Bobel's Active Directory, Identity, Access & SaaS Blog » ILM

Microsoft Sync Engine (AKA MIIS)

Bob Bobel — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 17:09:03 +0000

During Monday’s keynote address at Quest’s The Expert’s Conference, Microsoft revealed that they have split Forefront Identity Manager from the Sync Engine it uses (formerly MMS, MIIS, ILM 2007) and placed the Sync engine under Conrad Bayer. I am not certain this fully constitutes a shift in strategy for FIM or the reality that legacy systems will need to be provisioned far into the future. I predict to be successful the sync engine is going to need a face lift to allow Server administrators to quickly make use of it.

Quick Connect 4.5 GA!

Bob Bobel — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:31:37 +0000

I am pleased to announce that later today, Quick Connect 4.5 will be made Generally Available (GA)to the public. You can now download the bits from http://www.quest.com/common/registration.aspx?requestdefid=20088.

What’s New: Password Synchronization – Quick Connect can synchronize passwords between Active Directory and some categories of connected systems. Active Directory and connected systems are governed by different access policies. Consequently, users need to maintain different user accounts and different passwords on these systems.

Maintaining several passwords on several different systems is a hassle for users and administrators. Quick Connect provides for Quick Connect Capture Agent to be installed on all domain controllers in the source Active Directory connections. Capture Agent tracks changes that were made to user password in Active Directory, and then Quick Connect Sync Engine synchronizes the passwords basing on this information.

What’s New: Re-designed Sync History Log – The Sync History feature of the application allows you to view reports on the performed synchronization workflow runs. The Sync History tab allows you to display a list of all performed synchronization workflows runs, and then view the report on the workflow run of interest. In addition to this possibility, the new version of the Sync History tab allows you first to filter the synchronization reports for all object pairs using some filter criteria, and then select the report to view.

What’s New: Additional Rules for Synchronizing Multi-valued attributes – In Quick Connect 4.0 we provided multi-attribute synchronization but we found we needed more options. Group and role assignments are often stored using multiple values in a single attribute and many traditional provisioning solutions are limited single value attribute provisioning . Flexible multi-value capability allows roles and groups to be synchronized between systems. For example, you may want to synchronize an SAP Role to an Microsoft Exchange Distribution List so you can easily email those individuals. Without multi-value capability coordinating such seemingly simple lists becomes very-very difficult.

Microsoft changes direction on ILM “2″ – again

Bob Bobel — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 16:00:13 +0000

After announcing a year long delay last month, last week Microsoft a change of direction of ILM once again by lumping it into the Forefront suite and renaming the product. I found it interesting that Microsoft acknowledged the industry problem of the complexity of Identity Management software by assigning a tag line to the new product of “Identity Management is about to get a lot easier” but from my personal experience with MIIS and ILM “2″ I’m not sure I understand where they are going with that claim; maybe “easier than what we had before”. Forefront has been Microsoft’s Security “Brand” and moving ILM into the Forefront suite may help answer the difficult security questions that ILM “2″ raised because of its reliance on SharePoint.

http://www.microsoft.com/forefront/en/us/identity-manager.aspx

ILM 2 Delayed

Bob Bobel — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 04:03:34 +0000

My Friday post seems to have been too optimistic about Microsoft’s April launch of ILM 2 (See http://www.bobbobel.com/ilm-2-news/ ). Yesterday morning Microsoft announced that ILM 2 wouild be delayed until sometime next year at the earliest. I know there are not only going to be customers upset by this news, but also 3rd party software vendors and consulting companies who have big investments in Microsoft’s promise of an April 09 delivery. I witnessed similar fall-out with the previous cancellation of the Gemini/MIIS/Password Portal product.

The well known Jackson Shaw blogged about this, giving his insite. http://jacksonshaw.blogspot.com/2009/03/microsofts-ilm2-delay-hurts.html

ILM 2 April Excitement

Bob Bobel — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 20:00:49 +0000

April is going to be a big month for Microsoft, after the delays and then cancelations of GEMINI and Password Portal Microsoft will introduce ILM 2. I know folks like Omada, Ensync and Oxford as well as the Microsoft field sales reps are pinning their hopes on ILM 2 to make sales in this sluggish econmy.

Customers who took advantage of Microsoft’s discount upgrade last year to go from ILM 2007 to ILM 2 will be able to beging the 6-9 months of deployment and testing all enterprises must go thorugh to implement a fairly complex application. For Quest’s part, we are excited about ILM around our Mission Control, Password Manager, ActiveRoles Server products that all have ILM integration.