Powershell MA version 5.5.3.1309 released

Glad to announce that the Powershell MA has a new version out. It's has been a while since the last release since there has been no reports of bugs or any feature request lately, the previous version seems to be pretty stable.

This new version hasn't changed all that much and there are no breaking changes either. It has, however, a new feature that I personally have missed from time to time; an extra parameter $Schema is added to the Import and Export scripts. And as you may have guessed, it is an PSObject that describes the schema for the particular MA. Having this information allows you to build a little more dynamic into your Powershell scripts used with the PSMA.

Also, a litte logging / tracing bug has been fixed. It is something, you may not have noticed but now it is fixed. It has to do with how the PSMA catches Write-Warning and Write-Error output from your scripts. Remember, you can set your $WarningPreference, $ErrorPreference and other preferences such as Verbose and Debug in your scripts and have the PSMA pick up any output from these statements and output to the Trace log.

Anyways, give the new version of the MA a spin and let me know if you can how it goes.

Thanks,
Soren

Saving FIM / MIM configuration

Just a quick note with a small Powershell script that I made to export configuration for the Synchronization Engine. I use this script on and off at customers to make sure that we can get back to a former state - or move existing configuration from environment to environment when building.

Feel free to use and modify

param

(

$miispath = 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager\2010\Synchronization Service\Bin\',

$extensionspath = 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager\2010\Synchronization Service\Extensions\',

$maexport = ( join-path $miispath 'maexport.exe' ),

$svrexport = ( join-path $miispath 'svrexport.exe' ),

$exportdir = 'export-config'

)

$date = (get-date).tostring('yyyy-MM-dd')

# create base folders with current date

$madir = join-path (join-path (join-path . $exportdir ) $date) 'ma'

write-debug $madir

$null = new-item -path $madir -type directory -force

$svrdir = join-path (join-path (join-path . $exportdir ) $date) 'svrexport'

write-debug $svrdir

$null = new-item -path $svrdir -type directory -force

$extdir = join-path (join-path (join-path . $exportdir ) $date) 'extensions'

write-debug $extdir

$null = new-item -path $extdir -type directory -force

$managementagents = @(get-wmiobject -class "MIIS_ManagementAgent" -namespace "root\MicrosoftIdentityIntegrationServer" -computername ".") 

if($managementagents -eq 0) {throw "There is no management agent configured"}

foreach ($ma in $managementagents)

{

& $maexport $ma.name (join-path $madir "$($ma.name).xml")

}

copy $extensionspath\*.* $extdir

& $svrexport $svrdir

Thanks,
Soren

FIM.MARE has moved to Github

Just a quick note to let you know that the project FIM.MARE has moved from CodePlex to Github. So please help spread the word and update any links that you may have sitting out there.

So if you want to continue doing advanced codeless flow rules without Synchronization Rules, then the new place to be ishttps://github.com/sorengranfeldt/mare

Thanks,
G

FIM.MRE moved to Github

Just a quick note to let you know that the apparently popular project FIM.MRE has moved from CodePlex to Github. So please help spread the word and update any links that you may have sitting out there.

So if you want to continue doing codeless provisioning without Synchronization Rules, then the new place to be is https://github.com/sorengranfeldt/mre

Thanks,
G

MARunScheduler moved to Github

Just a quick note to let you know that my old project MARunScheduler has moved from CodePlex to Github. So please help spread the word and update any links that you may have sitting out there.

The new place to be is https://github.com/sorengranfeldt/marunscheduler

Thanks,
G

MIM WAL released to GitHub

Microsoft has released their FIM/MIM WAL to GitHub.

The MIMWAL is a Workflow Activity Library (WAL) solution for configuring complex Workflows in the Microsoft Identity Manager (MIM) 2016 and Forefront Identity Manager (FIM) 2010 R2 solution.

The library is a powerfull activity library to enable you to do things / workflows with the FIM/MIM Service that the out-of-the-box library doesn't do. One could wonder why some of these activities was not part of the FIM/MIM product it self since they are necessary to do real-world implementations (in my opinion anyways).

