General

What is MIMDSC?

MIMDSC is a PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) module for deploying MIM configuration and ensuring the configuration stays in the desired state.

Will MIMDSC Install MIM?

No. MIMDSC assumes that MIM Service and Portal and MIM Synchronization Service are already installed and running. DSC can be used to install MIM, and SharePoint, and SQL, but that is not the goal of this module.

Does MIMDSC work with FIM?

Probably, but MIMDSC is a volunteer effort and the sole volunteer is working with:

• MIM 2016
• Windows Server 2016
• SQL Server 2016
• SharePoint 2016 [TODO - get SharePoint sorted out for my lab]

How stable is MIMDSC?

The MIMDSC module was created to improve the stability of a fairly complex deployment, so integration testing enjoyed a vast amount of weird configuration items. MIM deployments enjoy quite a bit of creativity so I am looking forward to seeing how well the DSC resources hold up. Pester tests were used to validate each resource, so the question of stability should be answered by the Azure DevOps build badge once that is running.

When was MIMDSC first developed?

MIM DSC was created about five years ago and was deployed on production servers but only in audit mode. The goal was to eventually get to the point where DSC was used to treat MIM deployments as code, whereby the DSC configuration was managed in source control, then built, tested and released to MIM servers using Azure DevOps (VSTS back then). Team and priority changes limited the progress so it never got past audit mode, but even that was beneficial because it was able to inform when MIM configuration drifted. Ever wanted to know when an import flow rule changed? Ever wonder if metaverse attribute flow precedence was really supposed to look that way? It was cool be informed of configuration drift before identity data drifted into support incidents.

How is MIMDSC supported?

Support is primarily via MIMDSC Issues. Bug fixes or enhancements can be requested by opening a new issue from the Issues tab. Customers should treat this as custom code with source code made available via the MIMDSC GitHub Repository. Microsoft Premier support (with the exception of custom Premier-Maintained Solutions (PMA) contracts) is always on "Best Effort" basis for any custom code solutions and MIMDSC is no different from support perspective. If you contact Microsoft Premier for advice and guidance on MIMDSC ("how do I do it?"), you will get redirected to the MIMDSC wiki documentation and the developer support channel mentioned earlier.

Will MIMDSC be included in the MIM Product?

At this time, we do not anticipate the MIMDSC to be included in the Microsoft Identity Manager product itself. The MIMDSC is a fantastic solution (ok, should be obvious that the developer wrote the FAQ) that is built on the extensibility framework that is provided in the MIM product, but it is not part of the MIM core product itself.