FIMSpecialist

Category: FIM Resources

  • Microsoft Releases Windows Azure Active Directory Management Agent

    For those that missed the announcement last week, Microsoft’s DirSync and FIM Sync teams have released an evaluation version of their new Windows Azure Active Directory Connector.

    Available through Microsoft Connect, this replaces the Office 365 connector which was previously available only through Microsoft Consulting Services and select Microsoft partners.

    An ECMA2 connector intended to be used when DirSync can’t, Microsoft still recommend using DirSync as the primary option.

    This Management Agent is currently in evaluation stage only, however Microsoft is looking for clients that are willing to install it into production as part of their Technology Adoption Program. So, if you’re running FIM and Azure Active Directory in your organisation, this is probably a pretty good opportunity as they are offering production support as part of the TAP. Interested parties can contact Andreas Kjellman at Microsoft.

    Any further queries should probably be directed to the Microsoft FIM 2010 Forum post covering the launch of the Windows Azure Active Directory connector that I ripped most of this information from.

  • FIM Calendar by Alexey Skalozub

    I was having a poke around on the web today and just noticed FIM Calendar by Alexey Skalozub, who we had previously highlighted for his fantastic FIM Delta tool.

    One of the biggest frustrations that I think many people have with FIM Portal is that features  we’ve come to expect from modern web applications just aren’t there. For example, although even the most basic websites these days can have a date picker on them, FIM Portal forces you to enter a date manually.

    But not anymore!

    Alexey has created FIM Calendar, which allows you to add familiar jQuery datepickers to the FIM Portal.

    fimcalendar

     

    Maybe not the most exciting thing that’s going to happen to me today, but still pretty cool!

    Check out FIMCalendar on github for more information.

  • Unify Solutions run FIM Event Broker 3.1 Webinar

    Former employers of mine, Unify Solutions, recently released version 3.1 of their FIM Event Broker product, and ran a launch webinar to showcase the features of this product. If you missed it, they just released it on youtube this morning:

    If you’re unfamiliar with FIM Event Broker, it’s essentially an automation tool for the FIM Synchronization Service – but with some smarts. The core premise behind FIM Event Broker seems to be “Event Driven Identity Management” – and when configured properly, it will allow your FIM Sync operations to run in response to events in target systems, rather than on a schedule.

    New user added to HR? FIM Event Broker will detect that and run an import. Change made in the FIM Portal? FIM Event Broker will detect that and run an import. Changes in one  system require an export to another target system? FIM Event Broker has that covered too.

    Definitely an interesting product, and there’s certainly some benefit in reducing overall throughput time of identity changes, and also the number of operations performed. However, you’d have to assess how much of a benefit having event driven sync operations would have within your organisation, when compared against the regular scheduled approach most people go by. For more information about FIM Event Broker, including how to download a trial, visit the Official Website.

  • Microsoft Releases SharePoint User Profile, Generic LDAP and PowerShell Connectors to Connect

    On March 28, 2013, Microsoft put out Release Candidates for several new FIM Synchronization Service Connectors, including:

    • SharePoint User Profile Connector
    • Generic LDAP Connector for Open LDAP
    • PowerShell Connector

    The Release Candidate downloads are available via Microsoft Connect, along with the necessary upgrades to the FIM Sync Service, a technical reference for the SharePoint/LDAP connectors and some sample scripts (primarily SharePoint-related) for PowerShell

    These three connectors are probably three of the most-demanded connectors, and candidates for custom connectors, so it’s good to see Microsoft taking a proactive approach in developing these.

    Note that the connectors are still in Release Candidate only, so you shouldn’t be installing them in production environment yet.

  • OCG Releases Splunk for FIM

    If you’re not familiar with Splunk (I wasn’t), it’s essentially an Enterprise monitoring and reporting tool that produces reports based on data generated by IT systems. According to the Splunk website, “it’s the easy, fast and resilient way to collect, analyze and secure the massive streams of machine data generated by all your IT systems and technology infrastructure.” If you can see how this might be used in a FIM context, then you’re not alone, because Oxford Computer Group have just released the Splunk for FIM App.

    Announced on LinkedIn over the Easter Weekend by Sjef Van Leeuwen (Lead Software Developer at OCG), the Splunk for FIM app not only provides a dashboard for monitoring FIM operations, but also includes historic user and group data – allowing you to look at a group or user at a given point in time

    I haven’t installed Splunk yet, but plan to do so in the coming weeks and will add my review to the appropriate page in my FIM Tools section once I’ve had a chance to take a real look at it.

  • New FIM Tool: FIMDelta

    While reinstalling FIM Portal in our development environment, one of my colleagues was working on some XSLTs to parse the changes.xml file produced during FIM Portal migration and produce a summary that would allow us to cull out any schema elements and policies that we didn’t want to reintroduce to our ‘clean’ development environment.

    A few days into it, we saw a post by Carol Wapshere on her MissMIIS blog about a new FIM Tool that had been released by Alexey Skalozub, called FIMDelta.

    FIMDelta basically allows you to do exactly what we were trying to achieve. It parses changes.xml, presents the changes in a summary and allows you to selectively include and exclude changes to create a new changes.xml.

    Incredibly handy, we included a review in our FIM Tools section that details the application and several uses you could put it to.

    Fortunately, we’ll still be able to use the XSLTs my colleague developed, as the output is something that is nice for documentation (something FIMDelta doesn’t provide).