Microsoft Provisioning System provides integrated management for IIS resources through Resource Manager. You can manage IIS resources either by using Delegated Administration Console or by submitting direct XML requests.
There are four types of provisioning actions involved with managing IIS resources: registering resources, unregistering resources, creating Web and FTP sites, and deleting Web and FTP sites. Before you can create a Web or an FTP site for an organization, you must first register the appropriate resources with Resource Manager. Resources include the disk space that will be used for Web or FTP site files, and IP addresses. Once you register an IIS resource, such as disk space or an IP address, Resource Manager keeps track of its provisioning status.
It is recommended that you make sure the IP addresses you register are properly bound to a network card on the IIS server. Resource Manager will accept any IP address that you provide and will provision it to a new Web or FTP site. If the IP address is not bound to a network card on the IIS server, however, IIS will start the Web site, but users will not be able to access it.
It is recommended that you verify the available disk space on the volume before registering it. Resource Manager will accept any amount of disk space that you specify, whether or not it is available on the physical disk. Resource Manager will then provision all of the disk space you registered, even if it is not available. This can result in errors when organizations attempt to use the disk space for Web or FTP site content.
When you create a Web or an FTP site, Microsoft Provisioning System queries the Resource Manager database to identify the Web server that has sufficient disk space for the Web or FTP site, and it makes available an IP address. Microsoft Provisioning System then creates the Web or FTP site on the appropriate server, assigns it an IP address, and updates the Resource Manager database with the IIS Active Directory Service Interfaces (ADSI) path of the Web or FTP site, the disk space allocated, and the IP address.
When you delete a Web or an FTP site, Microsoft Provisioning System updates the Resource Manager database to release the associated disk space and IP address so they can be used to provision another Web or FTP site.
For more information about Resource Manager, see Resource management. For more information about registering and allocating IIS resources, see Working with IIS resources. For specific procedures on registering IIS resources, see "Register IIS resources" in the installation documentation located in the root folder on the Microsoft Provisioning System product CD. For a single computer configuration, see install_single.htm. For a multi-computer configuration, see install_multi.htm. For specific procedures on creating Web and FTP sites, see Configure Web services.