What's New in Service Provider Foundation
Updated: May 13, 2016
Applies To: System Center 2012 R2 Orchestrator
This topic summarizes the main new features and capabilities in Service Provider Foundation, after its first release with Orchestrator in Service Provider FoundationSystem Center 2012 SP1. The current version is Service Provider FoundationSystem Center 2012 R2.
New server and stamp capabilities
The following table lists the server types that are now available for the Server object, and you can add one or more of them to a Stamp object using the Windows PowerShell cmdlets or the Administration web service.
| Server type | Enumeration Value |
|---|---|
| VMM | 0 |
| OM | 1 |
| DPM | 2 |
| OMDW | 3 |
| RDGateway | 4 |
| Orchestrator | 5 |
| None | 6 |
For more information. see Post-Installation Tasks for Service Provider Foundation.
Gallery item management
Gallery items are virtual machine roles that hosting service providers can use to provide offerings to their tenants. For more information, see Importing Gallery Items in Service Provider Foundation.
Automation support
You can configure the Service Management Automation web service to use Service Provider Foundation. For more information, see "Connecting to the Service Management Automation web service" in Manage Web Services and Connections in Service Provider Foundation and How to Automate a Runbook from Service Provider Foundation.
The Usage web service
Service Provider Foundation now provides the Usage web service for portals and billing providers to monitor tenant usage data. For more information, see the "Usage web service" section in Manage Web Services and Connections in Service Provider Foundation and Usage Metering in Service Provider Foundation.
Developer resources
See the Service Provider Foundation Developer's Guide for API reference topics and guidance for programming using the Service Provider Foundation web services, including the following:
Other changes
The following features and enhancements were made to Service Provider Foundation:
HTTP is no longer supported; all web requests must use HTTPS to ensure greater security with the secure sockets layer (SSL).
When you install Service Provider Foundation, you now have the option to automatically generate a self-signed certificate for use in a non-production environment. For more information, see How to Install Service Provider Foundation for System Center 2012 R2.
For more efficient administration, some configurations that were in Web.config files are now stored in the SPFDB database.
See Also