In Microsoft Provisioning System, XML-based procedures provide the basis for implementing the processing and error handling that are required to provision services. Microsoft Provisioning System also includes resource management and security features that are the foundation for all other provisioning functionality.

Figure: Transaction processing in the Microsoft Provisioning System

Transaction processing in Microsoft Provisioning System depends on four key entities: requests, procedures, namespaces, and providers. The functionality of all components of Microsoft Provisioning System depends on these four entities.

Requests

Requests are the starting point for all provisioning services in Microsoft Provisioning System. Requests are XML documents that can be submitted to the provisioning engine of Microsoft Provisioning Framework (MPF) by using the MPS Web Services, the Sample Web UI, or directly using XML. For more information on requests and how they are implemented in Microsoft Provisioning System, see Request Architecture.

Procedures

Procedures provide the foundation for all transaction provisioning in Microsoft Provisioning System. For MPF to respond appropriately to a request, the request must call an appropriate XML procedure in MPF. Each procedure is responsible for invoking the required functionality to fulfill the request. For more information on procedures and how they are implemented in Microsoft Provisioning System, see Procedure Architecture.

Namespaces

The XML-based procedures implemented in MPF are grouped into XML-based namespaces. Each namespace consists of one or more related procedures. MPF uses the namespaces and their procedures to invoke the functionality required to process the requested transactions that implement provisioning services. For more information on namespaces and how they are implemented in Microsoft Provisioning System, see Namespace Architecture.

Providers

Although namespaces and their procedures are used to invoke functionality, the underlying providers are required in order to implement the functionality. A provider is a Component Object Model (COM) object that consists of one or more procedures that provision a resource or a distinct set of services, such as Active Directory, Microsoft SQL Server, or Resource Manager. For more information on providers and how they are implemented in Microsoft Provisioning System, see Provider Architecture.

Microsoft Provisioning System supports extensive functionality with the procedures, namespaces, and providers that it implements. Together, individual namespaces, their procedures, and the underlying providers offer extensible support for request processing for Web-hosting services, Exchange messaging and collaboration, and other provisioning services.