For that same reason (having a flexible activity library), a few years back, I created a similar workflow library and released it to CodePlex. That library is not quite as extensive as the MIM WAL but the two libraries most certainly have their similarities. And some of my activities take a slightly different approach but you may find that combining or interchanging the activities will get you even further. One of the activities that a lot of people find useful in my library, is the Code Run activity that allows you to run C# code in a workflow.
 
I'll keep maintaining my library as long as I see activity, interest and uses for it - or maybe I can persuade Microsoft to join force and may combine the two libraries, but that remains to be seen :-)

You can check my library out on CodePlex here - http://fimactivitylibrary.codeplex.com/

You should most certainly put MIM WAL in your arsenal so go find it here - https://github.com/Microsoft/MIMWAL

MIM2016 hotfix out (build 4.3.2064.0)

Microsoft just gave us a pre-Christmas gift in the form of a hotfix for MIM 2016 which has just been released. Pop into the link below and read the release notes to see if any fixes applies to your environment.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3092179

As always ... don't forget to backup before applying patches...

Merry Christmas

Generic SQL Management agent released

Today is a big day for me...

For a long time now, I've wanted to build a new SQL Management that could do more than the built-in SQL Server Management Agent that you get out-of-the-box with FIM and MIM. And, finally, I have done just that.

It is here....

By using this generic Management Agent for SQL, you can synchronize almost any type of information with SQL Server tables - and now you can finally do deltas as well ...and hold on, you can run stored procedures against the tables as part of your synchronization import and export schedules. All these tings combined should give you the options to make some awesome solutions with FIM/MIM and SQL.


The MA have a lot of features that are needed for a modern FIM2010 or MIM2016 setup, including -

• Full and delta imports
• Delta and full exports
• Can keep and revive deleted information / rows
• Can execute pre- and post import/export Stored Procedures

The schema is very flexible and is generated based on the database tables definitions. A refresh of the schema for this management agent rediscovers the schema and you can override the structure in different manners using a configurable XML data.

I really hope that you make use of this MA and please let me know if there are any issues as this is the initial release - and I'll try to fix any issues as soon as possible.

You can get it on CodePlex from this URL - https://sqlma.codeplex.com/

Go it a go when you can...

Enjoy,
Soren

PowerShell Management Agent 5.5 refreshed

I'm happy to announce that I have released a refresh of the popular PowerShell Management Agent for FIM2010R2 (and yes, MIM2016).

This version is a code-refresh with a few bug fixes and a few additional minor features and I'll try to list them below -

1. The setup program is gone and has been replaced by a PowerShell script. This should allow you to better control updates. The steps performed by this installation script are exactly the same as the old setup program did
2. The entire logging feature has been replace by tracing. This means that you can now use DebugView from SysInternals / Microsoft or similar to view actions from this MA. The old logging mechanism is no longer included and has been removed from the MA. The information logged by the MA has also been reviewed and extended to allow better debugging.
3. All errors from the PSMA are now logged to the event log. This does, however, require that you create an explict event log source. You can see in the Installation documentation how to create this.
4. A parameter called 'ExportType' is now available to your export scripts. This allows you to determine in the Export script, whether it is a normal (Delta) or a Full Export that is being performed.
5. A potential, however unlikely, looping condition in the import function has been fixed and also better memory handling / cleanup has been introduced.
6. General optimization of the code has been done.

This version should be directly compatible with the 5.5.0.1425 build that has been out for more than a year. To upgrade, you should be able to download and just replace the DLL in the Extensions folder of your FIM Synchronization Service installation.

As always, I'm very thrilled that this MA is so popular and I want to keep it as current as possible, so please send me information on any bugs that you may find. However, I ask you kindly to not expect free support. For support questions, please use the FIM2010 forum on TechNet where I know that a lot of experts are ready to help and, yes, I do answer questions there whenever time allows.

Thank you for your continued support.

Microsoft Identity Manager 2016 is out

It's all over the news on social media's but thought that I'd just write a quick note on it as well...

MIM 2016 is out!!!

You should be able to get it via MSDN or through your Volume Licensing access.

Looking forward to diving in to the released version.

See you out there...