Merging Service Profiles

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

Merging service profiles is especially useful for incorporating information from multiple phone books, including service types, POP names, and access numbers. You can also use it to consolidate different dial-up access numbers that are covered by more than one of your phone books. By merging existing service profiles into a single top-level service profile, you can present several dissimilar networks as a single, cohesive service.

You can merge multiple profiles so that the top-level profile, which is the service profile you distribute to users, behaves as if it has a single phone book, which contains all the POPs defined in each of the component profiles. For example, if you outsource your phone book through multiple ISPs, and each ISP provides you with a service profile containing its phone book(s), you can merge the profiles together within a top-level service profile that contains dial-up numbers for all the POPs from all the providers.

For an example of merging service profiles, see "Example: Deploying Remote Access Clients" later in this chapter.