FIMSpecialist

Category: FIM2010 R2

  • Forefront Identity Manager 2010 R2 hotfix rollup 4.1.3451.0 Available

    This week, Microsoft has released hotfix rollup 4.1.3451.0 for FIM 2010 R2, which you can download from KB2849119.

    This update fixes a few minor issues, detailed in the KB article, which I have kindly provided the summaries for below:

    FIM Synchronization Service

    Issue 1

    Password management operations fail because the path for the cached version of the extension .dll file is too long. This problem also affects the WebService connector that is included in Forefront Identity Manager 2010 R2.

    Issue 2

    In certain cases in which the Synchronization Service processes ancestors, memory leaks occur.

    FIM Certificate Management

    Feature 1

    This update adds the ability in the SubjectAltName policy to specify the RegisteredID alternate name in the Subject Alternate Name entry when a certificate request is issued.

    Reporting

    Issue 1

    If you have Microsoft System Center Service Manager 2012 Service Pack 1 (SP1) installed, and you try to run a change-mode installation for FIM Service and Portal, the installation fails.

    When you install FIM Reporting on a new server that has Service Manager 2012 SP1 installed, follow these steps:

    1. Install the FIM 2010 R2 SP1 FIMService component. To do this, clear the Reporting check box.

    2. Upgrade the FIMService installation to build 4.1.3451.0.

    3. Run the change-mode installation for the FIMService, and then add Reporting.

  • FIM Reporting Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) process

    With the release of FIM 2010 R2, Microsoft introduced reporting capability into Forefront Identity Manager 2010 via the System Center Service Manager (SCSM) Data Warehousing capabilities.

    Paul Williams over at Microsoft has just released a great article on the FIM Reporting Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) process within FIM 2010 R2, and it’s well worth a read.

    For those that are new to FIM Reporting (all of us!), this is a great overview of how data moves between the FIM Services and the SCSM data warehouse and is helpful if you’re looking at setting up and configuring FIM Reporting.

  • Microsoft Releases FIM 2010 R2 BHOLD Documentation

    With the release of FIM 2010 R2, Microsoft integrated the BHOLD product it had acquired into the FIM 2010 product suite. However, until now there hasn’t been a great deal of documentation available for anyone looking to implement BHOLD. Just recently, it was noted by on Twitter that Microsoft had recently updated its BHOLD documentation:

    BHold Core Operations Guide – this “provides administering and managing information for day-to-day operations of Microsoft BHOLD Core”, contains an “Introduction to administering BHOLD Core” that gives a general overview of BHOLD Core, and a more comprehensive “Administering BHOLD Core” guide, which contains detailed tasks and procedures to accomplish BHOLD objectives and strategies.

    BHold Attestation Operations Guide – Similar to above, this “provides administering and managing information for initial and day-to-day operations of Microsoft BHOLD Attestation” and contains an “Introduction to administering BHOLD Attestation” as well as an “Administering Microsoft BHOLD Attestation” guide.

    FIM 2010 R2 BHOLD Developer Reference – handy for all those developers out there, this contains everything a developer needs to know to connect to BHOLD’s Web service API in  order to create custom applications that can interact with BHOLD (either in .NET or through ASP/VBScript).

    The release of this documentation is definitely a huge step forward in the product lifecycle of BHOLD, and makes it a lot more usable for those of us that have to implement it!

     

  • Now Offering ECMA 2.0 Development Services

    With the number of FIM 2010 implementations growing at a staggering rate, the variety of systems that FIM is being used to integrate with is similarly growing. To meet the rising need for customised FIM Management Agents, and recognising that not every organisation has the in-house capability to develop its own, I am now offering Custom ECMA 2.0 MA Connector Development.

    Furthermore, for organisations that already have their own xMA’s built using the original ECMA 1 framework, but who are concerned about its recent deprecation, I am also now offering ECMA 1 to ECMA 2.0 Upgrade services. Upgrading early will not only ensure you are protected against when this functionality finally becomes obsolete, but it will also allow you to take advantage of some of the new functionality provided by the ECMA 2.0 framework.

    If you’re interested in taking advantage of either of these services, please view the “Our Services” menu in the top right, or refer directly to my Contact page.

  • What’s New in FIM 2010 R2 Sp1 and Release Notes

    Looks like Microsoft have uploaded the Release Notes for FIM 2010 R2 SP1 and also a “What’s New” page describing all the new features.

    Key improvements that stand out to me in this release are:

    • Improvements in the upgrade process from FIM 2010 to FIM 2010 R2, including significant performance enhancements to the database upgrade. This will only be relevant for those not yet running R2 yet.
    • Improvements mentioned in my last post on the MA’s for Active Directory Domain Services, FIM Service Management Agent, and Extensible Connectivity 2.0to with regards to importing reference (group) objects.
    • Deferred Evaluation for criteria-based groups configured in the FIM Portal – ie, a single group can be configured to evaluate only on a certain schedule.
    • ECMA 2.1 released with minor changes.
    • Minor changes to Powershell cmdlets.
    • Support for various ‘2012’ Software components – MA support for AD 2012, SQL Server 2012; Environment support for Windows Server 2012, SQL Server 2012, Visual Studio 2012 (.NET 4.5 support added), Sharepoint Foundation 2013 etc.

    Some interesting stuff in here. I’m glad to see that it appears you can update directly from FIM 2010 to R2 SP1 without upgrading to R2 first (as I’m currently in a situation where I need to do this). Will be keen to get it installed and to start playing with some of those new features!

    Source: What’s New in FIM 2010 R2 Sp1

    Source: Release Notes for FIM 2010 R2 SP1

  • FIM 2010 R2 SP1 Released!

    Am currently attending the first annual Oxford Computer Group Redmond Identity, Access & Directory Summit at Microsoft HQ. In a talk given by Andreas Kjellman a few minutes ago, he announced FIM 2010 R2 SP1 just went public – no KB or release notes, but you can download via your MSDN subscriber benefits.

    A number of benefits in the service pack, including support for 2012 releases (Sharepoint and so forth). More details sure to follow with the KN, but main benefits I see are the further enhancements to group management performance on the AD and ECMA2 MA’s. Apparently the groups went 2.4x faster on their sample set.

    Update: Spoke to Andreas again later last night – he expressed that this really is just a service pack, so don’t expect a lot of new functionality – the real focus was on providing compatibility. Probably one thing which will interest people however is that System Center 2012 is now supported for the FIM reporting, whereas pre-SP1 you were limited to System Center 2010 SP1 (and indeed, the EULA actually said you weren’t permitted to use 2012, not that it worked anyway). Anyway, I’m sure that will come in handy for some people.