FIM

SharePoint MA -- avoid the noise

In using the SharePoint MA from Steve Kean I noticed that some of the fields I imported were coming in with some extra noise or crap at the beginning:

String;#164

All I really wanted was the 164. While I can use the Word function in a sync rule to get past it
Word(strAttribute,2,“2”) I really would prefer to bypass it altogether.

Well thanks to Jermaine Snipe I found why this happens and how to bypass it:
These are calculated columns and they use the concatenate function. Instead use a Text formula for the calculated column. This of course supposes that you can get the SharePoint developer to change it.

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Check your inputs -- Save your job!

At various times in my 10 years of Identity Management Consulting and 25 years working in the IT industry I have been asked to clean up various messes generated by those before me. Some of those messes involved disk failure or other issues that couldn’t be completely prevented. But some involved automated process that didn’t check their inputs.

 If garbage into a computer gives you garbage out, then garbage into an automated process that doesn’t check its inputs gives you a meltdown! Even Disney’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice Fantasia illustrates what can go wrong with an automated process.

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FIM Custom Expressions inside Custom Expressions?

Recently, I needed to take Longitude and Latitude data that was given to me in the following format and break it into its individual components and then flow it out to AD.
Let’s suppose the data looks like this:

“Point -10.1223 45.945”

I could just use the Left and Right functions to get out the Longitude and Latitude.

The problem was it could also look like this depending on the level of precision:

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How many attributes can you have in the Metaverse?

Back in 2013 I published 5 posts about the Secrets of the Metaverse:

Parts 1-5:

1. What is the Metaverse?
2. How is the Metaverse data stored?
3. Is there a limit to how many Metaverse attributes I can have?
4. Has access to the metaverse gotten faster with recent releases?
5. How do I safely query the metaverse?
6. Added (Aug 5 2015): How Many Metaverse Attributes can I have?

The third post was about how many attributes you can have in the Metaverse in which I said that the mms_metaverse_lineageguid table limits us to 502 single valued non-reference attributes in the Metaverse. This is still correct but a client told me of a scenario they encountered where the lineageguid table prevented them from getting to over 450 attributes and they encouraged me to blog about how they solved it.

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MIM 2016 is now available

MIM 2016 is now available

MIM – Microsoft Identity Manager 2016 builds on and replaces Microsoft’s Forefront Identity Manager 2010 R2.

On Microsoft’s site they include an introductory (2 min) video about Hybrid Identity but don’t mistake that for the MIM UI.

So has anything been removed?

No. While the list of deprecated features are still deprecated none of them have been removed from this new version.

So what’s new?

The first thing to call your attention is the focus on Hybrid (Cloud + On Premise) Identity. MIM can still manage on premise but is now even better equipped to work with Microsoft’s Identity Management pieces in the cloud.

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Still an MVP but now DS MVP

Thanks Scott.

David Lundell - Jul 3, 2015

Thanks Scott.

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Still an MVP but now DS MVP

I have been awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for a 9th time. I started off as an MIIS MVP (even though ILM had been released 4 months previous). Then I became an ILM MVP in 2008, then in 2010 it was FIM MVP (or was that 2011). Now with FIM changing to MIM and in an effort to reduce the administrative paperwork the Microsoft MVP team has every time MMS/MIIS/ILM/FIM/MIM changes names all FIM MVPs have become DS (Directory Services) MVPs. ;) Actually, they decided that there was enough overlap and dependency that it made sense to combine them. So now I am a Directory Services MVP

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FIM Hotfix for PCNS to support 2012 R2 DC's

With the latest hotfix MSFT now supports running PCNS on Windows Server 2012 R2. FIM still should not be installed on Windows Server 2012 R2 (2012 yes, 2008 R2 yes, 2008 yes). Only PCNS can be installed on Windows Server 2012 R2. The hotfix article has a slight error indicating that it is ok to install FIM Sync Service on 2012 R2 if you have installed the hotfix PCNS on 2012 R2 – not true (the article should get corrected soon). Be warned this update may break ECMA 1 and ECMA 2.0 based MA’s. That is they may not run returning “stopped-extension-dll-load” There are workarounds published in the article.

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'Twas the night before Christmas

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the internet
Not an identity was stirring, not even a Passport .NET
The user accounts requests were submitted with care
Hoping that their access would soon be there

The users were nestled all snug in their beds
While visions of being able to do their jobs danced in their heads
The servers and computers were in sleep mode
Awaiting someone to move a mouse and send the wake up code

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SQL Maintenance for FIM and anything other databases

An easy way to take care for your FIM databases is to “use Ola Hallengren’s script (http://ola.hallengren.com/scripts/MaintenanceSolution.sql). Download the script, adjust the backup paths and run the script on each instance of SQL Server. It will automatically create several jobs some for maintaining the system databases and some for maintain the user databases. You will need to create schedules for each of the jobs.” – FIM Best Practices Volume 1

I love using Ola script for index maintenance because it is so much smart than the Database Maintenance wizard which wants to spend lots of time rebuilding indexes that only needed to be reorganized and messing with indexes that were just fine or too small to matter. A table with less than 1000 pages is usually too small to matter. Less than 5% fragmentation and why bother. Less than 20% and a reorg will usually solve it. Over 20% and you should usually rebuild.

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