The history of FIM 2010 R2

Let me give you a short summary of the versions preceding FIM 2010 R2.

In 1999, Microsoft bought a company called Zoomit. They had a product called VIA—a directory synchronization product. Microsoft incorporated Zoomit VIA into Microsoft Metadirectory Services (MMS). MMS was only available as a Microsoft Consulting Services solution.

In 2003, Microsoft released Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS), and this was the first publicly available version of the synchronization engine today known as FIM 2010 R2 Synchronization Service.

In 2005, Microsoft bought a company called Alacris. They had a product called IdNexus, which was used to manage certificates and smart cards. Microsoft renamed it Certificate Lifecycle Manager (CLM).

In 2007, Microsoft took MIIS (now with Service Pack 2) and CLM and slammed them together into a new product called Identity Lifecycle Manager 2007 (ILM 2007). Despite the name, ILM 2007 was basically a directory synchronization tool with a certificate management side-kicker.

Finally, in 2010, Microsoft released Forefront Identity Manager 2010 (FIM 2010). FIM 2010 was a whole new thing, but as you will see, the old parts from MIIS and CLM are still there. The most fundamental change in FIM 2010 was the addition of the FIM Service component. In my opinion, the most important news was that FIM Service added workflow capability to the synchronization engine. Many identity management operations that used to require a lot of coding were suddenly available without a single line of code.

Many things in this book will be valid for FIM 2010, but this book will cover the R2 release of FIM 2010, released in 2012. In FIM 2010 R2, Microsoft added the FIM Reporting component and also made significant improvements to the other components.