You can use Provisioning Manager to administer all namespaces and their procedures. You can also use Provisioning Manager to create, import, and delete namespaces. In addition, for each namespace that you use in your deployment, you can administer the properties of the namespace, as well as the properties of each procedure in the namespace. You can also view the XML of each namespace and procedure and set permissions for each.
For more information on administering Microsoft Provisioning Framework (MPF) namespaces and procedures, including the specific properties and other settings you can configure for each, see Administering namespaces and procedures in Provisioning Manager Help.
The namespaces you use is determined by which components of Microsoft Provisioning System you use and which custom namespaces you implement. The following table shows the namespaces that are registered in the MPF configuration database if you install all of the components of Microsoft Provisioning System. The table also explains how each namespace is installed and which namespaces are required by each component of Microsoft Provisioning System.
| Installed by default with MPF | Installed using NamedProcedures.msi | Installed automatically when associated individual provider is installed | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Active Directory Provider | Contains procedures that execute the core functionality of Active Directory. This namespace is required by Delegated Administration Console. For more information on this namespace, see Active Directory Provider. | ||
| Preferred DC Active Directory Provider | Works with Active Directory Provider to implement support for using a specific domain controller. This namespace is required by Delegated Administration Console. For more information on this namespace, see Preferred DC Active Directory Provider. | ||
| Managed Active Directory | Contains aggregate procedures that you use to perform composite tasks. For example, the CreateUser procedure provides the structure required to add an object (a user) to Active Directory and then add it to an organization. This namespace is required by Delegated Administration Console. For more information on this namespace, see Managed Active Directory. | ||
| Managed Hosting | Contains procedures that initialize Active Directory for hosting and implements other basic Active Directory and resource management support. This namespace is required by Delegated Administration Console. For more information on this namespace, see Managed Hosting. | ||
| Exchange Provider | Contains procedures that call Exchange Provider to invoke the core functionality of Microsoft Exchange 2000 Enterprise Server. It contains procedures to create and manage Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) domains, mailboxes, global address lists (GALs), and other Exchange components. This namespace is supported but not required by Delegated Administration Console. For more information on this namespace, see Exchange Provider. | ||
| Managed Exchange | Contains aggregate procedures that you use to perform composite tasks to manage Exchange services. For example, the CreateExchangeServices procedure provides the structure required to set up a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) domain for an organization and configure Microsoft Exchange 2000 Enterprise Server services for this organization. This namespace is supported but not required by Delegated Administration Console. For more information on this namespace, see Managed Exchange. | ||
| Exchange Resource Manager | Contains aggregate procedures that you use to manage Exchange resources through Resource Manager in Microsoft Provisioning Framework (MPF). This namespace is supported but not required by Delegated Administration Console. For more information on this namespace, see Exchange Resource Manager. | ||
| IIS Provider | Contains procedures that execute core Internet Information Services (IIS) functionality. You can use this provider to configure IIS computers, virtual directories, File Transfer Protocol (FTP) sites, and Web sites for your resellers and customers. This namespace is required by Delegated Administration Console. For more information on this namespace, see IIS Provider. | ||
| Managed IIS | Contains aggregate procedures with which you perform composite tasks to manage IIS services. This namespace is required by Delegated Administration Console. For more information on this namespace, see Managed IIS. | ||
| IIS Resource Manager | Contains aggregate procedures with which you perform composite tasks to manage Exchange resources through Resource Manager in MPF. This namespace is required by Delegated Administration Console. For more information on this namespace, see IIS Resource Manager. | ||
| FrontPageProvider | Contains procedures that implement support for managing directories, sites, properties, and other functionality pertaining to FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions from Microsoft. For more information on this namespace, see FrontPage Provider. | ||
| CoreRMO | Contains procedures that implement the core Resource Manager functionality, including add, delete, query, and update operations for consumers and resources (as well as their respective instances, types, and groups). It also establishes mapping relationships between consumers (instances and groups) and resources (instances and groups). This namespace is required by MPF. It is a read-only namespace because it performs critical MPF operations. This namespace is required by Delegated Administration Console. For more information on this namespace, see CoreRMO. | ||
