The following table lists key elements in Microsoft®
Provisioning Framework's architecture.
Element |
Description |
Groups |
Categories of users. Microsoft Provisioning Framework has five
groups: MPFAdmins, MPFAuditors, MPFServiceAccts, MPFClientAccts,
and MPFTrustedUsers. |
Microsoft Provisioning Framework |
Platform for building, deploying, managing, and extending
hosted services running on Microsoft Windows operating
systems. |
Namespace |
Mechanism that Microsoft Provisioning Framework uses to link
providers and procedures with MPF. Namespaces can also be used to
group procedure calls. Every namespace procedure has an input
schema and (optionally) an output schema. The input schema
optionally validates data supplied to the procedure. The output
schema defines the format for data returned by the procedure. |
Procedure |
Blueprint for executing the steps of a provisioning request. A
procedure can be a declaration of a provisioning action executed by
a provider or a sequence of calls to other MPF procedures. |
Providers |
Mechanisms to execute requests. A provider is a COM object with
one or more procedures that automate specific tasks. The provider
is implemented as a .DLL file with a corresponding namespace
registered in the configuration database. |
Provisioning Engines |
Transaction coordinators that route real-time provisioning
requests to called providers. The engine provides a framework for
integrating multiple actions into a single transaction. The engine
maintains contextual information and transaction state. |
Requests |
Instruction to the Microsoft Provisioning Framework to execute
a provisioning task. |
Provisioning Queue Manager Service |
Mechanism to coordinate requests queued for later processing by
a provisioning engine. Examples of queued requests include
operations that typically require a lot of time to complete and
batch operations that process many records simultaneously. |
Transaction Logs |
Record of the real-time state of all executing transactions
running in provisioning engines. Transaction logs are implemented
as Microsoft® SQL Server databases. |
Transactions |
Series of activities associated with a request and used to
manage transaction state and rollback information. |