Automate the nightly backup of your Development FIM/MIM Sync and Portal Servers Configuration

Update: Aug 2019. See this post that evolves on this process including documenting the MIM Config and generation of a webpage with links for configs.

Last week in a customer development environment I had one of those oh shit moments where I thought I’d lost a couple of weeks of work. A couple of weeks of development around multiple Management Agents, MV Schema changes etc. Luckily for me I was just connecting to an older VM Image, but it got me thinking. It would be nice to have an automated process that each night would;

• Export each Management Agent on a FIM/MIM Sync Server
• Export the FIM/MIM Synchronisation Server Configuration
• Take a copy of the Extensions Folder (where I keep my PowerShell Management Agents scripts)
• Export the FIM/MIM Service Server Configuration

And that is what this post covers.

Overview

My automated process performs the following;

1. An Azure PowerShell Timer Function WebApp is triggered at 2330 each night
2. The Azure Function App initiates a Remote PowerShell session to my Dev MIM Sync Server (which is also a MIM Service Server)
3. In the Remote PowerShell session the script;
   1. Creates a new subfolder under c:\backup with the current date and time (dd-MM-yyyy-hh-mm)

1. Creates further subfolders for each of the backup elements
   1. MAExports
   2. ServerExport
   3. MAExtensions
   4. PortalExport

1. 1. Utilizes the Lithnet MIIS Automation PowerShell Module to;
      1. Enumerate each of the Management Agents on the FIM/MIM Sync Server and export each Management Agent to the MAExports Folder
      2. Export the FIM/MIM Sync Server Configuration to the ServerExport Folder
   2. Copies the Extensions folder and subfolder contexts to the MAExtensions Folder
   3. Utilizes the FIM/MIM Export-FIMConfig cmdlet to export the FIM Server Configuration to the PortalExport Folder

Implementing the FIM/MIM Backup Process

The majority of the setup to get this to work I’ve covered in other posts, particularly around Azure PowerShell Function Apps and Remote PowerShell into a FIM/MIM Sync Server.

Pre-requisites

• I created a C:\Backup Folder on my FIM/MIM Server. This is where the backups will be placed (you can change the path in the script).
• I installed the Lithnet MIIS Automation PowerShell Module on my MIM Sync Server
• I configured my MIM Sync Server to accept Remote PowerShell Sessions. That involved enabling WinRM, creating a certificate, creating the listener, opening the firewall port and enabling the incoming port on the NSG . You can easily do all that by following my instructions here. From the same post I setup up the encrypted password file and uploaded it to my Function App and set the Function App Application Settings for MIMSyncCredUser and MIMSyncCredPassword.
• I created an Azure PowerShell Timer Function App. Pretty much the same as I show in this post, except choose Timer.
  • I configured my Schedule for 2330 every night using the following CRON configuration

Update line 25 if you want the backups to go somewhere else (maybe a DFS Share).
If your MIM Service Server is not on the same host as your MIM Sync Server change line 59 for the hostname. You’ll need to get the FIM/MIM Automation PS Modules onto your MIM Sync Server too. Details on how to achieve that are here.

See the gist on github.

Running the Function App I have limited output but enough to see it run. The first part of the script runs very quick. The Export-FIMConfig is what takes the majority of the time. That said less than a minute to get a nice point in time backup that is auto-magically executed nightly. Sorted.

Summary

The script itself can be run standalone and you could implement it as a Scheduled Task on your FIM/MIM Server. However I’m using Azure Functions for a number of things and having something that is easily portable and repeatable and centralised with other functions (pun not intended) keeps things organised.

I now have a daily backup of the configurations associated with my development environment. I’m sure this will save me some time in the near future.

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