Shibboleth Service Provider Integration with ADFS

29th of October, 2014 / / 4 Comments

If you’ve ever attempted to integrate a Shibboleth Service Provider (Relying Party) application with ADFS, you’d have quickly realised that Shibboleth and ADFS are quite different beasts. This blog covers off some of the key issues involved and provides details on how to get ADFS to play nice with a Shibby Service Provider (SP). This blog does not cover configuring ADFS to participate as a member in a Shibboleth Federation like InCommon or the Australian Access Federation (AAF).… [Keep reading] “Shibboleth Service Provider Integration with ADFS”

Direct Access on Azure, Why? Can? How?

28th of October, 2014 / / 10 Comments

Direct Access on Azure?

A customer recently requested Kloud to assist them in implementing a Windows 2012 R2 server based Direct Access (DA) service, as their work force had recently moved to a Windows 8 client platform.  What did surprise me was that they requested it be one of the first solutions to be hosted on their Microsoft Azure service.

Direct Access, for those unfamiliar with the technology, is essentially an ‘always on’ VPN style connection that provides a user access to a corporate network from any basic Internet network connection without any user interaction. … [Keep reading] “Direct Access on Azure, Why? Can? How?”

ADSync Cmdlets

23rd of October, 2014 / / 1 Comment

I really enjoyed the later versions of DirSync which included a native PowerShell Module to execute sync engine tasks and show some global configuration settings. Now that we are looking at moving over to the new tool AADSync there is a new module installed but with very little reference to it available on the web at time of writing this blog. I’ve outlined the name of the cmdlets below but the ‘Get-Help’ doesn’t offer any description or examples as yet so I’ve included some in this post.… [Keep reading] “ADSync Cmdlets”

Azure Active Directory Synchronization Services: How to Install, Backup & Restore with full SQL

21st of October, 2014 / / 3 Comments

Microsoft recently released the latest version of the Directory Synchronisation tool; Azure Active Directory Synchronisation Services (AADSync). The “one sync to rule them all” is likely going to be your first choice for synchronising identities to the Microsoft cloud.

Installing and configuring the tool is relatively straight forward for the majority of deployments and this process is well documented at the Microsoft Azure Documentation Centre. If your organisation has a large number of identities (100,000+), Microsoft recommends deploying the AADSync tool with a full installation of SQL.… [Keep reading] “Azure Active Directory Synchronization Services: How to Install, Backup & Restore with full SQL”

Extending Yammer SSO to Support Users Without an Email Address

16th of October, 2014 / / 1 Comment

BY TONY DU, JOEL NEFF

Yammer Enterprise is offered through the Microsoft Office 365 Enterprise plan. Deployment of Yammer Single Sign-On (SSO) for Office 365 users with a valid primary email address is a relative simple and well documented process.

One of our customers had a requirement for Yammer as a social platform, however a large percentage of their workforce are not enabled for email services. In the ‘SSO Implementation FAQ‘ published by Microsoft, it suggests that it is possible to configure SSO support for user accounts that do not have an email address associated with them, however there isn’t any supporting documentation to go with it.… [Keep reading] “Extending Yammer SSO to Support Users Without an Email Address”

Kloud delivers infrastructure reforms for one of SA’s largest privately-owned companies

19th of September, 2014 / / No Comments

Customer Overview

Cavpower is one of South Australia’s largest privately-owned companies and has been the dealer for the supply, service and maintenance of Caterpillar equipment in SA and Broken Hill since 1972. They provide equipment sales and product support to the mining, quarry, local government, building/heavy construction, power generation, industrial services, petroleum, road transport, waste management, forestry and marine industries.

Business Situation

Cavpower self-manage the majority of their ICT in-house. The company’s infrastructure is largely centralised with core servers and infrastructure hosted on–premises at their head office. … [Keep reading] “Kloud delivers infrastructure reforms for one of SA’s largest privately-owned companies”

What Is The Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite?

13th of July, 2014 / / No Comments

Microsoft released the Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS) back in April 2014. This was a major announcement for Microsoft which has typically focused on traditional information workers (IWs) who sit at a desk for most of the day. The EMS is a license designed for a mobile worker who uses a range of different devices including a PC, tablet, and mobile phone. The EMS assumes that the mobile worker will take advantage of BYOD and choose to use a non-corporate device for accessing corporate data.… [Keep reading] “What Is The Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite?”

Azure Active Directory Synchronization Tool: Password Sync as Backup for AD FS Federated Domains

9th of July, 2014 / / No Comments

Kloud has helped many Australian businesses leverage Microsoft cloud services such as Office 365, Intune and Microsoft Azure and most have implemented Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) to provide a highly available Single Sign-On (SSO) user experience. In mid-2013, the Windows Azure Active Directory Synchronization Tool was updated to support password synchronisation with Azure Active Directory, which provided an alternative way to leverage on-premises authored identities with Microsoft’s cloud services.

Password synchronisation is a feature of the Azure Active Directory Sync Tool that will synchronise the password hash from your on-premises Active Directory environment to the Azure Active Directory.… [Keep reading] “Azure Active Directory Synchronization Tool: Password Sync as Backup for AD FS Federated Domains”

Kloud Solutions Microsoft Partner Competencies

9th of June, 2014 / / No Comments

Many customers are curious about Kloud’s qualifications to provide consulting and managed services for the technologies in which we specialize. Many of these technologies are very new. How can customers be assured that Kloud Solutions has the right qualifications?

Kloud Solutions has completed the requirements for the following Microsoft competencies:

1. Gold Communications Competency Partner

2. Gold Identity and Access Competency Partner

3. Silver Application Development Competency Partner

4. Silver Collaboration and Content Partner

Here are some of the reasons why Kloud has pursued and earned these competencies with Microsoft:

1.… [Keep reading] “Kloud Solutions Microsoft Partner Competencies”

Claims-Based Federation Service using Microsoft Azure

6th of June, 2014 / / 16 Comments

In this post I will discuss how you can setup Microsoft Azure to provide federation services with claims authentication in the same way that an Active Directory Federation Service (ADFS) farm would on-premises. This can be achieved with an Azure subscription, Access Control Services (ACS) and an Azure Active Directory (AAD) instance. The key benefit of using Azure SaaS is that Microsoft have taken care of all the high availability and load scaling configuration, therefor you have no need to manage multiple ADFS servers to gain the same desired functionality.… [Keep reading] “Claims-Based Federation Service using Microsoft Azure”