• Chart: Current Microsoft Solution Offerings
• Chart: Current Patterns and Practices Guides
• Chart: Current Project Guides

To sell more server products, Microsoft has been quietly expanding the suite of Microsoft Solution Offerings (MSOs) —packages of software, architectural guidelines, custom code, and services designed to solve a particular business problem, such as building an e-commerce site. Microsoft is also producing two new types of documents—Patterns and Practices Guides, and Project Guides—aimed at helping customers and partners build pretested server-based solutions at lower cost and risk. Although most of these new guides are quite detailed, parts of Project Guides are more pertinent to sales and marketing than to developing solutions.

The information in these documents is essential for Microsoft to gain greater acceptance in the data center; product documentation manuals and resource kits provide little guidance on how to build overall solutions. In a manner similar to the way Microsoft ships resource kits after a product launch, customers can also expect new or updated MSOs, Patterns and Practices Guides, and Project Guides to follow future releases of Windows and the .NET Enterprise Servers.

New Solution Offerings

A typical MSO is not a product per se, but is a package of software and services obtained from an authorized Microsoft partner. Each MSO incorporates specific products (such as Office, Windows Server, SQL Server, or BizTalk Server), additional custom code, and deployment guides and scripts, and may include installation, training, and support customized for a customer’s specific needs. Designed to accelerate the deployment of Microsoft servers by eliminating much of the coding and testing required to create a fully customized solution, MSOs still require additional configuration and customization, but reduce the gap between Microsoft's generic applications and the more finished solutions offered by competitors—and sometimes by Microsoft’s partners. (For more background on MSOs, see "Integrated Solutions Push Server Software Sales" on page 10 of the Jan. 2002 Update.)

From the initial three MSOs released in fall 2001, Microsoft has boosted the number of MSOs to ten, and more are in the works. (See "Current Microsoft Solution Offerings" for a brief description of each, and also see the "Resources" section at the end of this article for links to prior Update coverage of five of the MSOs.)

Patterns and Practices Guides

Patterns and Practices (P&P) Guides are Microsoft documents containing specific recommendations on how to design, build, deploy, and operate generalized solutions for certain business problems and technical scenarios. They usually include planning guides, deployment guides, and job aids such as templates and checklists. Some include development guides, source code, and sample applications. The guides are reviewed and approved by Microsoft engineering teams, Microsoft Consulting, Product Support Services, and by some partners and customers.

Microsoft currently offers 16 P&P Guides in three categories:

• Reference Architectures (guides to assist in planning solutions)
• Reference Building Blocks (guides for building solutions)
• Operational Practices (guides for ongoing operation of solutions).

These documents can be downloaded for free from MSDN and TechNet (see "Resources"), and some are available in printed book form for a nominal price. Additional P&P Guides are in development. (For a listing of all current P&P Guides, see "Current Patterns and Practices Guides".)

P&P Guides are derivatives of MSO documents called "prescriptive architecture guides" (PAGs) that provide cookbook-like information on how to build and operate a complete MSO. Many customers, partners, and consultants found the PAGs to be useful when developing their own solutions, and wanted them separate from the MSOs. However, instead of just making the PAGs available for download, Microsoft decided to release a more generalized set of documents under the P&P label. Some, like the "Internet Data Center" P&P Guide, are taken straight from an MSO PAG. However, many P&P Guides are less prescriptive documents having no parent MSO, such as the P&P Guide named "Security Operations Guide for Windows 2000 Server," which covers best practices, but is hardly a step-by-step cookbook for how to configure security for a specific solution.

Project Guides

Microsoft has begun publishing another type of document designed solely for its partners. Like P&P Guides, Project Guides contain "how to" implementation information, but they are smaller in scope than the MSOs and P&P Guides.

Furthermore, Project Guides are designed not just to help implementers but also to help partners market and sell services based around the guides. For instance, the "Deploying Windows 2000 Active Directory Project Guide" has sections targeted at management, sales and marketing staff, technical staff, project managers, and trainers.

Microsoft has already published 11 Project Guides and at least 24 more are in development. (For a list of all current Project Guides, see "Current Project Guides".)

Resources

For more information on the Microsoft Solution for Intranets (for corporate portals), the Microsoft Solution for Supplier Enablement (for connecting suppliers to business customers over the Internet), and the BizTalk Accelerator for HIPAA (aimed at helping U.S. health industry firms meet new data management requirements imposed by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996), see "Integrated Solutions Push Server Software Sales" on page 10 of the Jan. 2002 Update.

For more information on the Microsoft Solution for Internet Business (for Web site content management, personalization, integration with business processes), see "Bundle Supports Business Web Sites" on page 6 of the Mar. 2002 Update.

For more information on the SQL Server Accelerator for Business Intelligence (for extracting high-level decision-making information from an organization’s raw transaction data), see "SQL Server Accelerator for Business Intelligence Available" on page 12 of the July 2002 Update.

The MSO home page can be found at www.microsoft.com/business/solutions.

The Patterns and Practices Guides can be downloaded from msdn.microsoft.com/practices. Printed guides are available at shop.microsoft.com/practices.

The Project Guide home page can be found at members.microsoft.com/partner/productssolutions/projectguides.aspx. (Downloads are available to Microsoft partners only.)