Azure AD Connect: How to run custom Sync scheduler with multiple on-premise AD connectors

Hello All,
I was recently involved on a project where I did some PowerShell scripts to remotely connect to an Azure AD (AAD) Connect server and run custom manual synchronization cycles (Delta Import & Delta Sync) using AAD Connect’s Custom Scheduler component.
The primary reason we had to do this was due to AD migration of users from one AD forest to another AD forest. Both these AD forest users were being synchronized (using a single AADConnect in target AD forest) to a common Azure AD tenant.… [Keep reading] “Azure AD Connect: How to run custom Sync scheduler with multiple on-premise AD connectors”

[Updated] How are email addresses created for Office 365 Mailboxes?

First published at https://nivleshc.wordpress.com

Background

Over the past few weeks, I have been doing some Cloud-Only Office 365 deployments using Azure AD Connect . As you might imagine, this deployment is abit different to the Hybrid Office 365 deployment.
One of the things that got me thinking was, how are the email addresses created for my Office 365 mailboxes? As I was synchronising objects from my on-premises Active Directory, this question held the answer to what values I needed to change in my on-premises Active Directory user object, to get the desired email addresses populated in the Office 365 mailbox that will be created for it.… [Keep reading] “[Updated] How are email addresses created for Office 365 Mailboxes?”

Deploying Cloud-only mailboxes in Office 365 using On-Premises Directory objects

First published at https://nivleshc.wordpress.com
In this blog, I will show you how to create Cloud-only mailboxes in Exchange Online (Exchange Online is the messaging part of Office 365) that are bound to objects synchronised from your on-premises Active Directory. The Cloud-only approach is different to the Hybrid approach because you do not need an Exchange server deployed in your on-premises environment.
There are a few reasons why you would want to link your Cloud-only mailboxes to your on-premises Active Directory.… [Keep reading] “Deploying Cloud-only mailboxes in Office 365 using On-Premises Directory objects”

Azure AD Connect pass-through authentication. Yes, no more AD FS required.

Originally posted on Lucian.Blog. Follow Lucian on Twitter: @LucianFrango.

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Yesterday I received a notification email from Alex Simons (Director of PM, Microsoft Identity Division) which started like this:

Todays news might well be our biggest news of the year. Azure AD Pass-Through Authentication and Seamless Single Sign-on are now both in public preview!

So I thought I’d put together a streamlined overview of what this means for authentication with regards to the Microsoft Cloud and my thoughts on if I’d use it.… [Keep reading] “Azure AD Connect pass-through authentication. Yes, no more AD FS required.”

Real world Azure AD Connect: the case for TWO Azure AD Connect servers

I was exchanging some emails with an account manager (Andy Walker) at Kloud and thought the exchange would be for some interesting reading. Here’s the outcome in an expanded and much more helpful (to you dear reader) format…

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Background

When working with the Microsoft Cloud and in particular with identity, depending on some of the configuration options, it can be quite important to have Azure AD Connect highly available. Unfortunately for us, Microsoft has not developed AADConnect to be highly available.… [Keep reading] “Real world Azure AD Connect: the case for TWO Azure AD Connect servers”

Real world Azure AD Connect: multi forest user and resource + user forest implementation

Disclaimer: During October I spent a few weeks working on this blog posts solution at a customer and had to do the responsible thing and pull the pin on further time as I had hit a glass ceiling. I reached what I thought was possible with Azure AD Connect. In comes Nigel Jones (Identity Consultant @ Kloud) who, through a bit of persuasion from Darren (@darrenjrobinson), took it upon himself to smash through that glass ceiling of Azure AD Connect and figured this solution out.

[Keep reading] “Real world Azure AD Connect: multi forest user and resource + user forest implementation”

Azure AD Connect – Using AuthoritativeNull in a Sync Rule

There is a feature in Azure AD Connect that became available in the November 2015 build 1.0.9125.0 (listed here), which has not had much fanfare but can certainly come in handy in tricky situations. I happened to be working on a project that required the DNS domain linked to an old Office 365 tenant to be removed so that it could be used in a new tenant. Although the old tenant was no long used for Exchange Online services, it held onto the domain in question, and Azure AD Connect was being used to synchronise objects between the on-premise Active Directory and Azure Active Directory.… [Keep reading] “Azure AD Connect – Using AuthoritativeNull in a Sync Rule”

How to export user error data from Azure AD Connect with CSExport

A short post is a good post?! – the other day I had some problems with users synchronising with Azure AD via Azure AD Connect. Ultimately Azure AD Connect was not able to meet the requirements of the particular solution, as Microsoft Identity Manager (MIM) 2016 has the final 5% of the config required for, as I found out, a complicated user+resource and user forest design.
In saying that though, during my troubleshooting, I was looking at ways to export the error data from Azure AD Connect.… [Keep reading] “How to export user error data from Azure AD Connect with CSExport”

Azure AD Connect: An error occurred executing configure AAD Sync task: user realm discovery failed

Yesterday (Tuesday October 11th, 2016) I started a routine install of Azure AD Connect. This project is for an upgrade from FIM 2010 R2 for a long time client; if you were wondering.
Unfortunately at the end of the process, when essentially the final part of the install was running, during the “Configure” process, I ran into some trouble.

Strike 1

I received the following error:

An error occurred executing Configure AAD Sync task: user_realm_discovery_failed: User realm discovery failed

This happened with the current, as of this blog post, version of Azure AD Connect: 1.1.281.0 (release: Sep 7th 2016).… [Keep reading] “Azure AD Connect: An error occurred executing configure AAD Sync task: user realm discovery failed”

Active Directory – What are Linked Attributes?

A customer request to add some additional attributes to their Azure AD tenant via Directory Extensions feature in the Azure AD Connect tool, lead me into further investigation. My last blog here set out the customer request, but what I didn’t detail in that blog was one of the attributes they also wanted to extend into Azure AD was directReports, an attribute they had used in the past for their custom built on-premise applications to display the list of staff the user was a manager for.… [Keep reading] “Active Directory – What are Linked Attributes?”