64bit Directory Synchronization Tool is here

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When you, as an organization, are looking at Microsoft’s Office 365 you will be faced with a choice in identity management. You can use online accounts, synchronize accounts between your on-premise infrastructure and Office 365 and you can synchronize and top that with Federation, allowing your users to use one set of credentials both on-premises as for their Office 365 functionality.

The latter two scenarios need the Directory Synchronization Tool. An organization would have needed to set up a 32bit Windows Server to install this tool, since the Directory Synchronization Tool was 32bit-only. (on Windows Server 2003 and above)

The Directory  Synchronization Tool is a preconfigured Identity Lifecycle Manager (ILM) 2007 installation with two Management Agents; one for on-premises Active Directory and one for Office 365. Since the Directory Synchronization Tool is based on Identity Lifecycle Manager (ILM) 2007, which is a 32bit-only server product, the Directory Synchronization Tool is a 32bit-only product.

In the scenario where you’d synchronize account information with the Directory Synchronization Tool and use Federation, an organization wanting to standardize their remaining on-premises infrastructure on 64bit Operating Systems, couldn’t. Similarly, standardizing on the ‘latest and greatest’ from Microsoft also wouldn’t be possible, since Windows Server 2008 R2 (and above) are 64bit-only Operating Systems.

Now…

Luckily, the Office 365 team has released a new version of the Directory Synchronization Tool. This time, the tool is based on Forefront Identity Manager (FIM) 2010. This successor to Identity Lifecycle Manager (ILM) 2007 (and during development known as ‘ILM 2’), however, is 64bit-only. (on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 only)

This introduces the scenario where you can now download the setup program for a 32bit and 64bit version of the Directory Synchronization Tool. The 32bit setup executable is the old ILM-based version, reading version 1.0.3300.46 and weighing 76,1 MB. The 64bit setup executable is the FIM-based version, reading version 1.0.5071.0 and weighing 93,3 MB.

Both Directory Synchronization Tool setup executables can be downloaded from the Office 365 Management Portal Directory Syncrhonization page as step 4 of the 6-step Directory Synchronization setup process, as shown below:

DirSyncSetupProcess

Upgrading

Allthough we’re all too eager to eliminate that pesky last 32bit box running the Directory Synchronization Tool with the 64bit version of the tool on one of our 64bit Windows Server 2008 (R2) boxes, some things are worth mentioning:

  • The Directory Synchronization Tool cannot be installed on Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2-based Domain Controllers.
  • The Directory Synchronization Tool cannot be installed on a Windows Server 2008 R2, when it’s running Active Directory Federation Services.
  • The upgrade process consists of uninstalling the 32bit version of the Directory Synchronization Tool completely and installing the 64bit version of the Directory Synchronization Tool on a 64bit box. Don’t worry about the work you’ve done and the state of the synchronization during the upgrade. The overall state of the objects in your on-premises and cloud directories, respectively, is preserved and the 64bit version matches objects in the cloud with on-premises objects, as long as you haven’t deleted any on-premises objects during the upgrade process.

More information

Get into it Son – Microsoft Online Services Directory Synchronization doesn’t support 64-bit
Directory Synchronization tool 64-bit support
64-bit version of Directory Synchronization tool is now available
64-bit Directory Synchronization tool available for download from Office 365 Portal
Office 365: 64 bit Directory Sync Tool
64-bit Directory Synchronization Tool for Office 365 Released
The 64-bit version of the directory synchronization tool is now available.
Directory Synchronization tool 64-bit support Available now
Directory Synchronization tool 64-bit support
Note-to-self: Office 365 – Directory Synchronization tool 64-bit support now available
64-bit DirSync Released

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