or Windows SharePoint while continuing to utilize your existing system.

To accommodate your new infrastructure, it is unnecessary to incur the expense of development time to write code that communicates with the various providers, such as the Exchange, SQL, IIS, Windows SharePoint, Office Communication Services, Computer Management, or Active Directory providers. You can simply integrate the provider functionality into your existing provisioning system by writing the logic that sends XML requests to the MPF Client. Thereafter, the completion of provisioning tasks is abstracted because the client handles XML data conversions for calls to the Provisioning Engine, which in turn handles calls to the appropriate providers - all of which run in the background.

The following figure shows a custom Web application that you might be using to call your existing provisioning system. In this scenario, you can continue to use your existing provisioning infrastructure while at the same time beginning to use MPS providers for specific tasks.

To add new MPS provider functionality into your system, your custom Web application must do one of the following:

  • Instantiate the MPF COM Client Object using ASP code. In this configuration, your Web application must also pass in the XML string and other input parameters, and call the SubmitRequest method of the MPF COM Client object so that the request can be submitted to the Provisioning Engine.
  • Use the MPS .NET Client Wrapper to create base XML requests. In this configuration, your Web application must instantiate the Request class and the MPF COM Client object, provide the namespace and procedure you want to call, and call the SubmitRequest method to submit the XML request to the Provisioning Engine.
  • Send a request into MPS using ASP.NET Web Service.
    See Scenario 3: Initiate the Provisioning Process from a Web Service for information about sending requests using ASP.NET Web Service.

For more information see: