Now that I have personally wrestled with this area of SharePoint 2010, I can see why Paul Culmsee calls it the Evilness.
I also found out why Spence Harbar’s Rational Guide must be followed to the letter. I do not understand however why he thinks the MSDN guide “is now a first class resource”, since I initially followed that guide (6/28/2011 version) to the letter on a new server installation with the June CU and found myself in epic fail land.
Had I followed Spence’s original post, I would have been very close to success the first time, and it was the insights in that post that led me to the last few tweaks and success.
While the version of Forefront Identity Manager (lovingly referred to as FIM) in the June CU is not even the RTM build of FIM 2010, it is working for my customer, syncing its little heart out. A happy ending at least.
UPDATE: This post provides additional insights into FIM architecture and moving parts. Das gut.
BTW, some out there throw all kinds of caution around using the FIM Client GUI, but that is quite literally the same as saying “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”.
