{"id":1784,"date":"2010-04-22T10:19:01","date_gmt":"2010-04-22T10:19:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1784"},"modified":"2010-04-22T10:19:01","modified_gmt":"2010-04-22T10:19:01","slug":"microsoft-solution-accelerators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/04\/microsoft-solution-accelerators.htm","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Solution Accelerators"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/technet.microsoft.com\/en-us\/solutionaccelerators\/default.aspx\">Microsoft&#8217;s Solution Accelerators<\/a> have been around for a while now and, as the name suggests, are intended to accelerate the deployment of solutions built on Microsoft technology.\u00c2\u00a0 Each solution accelerator is a free download from the Microsoft website but they don&#8217;t seem to be as well-known as they should be &#8211; with many IT organisations still producing their own documentation or purchasing third party tools that duplicate this free of charge functionality.<\/p>\n<p>One of the earliest solution accelerators I worked with was the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2005\/02\/microsoft-solution-accelerator-for.htm\">Business Desktop Deployment<\/a> (BDD) toolkit, which has since made major advances in its maturity and is now known as the <a href=\"http:\/\/technet.microsoft.com\/en-us\/solutionaccelerators\/dd407791.aspx\">Microsoft Deployment Toolkit<\/a> (MDT).\u00c2\u00a0 This is just one of the more commonly used accelerators though &#8211; the <a href=\"http:\/\/technet.microsoft.com\/en-us\/solutionaccelerators\/bb819696.aspx\">full list of solution accelerators<\/a> covers a diverse set of technologies from <a href=\"http:\/\/go.microsoft.com\/fwlink\/?LinkId=93108\">using Windows PE to create a malware removal kit<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/downloads\/details.aspx?FamilyId=AED6D2D8-343E-4008-88F1-446401601F14\">migrating custom Unix applications<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0to discovering the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/downloads\/details.aspx?FamilyID=e114b7e5-400f-45b6-9e1c-50968a0cc729\">ports used by Windows Server System products<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0to <a href=\"http:\/\/go.microsoft.com\/fwlink\/?LinkID=147002\">planning for payment card industry (PCI) compliance<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As the complete set of solution accelerators is so extensive, and growing, it&#8217;s not practical to go into detail about each one but here are just a few that technical architects and administrators might find useful:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/downloads\/details.aspx?FamilyId=AD3921FB-8224-4681-9064-075FDF042B0C&amp;displaylang=en\">Infrastructure Planning and Design (IPD) Guides<\/a>: intended to complement product documentation by focusing on infrastructure design options, each guide leads the reader through critical infrastructure design decisions, in the appropriate order, evaluating the available options for each decision against its impact on critical characteristics of the infrastructure. The IPD Series highlights when service and infrastructure goals should be validated with the organization and provides additional questions that should be asked of service stakeholders and decision makers.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/downloads\/details.aspx?displaylang=en&amp;FamilyID=67240b76-3148-4e49-943d-4d9ea7f77730\">Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit<\/a>:\u00c2\u00a0an agentless toolkit that finds computers on a network and performs a detailed inventory using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) and the Remote Registry Service. The data and analysis provided by this toolkit can significantly simplify the planning process for migrating to\u00c2\u00a0a variety of Microsoft products including device driver availability and recommendations for hardware upgrades.\u00c2\u00a0 MAP can also be used to gather performance metrics from computers being considered for virtualisation before modelling a library of potential host hardware and storage configurations for &#8220;what-if&#8221; analysis.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/downloads\/details.aspx?displaylang=en&amp;FamilyID=3bd8561f-77ac-4400-a0c1-fe871c461a89\">Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT)<\/a>:\u00c2\u00a0MDT is the recommended process and toolset for automating Windows desktop and server deployment, providing unified tools and processes in a common deployment console\u00c2\u00a0together with guidance documents for reduced deployment time and standardised desktop and server images, along with improved security and ongoing configuration management.\u00c2\u00a0 MDT can integrate with System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007 and Windows deployment tools for zero touch deployment and, for those without an SCCM infrastructure, MDT makes use of Windows deployment tools for lite touch deployments.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/downloads\/details.aspx?displaylang=en&amp;FamilyID=5534bee1-3cad-4bf0-b92b-a8e545573a3e\">Microsoft Security Compliance Manager<\/a>: Intended to reduce the time and cost associated with hardening the security of\u00c2\u00a0and infrastructure this solution accelerator provides access to the complete database of Microsoft recommended security settings so that baselines can be created and exported in multiple formats including .XLS, Group Policy objects (GPOs), Desired Configuration Management (DCM) packs, or Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) to automate the security baseline deployment and compliance verification process.