| BlockModelRMO | Contains procedures that implement extended Resource Manager functionality, which supports resource management based on fixed-block allocation. In the block model, each resource has a maximum capacity, and each consumer allocation uses a given percentage of that capacity. This namespace is required by MPF. It is a read-only namespace because it performs critical MPF operations. This namespace is also required by Delegated Administration Console. For more information on this namespace, see BlockModelRMO. | ||
| Custom Audit | Contains a procedure to add audit data. For more information on this namespace, see Custom Audit. | ||
| Error Provider | Contains procedures to write specific errors and send them to the Windows Application Event Log, send errors to MPF to return to the calling procedure, or translate an error into a meaningful message that is returned to the user. This namespace is required by MPF. It is a read-only namespace because it performs critical MPF operations. This namespace is also required by Delegated Administration Console. For more information on this namespace, see Error Provider. | ||
| File System Provider | Contains procedures to perform common file system maintenance tasks involving files, directories, and network shares. You can use this provider to create, move, rename, and delete files and directories, and administer network shares. This namespace is required by Delegated Administration Console. For more information on this namespace, see File System Provider. | ||
| HTTP and SOAP Provider | Contains procedures that to send HTTP requests or Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) requests from a provisioning engine of MPF to remote Web servers. HTTP and SOAP Provider also enables encryption of these requests. This namespace is required by Delegated Administration Console. This namespace is required by Delegated Administration Console. For more information on this namespace, see HTTP and SOAP Provider. | ||
| SQL Provider | Contains procedures that you can use to pass SQL (Structure Query Language) and ADO (ActiveX Directory Objects) commands to an OLE DB provider on a database server. With SQL Provider, you use a single procedure, either ExecSQL or Execute SQL, to pass parameters to the SQL command on a database server. This namespace is required by Delegated Administration Console. For more information on this namespace, see SQL Provider. | ||
| Command Line Provider | Enables the execution of command-line actions associated with provisioning requests. With this provider, you can execute a specific command or roll back a failed action in MPF. This namespace is required by Delegated Administration Console. For more information on this namespace, see Command Line Provider. | ||
| Scripting Provider | With Scripting Provider, you can aggregate actions of providers or combine actions of other scripts. You can also use Scripting Provider to create prototypes of custom providers. The provider has two execute procedures for scripting processes, one with rollback and one without. In each of these procedures, the actual script can be referenced from a file or embedded as inline XML. This namespace is required by Delegated Administration Console. For more information on this namespace, see Scripting Provider. | ||
| Registry Provider | You can use Registry Provider to query, update, and enumerate Windows registry keys and values on a local or remote computer. With this provider, you can create or delete registry keys, enumerate their values, or set their values. This namespace is required by Delegated Administration Console. For more information on this namespace, see Registry Provider. | ||
| Windows Installer Provider | With Windows Installer Provider, you can install or uninstall a Microsoft Windows Installer package file (.msi) associated with a provisioning request. To use the Windows Installer Provider namespace and its provider, you must be a local administrator on the computer where you plan to install MPF. This namespace is required by Delegated Administration Console. For more information on this namespace, see Windows Installer Provider. | ||
| Test Namespace | Contains procedures for invoking Test Provider actions to verify that the provisioning engine is functioning correctly. This namespace is not used by Delegated Administration Console. For more information on this namespace, see Test Namespace. | ||
| Sample Namespace | Contain procedures for implementing the sample forms provided with Microsoft Provisioning Framework. This namespace is not installed by default and is only required if you are implementing the sample forms. It is not used by Delegated Administration Console. For more information on this namespace, see Sample Namespace. |
As the table shows, most of the providers and provider namespaces are installed with MPF; all except the Sample Namespace are installed by default. The additional providers and providers namespaces, as well as all of the non-provider namespaces, are optional components that you can install as part of Microsoft Provisioning System. All of the namespaces shown in the table, except Sample Namespace and Test Namespace, are required to implement the full functionality of Delegated Administration Console, although it is is possible to implement Delegated Administration Console without Exchange Provider or its related namespaces.
Microsoft Provisioning System supports the customization of all namespaces and providers, except the namespaces and providers that are critical to the operation of MPF (that is, the read-only namespaces indicated with red highlighting in Provisioning Manager). Microsoft Provisioning System also supports the creation of new providers and namespaces.
For more information on the providers and namespaces that you can implement using Microsoft Provisioning System, see Providers and namespaces. For more information on procedures, see Procedures and requests.