The Microsoft Provisioning System (MPS) Deployment Tool is a stand-alone .NET application that enables you to automate the distribution and configuration of MPS components in your hosting environment. Deployable MPS components include the Provisioning Engine, MPF COM Client, Providers, namespaces, databases, and resource managers. By using the MPS Deployment Tool to install provisioning components, you can do the following:

  • Eliminate all manual installation and configuration steps.
  • Minimize the occurrence of errors.
  • Provide a reliable, repeatable, and verifiable setup of all your provisioning components.
  • Get up and running very quickly.

The MPS Deployment Tool provides access to a package of Microsoft Windows Installer (MSI) files that are distributed to your provisioning environment at deployment time. The manner in which components are distributed and configured is based on how you design your environment with the tool. To facilitate this, the tool enables you to preset the configuration of various components in the environment prior to running the actual deployment. You can even verify an existing environment that you configured when running the tool in previous deployments.

Other advantages you obtain by using the MPS Deployment Tool are that you can:

  • Modify your installation with the tool rather than by uninstalling and then reinstalling all components.
  • Reconfigure components after you deploy them.
  • Update single components instead of removing and reinstalling components.
  • Install MPS components remotely, so you can choose to run the tool on any remote computer in your Active Directory hosting domain.