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/downloads\/details.aspx?displaylang=en&amp;FamilyID=67ef9823-631b-49b7-9d7f-9f125bdf27ae\">Service Level Dashboard Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager<\/a> (SCOM): This dashboard integrates with SCOM 2007 R2 to assist in tracking, managing, and reporting on line-of-business (LOB) application service level compliance, displaying a list of applications and their performance and availability against a target service level agreement (SLA).\u00c2\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/downloads\/details.aspx?displaylang=en&amp;FamilyID=457ed61d-27b8-49d1-baca-b175e8f54c0c\">Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF)<\/a>: Providing is practical guidance for IT organisations, MOF reflects a single, comprehensive IT service lifecycle to help IT professionals connect service management principles to everyday IT tasks and activities in order to ensure alignment between IT and the business.\u00c2\u00a0 Where ITIL is descriptive and describes &#8220;what to do&#8221;, MOF is prescriptive and provides the &#8220;how to do it&#8221; guidance.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/downloads\/details.aspx?displaylang=en&amp;FamilyID=bd930882-0d39-4900-9a79-b91f213ed15d\">IT Compliance Management Guide<\/a>: Intended for IT managers, professionals, and partners who configure Microsoft products to address specific IT governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) requirements, implementation of the recommendations in this series of guides allows enforcement and management of IT GRC requirements to be shifted onto the underlying Microsoft technologies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are also a huge number of specific solution accelerators for given technology scenarios: like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/downloads\/details.aspx?FamilyId=8408ECF5-7AFE-47EC-A697-EB433027DF73\">servicing offline virtual machines<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/go.microsoft.com\/fwlink\/?LinkId=58446\">applying the principle of least user access (LUA) to user accounts on Windows XP<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/downloads\/details.aspx?FamilyId=144f7b82-65cf-4105-b60c-44515299797d\">using Windows security and directory services with Unix<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/go.microsoft.com\/fwlink\/?LinkId=33947\">server and domain isolation using IPSec and Group Policy<\/a>,\u00c2\u00a0as well as product operations guides for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/downloads\/details.aspx?familyid=84dfe61e-fb7b-4673-89b8-55bcc801b431\">Active Directory<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/downloads\/details.aspx?familyid=4ed7b8c2-4d8c-49b0-936d-f74775e69c52\">DNS<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/downloads\/details.aspx?familyid=8fd563e1-af1e-49b2-a926-967147ab153d\">DHCP<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/downloads\/details.aspx?familyid=4d38f848-4828-4d6d-a012-ee66cee9b71f\">file services<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/downloads\/details.aspx?familyid=95e38686-4764-438e-8ab6-3d3c4a071774\">print services<\/a>, etc.\u00c2\u00a0and migration guidance for scenarios such as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/downloads\/details.aspx?FamilyId=19BE5289-37A8-469C-B03A-70A189E8314F\">Novell NetWare to Windows Server<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/downloads\/details.aspx?FamilyId=B4E57B5E-2CFC-49AE-A184-5705ACF8591F\">Oracle on Unix to SQL Server on Windows<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 These are just a few examples so check out <a href=\"http:\/\/technet.microsoft.com\/en-us\/solutionaccelerators\/bb819696.aspx\">the full list of Microsoft Solution Accelerators<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0for more options.<\/p>\n<p>For more information on solution accelerators (e.g. new releases and updates), <a href=\"http:\/\/technet.microsoft.com\/en-gb\/solutionaccelerators\/bb687756.aspx\">register for Microsoft&#8217;s Solution Accelerator Notifications newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Microsoft&#8217;s Solution Accelerators have been around for a while now and, as the name suggests, are intended to accelerate the deployment of solutions built on Microsoft technology.\u00c2\u00a0 Each solution accelerator is a free download from the Microsoft website but they don&#8217;t seem to be as well-known as they should be &#8211; with many IT organisations &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/04\/microsoft-solution-accelerators.htm\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Microsoft Solution Accelerators<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1],"class_list":["post-1784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-microsoft"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Microsoft Solution Accelerators - markwilson.it<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/04\/microsoft-solution-accelerators.htm\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Microsoft Solution Accelerators - markwilson.it\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Microsoft&#8217;s Solution Accelerators have been around for a while now and, as the name suggests, are intended to accelerate the deployment of solutions built on Microsoft technology.