Mark Gabarra's Blog

One Final Surprise

2008-11-08T09:41:00Z

I promised a week of surprises and I have one final surprise for all of you. It is with a very heavy heart that I say farewell to Microsoft. Twelve years ago Microsoft hired me right out of college and it has been an amazing ride ever since. My days in test helping to ship such components as OLE Automation and CLR 1.0 and 1.1. My transition to dev to help build and ship Windows Communication Foundation 3.0 and Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager "2" . It has been one crazy rollercoaster. However,...(read more)

Display Name Generation Activity - A Custom ILM2 Action Activity

2008-11-06T23:08:44Z

I have tried in a few of my posts regarding the Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager "2" request processing model to emphasize that the Action phase can be used for a wide range of activities. ILM2 will ship with some activities to be used inside this phase of processing that may provide insight into its flexibility. I anticipate that one common use for this phase within enterprises will be to update the target of a request with additional, calculated data. To help out developers...(read more)

Display Name Validation Activity - A Custom ILM2 Authorization Activity

2008-11-06T22:56:29Z

I have tried in a few of my posts regarding the Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager "2" request processing model to emphasize that the Authorization (AuthZ) phase can be used for more than just seeking another person's approval for a specific request. ILM2 will ship with some additional validation activities to be used inside this phase of processing; however, I anticipate that enterprises may want to write their own custom validation logic. To help out I am making available a 40 minute...(read more)

Setting Up Visual Studio For ILM Custom Activity Development

2008-11-06T22:42:00Z

The first step in getting started writing custom Windows Workflow Foundation activities for use in Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager "2" is to get your environment ready. There are a number of ways to do this and a developers environment can be a very personal thing. However, in an attempt to help out those of you getting started with custom activity development I am making available a 6 minute video capture of how I setup my Visual Studio for ILM2 activity development. Hopefully this will help...(read more)

A New Look at The ILM 2 Request Processing Model

2008-11-05T06:03:00Z

Ok, so I was sitting around my house one weekend trying to determine how best to continue my dive into the Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager "2" request processing model. A few of you had asked for diagrams and some more conceptual information. The potential length of such a narrative actually gave me pause to start the required post. Then a flash of brilliance so amazing that I nearly fell out of my chair (ok, I actually asked my wife for some advice :)). The result of which is an experiment...(read more)

A Week of Surprises

2008-11-05T05:54:37Z

I know it has been awhile since I posted anything, and I apologize for not keeping up with my blog. I am sure you have learned that we have shipped Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager "2" RC. This is part of what has been taking up my time lately. I will be posting more frequently this week than I have in the past. I am looking forward to hearing comments about some of the upcoming posts as they become available. For now, I am going to step aside and share with you...(read more)

Give A Product An Extensibility Point, Feed A Community

2008-09-25T01:00:00Z

Another week of heads down coding and bug fixing for the latest Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager "2" product milestone, and another week with trouble finding time to produce a new blog post. This week I would like to thank Brad, Paul, and the folks at Ensynch for providing me another easy post. :) Ensynch has just published a wonderful white paper on how to write custom Windows Workflow Foundation activities for the ILM2 product, they even made their Visual Studio project public as well. They...(read more)

News and Updates from the UK MCS Talks Team : Session 5 Details: Registration Now Available

2008-09-18T23:22:15Z

I have been heads down writing code and fixing bugs for the latest Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager "2" product milestone. Unfortunately, that has made it difficult to find time to produce additional blog topics for all of you. However, someone out there has come to my rescue. I was recently made aware of a series of TechNet webcasts called MCS Talks Infrastructure Architecture ( http://blogs.technet.com/mcstalks ). These talks are being held in the United Kingdom and...(read more)

Advice To Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager 2007 Consultants: Transitioning from ILM 2007 to ILM "2"

2008-09-04T23:02:25Z

In recently helping a Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager 2007 solutions expert solve a problem for their customer within the Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager "2" Beta 3 release. He had already defined his scenario within the Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager "2" request processing model and had run into some issues with the Out-Of-Box (OOB) workflow activities. Unfortunately, his scenario was outside the ability of the OOB support and required writing a custom activity, which...(read more)

Automating Group Management: A Dynamic Group Primer

2008-08-21T18:47:00Z

Well a "short break" turned into something a bit longer than I anticipated. My laptop is back in gear, and I again have the freedom of spending my writing time somewhere other than my office. That little surprise I was working on for you is still in the works. Unfortunately, it seems to take lining up a few more ducks that I first thought. In the mean time I thought I would jump a bit ahead in my peeling of the Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager "2" onion and respond to a question I received recently...(read more)

Short Break

2008-07-26T03:28:00Z

Well my laptop is nearly recovered (I still have a few applications I need to reinstall), and I am looking forward to moving my writing time back to somewhere other than my office. This week I am going to take a short break on peeling back the onion of the Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager "2" web services. For those of you attending TechReady in Seattle I am currently planning on attending the Ask the Experts event. I look forward to running into some of you there. For those of you not attending...(read more)

AuthN, AuthZ, and Action, oh my: Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager "2" Request Processing

2008-07-18T22:43:00Z

This week my laptop decided it was time for a career change and made the transition to door stop. Unfortunately this means that my means of posting this week is through the web dashboard instead of making use of Live Writer. How does this affect you? Hopefully not very much; however, you may notice a change in posting style as well as a shortened post this week. I am working on rebuilding my laptop so that next week's post can get back to normal. So in my previous post titled Microsoft Identity Lifecycle...(read more)

A Discussion of Computed, Explicit, and Temporal Sets in Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager "2"

2008-07-11T23:46:00Z

I would like to take a short detour from my current discussion of the Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager "2" Policy Service to focus on a particularly important concept within the Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager "2" platform: set membership. I have answered a number of questions from people regarding types of set membership in Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager "2" . Often these questions start off discussing something other than set membership, but quickly come down to correcting misunderstandings...(read more)

Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager "2" Policy Service: A Look Behind the Curtain

2008-07-06T22:15:28Z

In my previous post I gave a very brief overview of the different components of the Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager "2" product. I provided an especially brief description of one of those components, the Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager Policy Service (ILM-PS). I would like to take some time to follow up on that post and provide a deeper description of the ILM-PS at this time. To do that let me start by taking a step back and discuss briefly some of the motivations behind adding this component...(read more)

A Lap Around Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager "2"

2008-07-04T03:36:00Z

Let me start my discussion about Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager "2" with a quick overview of the different major components. Realize that the way I break down ILM "2" may be different than how other people view the product. I joined the product team a couple of years ago after shipping the Windows Communication Foundation. It was natural for me to work on the new web services layer. Since then I have been immersed in the Policy Service portion of Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager "2" and,...(read more)