Network Service Account Guidelines

When choosing a network service account, one should first of all put into consideration the principle of the least privilege. The best account should have privileges that are needed for functionality and no more or less of the privileges for the service to run under. In this case, the LocalService account is the most preferred, where it has the exact amount of privileges on the local computer (Creswell, Farah & Toney, 2008). The next guideline in choosing the network account is putting into consideration the presentation of the credentials on the network. In this case, preference should be given to a network like the LocalService account, which has a system of presenting anonymous credentials on the existing network. It is also evident that the choice of the network account depends on the account isolation, where the service account should be compatible with any other network connected on the same server. 

The choice of the network service network may also be dependent upon the configuration, where the preference should be given to an account that has a server configuration manager that can be used by the database engine to make the necessary configurations. For instance, the choice of the LocalService account is based on the contention that the account is configured in such a way that it is has a local server configuration manager which performs extra configurations like update of the Windows Control Manager, a local control manager that secures the service master key for access to the database engine (Creswell, Farah & Toney, 2008). This implies that the configuration process on the selected account is automated, where the server configuration manager performs the necessary wanted changes to the account information. The account is also configured in such a way that it has a control manager, which checks compliance with the configuration process, where the control manager can ensure that only the required and specified changes are made on the network system. 

Reference 

Creswell, C. W., Farah, J. J., & Toney, G. A. (2008). U.S. Patent No. 7,450,927 . Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.