\u00c2\u00a0 Each solution accelerator is a free download from the Microsoft website but they don&#8217;t seem to be as well-known as they should be &#8211; 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As he provided my BDD training, Thomas knows far more on the topic than I do and his blog carries details of the improvements in BDD v2.5. If\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Microsoft Windows XP\"","block_context":{"text":"Microsoft Windows XP","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/windows-xp"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":91,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2005\/02\/microsoft-solution-accelerator-for.htm","url_meta":{"origin":1784,"position":1},"title":"The Microsoft Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment, the Microsoft Solutions Framework and the Microsoft Operations Framework","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Thursday 10 February 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week, I spent three days learning about the Microsoft Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment (BDD). According to Microsoft: \"The Microsoft Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment delivers end-to-end guidance for efficient planning, building, testing, and deploying Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, and Office Professional\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"IT Operations\"","block_context":{"text":"IT Operations","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/it-operations"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1026,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/03\/introducing-the-microsoft-deployment-toolkit-2008.htm","url_meta":{"origin":1784,"position":2},"title":"Introducing the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2008","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Tuesday 25 March 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the sessions that I managed to catch at UK customer launch for Microsoft's 2008 products last week was Julius Davies' and Jason Stiff's presentation on Windows Server 2008 (and Windows Vista) deployment. I recently spent some time brushing up my deployment skills but there have been a few\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Microsoft\"","block_context":{"text":"Microsoft","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/microsoft"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":59,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2005\/02\/10000-feet-view-of-microsoft-systems.htm","url_meta":{"origin":1784,"position":3},"title":"10,000 feet view of Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Thursday 10 February 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Until I started to look at the Microsoft Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment (Enterprise Edition), which makes use of the Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 Operating System Deployment Feature Pack, I had no experience of using SMS. At my BDD training, Thomas Lee gave a brief overview of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/topic\/technology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4938,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2013\/05\/a-toolkit-for-successful-office-365-deployment.htm","url_meta":{"origin":1784,"position":4},"title":"A toolkit for successful Office 365 deployment","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Thursday 30 May 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Over the last few weeks, I've attended a couple of Microsoft Office 365 workshops during which I picked up quite a bit of useful information, not least Malcolm Bullock's (@MBullock) list of Office 365 deployment planning resources. Office 365 is straightforward: it's a service; it does what's in the service\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/topic\/technology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":950,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2007\/11\/bdd-2007-overview.htm","url_meta":{"origin":1784,"position":5},"title":"BDD 2007 overview","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Thursday 22 November 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"It's been almost three years since I wrote a post about the Microsoft Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) and since then it's been updated twice - first with BDD v2.5 and now with BDD 2007 (the latest version of which is now known simply as Microsoft Deployment). According\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Microsoft Windows Vista\"","block_context":{"text":"Microsoft Windows Vista","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/windows-vista"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1784"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1785,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1784\/revisions\/1785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}