Thursday, October 17, 2013

That was quick - new hotfix for FIM2010 R2

It didn't take long for a new FIM 2010 hotfix to appear. Microsoft just released hotfix rollup package (build 4.1.3479.0) that fixes a few issues. You should check out the release notes to see if you're affected and need these fixes.

I'll leave the decision and reading up to you.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

A hotfix rollup package (build 4.1.3469.0) is available for Forefront Identity Manager 2010 R2

Today, Microsoft released a new hotfix package for FIM 2010 R2. You can read all about it in KB2877254 (build 4.1.3469.0).

The thing to notice about this update is that most of the fixes is for the Synchronization Engine and the  ECMA2 Connector Framework.

This leads me to conclude that Microsoft is betting on this framework to be the platform for connectors in FIM. I love the fact that the community and FIM customers really get a good chance to integrate tightly with FIM Synchronization Engine and build solution that match exactly their infrastructure and address their business needs for identity management.

Keep it up, Microsoft...

Monday, October 7, 2013

Quick tip on using the Lookup Value activity

In a current project, I'm using FIM 2010 to manage local administrator permissions (see more in this post).

I always turn to my trusted workflow library to speed up deployment and this time I'm making heavy use of the Lookup Value activity. Below you can see a screenshot of a real life workflow that is making use of this activity and running at the FIM installation.


This workflow runs whenever the username (coming in as text from a CMDB) on a computer object is changed. It then does a lookup to find the ObjectID of a user matching the accountname specified on the computer object as the primary username. Finally, it updates the attribute ComputerPrimaryUser (a reference attribute) with the reference ID of the user - effectively linking the computer to the user.

Subsequently, this reference attribute is sync'ed all the way through to Active Directory and ends up in the member attribute of an Active Directory group that is used to give a user local administrator access on a specific computer. Also, I've changed the RCDC for user editing and viewing to list all linked computers.

Hopefully after finishing up this project, I'll update the CodePlex library with a few more generic workflows.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

FIM MVP again

I guess that I must be doing something right.

Driving home from a FIM customer today, my phone suddenly ping'ed me with a new incoming mail with the title 'Congratulations 2013 Microsoft MVP!' and the body text started of like this -

'Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2013 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in Forefront Identity Manager technical communities during the past year.'

This is my third year in a row as a Forefront Identity Manager 2010 MVP awardee and needless to say I'm very proud. I'll give my best once again this coming year to honor this award and look forward to continue to support the community around the great product, FIM 2010, that I really enjoy working with every day.

Oh, but next year ... please, Microsoft, don't send me this mail when I'm driving - or you could loose a dedicated MVP :-)

Thank you.