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At Oxford Computer Group, we have delivered Microsoft Identity Manager (MIM) solutions for more than two decades. From implementation and upgrades to managed support, health checks, and strategic planning, we help organizations maximize the value of their existing investments and prepare for the next phase of identity management.
Over the past year, our customers have reported a significant reduction in identity management-related incidents following the implementation of our strategic consultancy recommendations, resulting in notable improvements in their system efficiency and response time.
100% of our supported customers renew every year.
Andi Sheeka Managing Director
Planning the future beyond MIM
With Microsoft’s announcement that extended support for MIM 2016 will end in January 2029, organizations still operating MIM at their core must make some strategic decisions.
For some, the primary concern will be replacing MIM functionality before support ends. For others, existing challenges with performance and scalability, or the need for more advanced Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) capabilities, may be driving the need for change.
At OCG, we understand these challenges and recognize that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. We offer a range of on-premises, cloud-based, and hybrid solutions to help organizations transition from MIM, from drop-in MIM replacement functionality to full-stack IGA platforms that deliver enhanced identity lifecycle management, governance and security capabilities.
Whatever the starting point or future requirements, we help make the transition from MIM to a modern identity solution as easy as possible. Our specialist MIM expertise not only accelerates migration—it also helps protect the integrity of your identity data throughout the process, ensuring continuity and maintaining appropriate access controls.
For organizations that cannot complete migration before the 2029 cutoff, strategic planning includes documenting existing MIM configurations, prioritizing workloads for a phased migration, and engaging specialist expertise early.
Contact us to speak to a MIM expert
The skills gap
Your MIM risks
Perhaps the biggest risk facing organizations today is not technology. It is people.
Microsoft Identity Manager (MIM) expertise has become increasingly specialized. Many of the consultants who implemented MIM (and, before that, ILM and FIM) have moved to other identity platforms or retired.
Finding experienced MIM architects and consultants is becoming increasingly difficult each year. This means organizations often face:
- Limited internal expertise
- Reduced knowledge transfer
- Longer incident resolution
- Increased operational risk
- Difficulty recruiting experienced MIM professionals
When only one or two individuals possess specialist knowledge, your identity platform becomes increasingly vulnerable.
The Critical Need for Niche MIM Expertise
MIM expertise is among the scarcest skill sets in enterprise identity management today, and the gap is widening as engineers migrate to cloud-native Microsoft Entra ID. MIM’s architecture is inherently complex, built on layered synchronization engines, custom extensions, and management agents inherited from its Forefront Identity Manager lineage. Maintaining these environments requires deep, specialized knowledge that general IT staff rarely possess.
As Gartner notes, “MIM is a complex product with many moving parts… finding people with the right skills to maintain it is becoming increasingly difficult as the technology ages.” This skills gap poses a tangible operational risk. Unmanaged MIM environments are prone to synchronization failures, data inconsistencies, and security vulnerabilities that can propagate across connected directory systems. For organizations planning to move to Entra ID, a poorly maintained MIM environment complicates every subsequent step.
Contact us to find out how we can help
MIM support
Your Microsoft Identity Manager (MIM) platform may be mature, but it remains critical to your organization. Ensuring it remains secure, resilient, and supported requires specialist expertise that is becoming increasingly difficult to find.
Identity management has been our core business for more than twenty years. We have supported organizations through every generation of Microsoft’s identity management technologies—from Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS), Identity Lifecycle Manager (ILM), Forefront Identity Manager (FIM), and Microsoft Identity Manager (MIM), to today’s Microsoft Entra Identity solutions.
Our consultants understand not only the technology but also the realities of operating enterprise identity platforms.
Fixed-price support from identity experts – peace of mind plus no surprises
With decades of experience in identity management technologies, particularly Microsoft Identity Manager (MIM), our expert team is the perfect choice to support your system.
Expert ‘all-you-can-eat’ support at a fixed price
To give you peace of mind, plus no surprises, we offer ‘all-you-can-eat’ fixed-price identity and access management support agreements to take good care of your system.
Fast responses, regular maintenance
In addition to responding fast to business-critical incidents, we will perform regular checks to ensure your identity management system is working effectively and to pre-empt future issues.
No extra charge for change requests
Unlike typical support agreements, we will also handle requests for minor changes on a best-efforts basis at no extra charge. Such changes might include managing additional attributes, additional health probes, modifying provisioning logic, configuring workflows, group management configuration, reports, etc.
Whether you need day-to-day support, a health check, an upgrade, or guidance on your long-term identity strategy, Oxford Computer Group can help.ur support services
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Upgrading to MIM SP3
Microsoft Identity Manager (MIM) 2016 Service Pack 3 is an important update for organizations planning to continue operating MIM as a supported identity platform.
Why upgrade?
MIM SP3 supports newer underlying technologies, including Windows Server 2019 and 2022, SQL Server 2022, and SharePoint Subscription Edition. Windows Server 2025 is not currently supported.
Although MIM 2016 remains in extended support until January 2029, organizations should plan their move from SP2 to SP3 to remain on a fully supported service pack.
What is new in SP3?
MIM Synchronization Service can now use Azure SQL Database. System-assigned and user-assigned managed identities enable credential-free authentication, potentially simplifying SQL resilience for organizations running MIM Sync on Azure virtual machines.
SP3 also introduces claims-based authentication through AD FS for the MIM Portal, providing greater flexibility than the previously supported Windows integrated authentication. Read more about the SP3 update here.
What should you consider?
An upgrade requires careful preparation. MIM servers must run a supported operating system, while an in-place upgrade requires the latest SP2 build.
The MIM Portal cannot be upgraded in place and requires a new deployment on SharePoint Subscription Edition. Organizations should also identify legacy ECMA1/XMA management agents and plan to re-engineer them using ECMA2.0.
For organizations wishing to retire on-premises SharePoint completely, OCG’s Identity Director provides a modern alternative to the traditional MIM Portal.
How Oxford Computer Group can help
Oxford Computer Group can support your move to SP3 with a pre-upgrade health check, compatibility and portal review, upgrade assistance, and ongoing support to keep your MIM environment secure, healthy, and performing effectively.
Find out how we can help
Addressing the SharePoint dependency
One of the biggest challenges facing many Microsoft Identity Manager (MIM) environments is the reliance on SharePoint. The traditional MIM Portal depends on SharePoint technology, which has become increasingly difficult to support and maintain.
This creates several problems:
- Increasing infrastructure complexity
- Higher maintenance overhead
- Additional security considerations
- Skills shortages
- Upgrade challenges
- Future support concerns
For organizations wishing to continue using MIM while reducing operational risk, addressing the SharePoint dependency has become a growing priority. Research from MIT indicates that decoupling MIM from SharePoint reduces administrative overhead by 25%.
Oxford Computer Group offers modern alternatives like Identity Director that remove this dependency while preserving existing MIM functionality, helping organizations simplify administration and improve long-term supportability.
Find out how we can remove your SharePoint dependency
Why Oxford Computer Group?
Identity management has been our core business for more than twenty years.
We have supported organizations through every generation of Microsoft’s identity management technologies—from Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS), Identity Lifecycle Manager (ILM), Forefront Identity Manager (FIM), and Microsoft Identity Manager (MIM), to today’s Microsoft Entra Identity solutions.
Our consultants understand not only the technology but also the realities of operating enterprise identity platforms.
Our experience goes beyond supporting software. We help organizations reduce operational risk.
Customers choose Oxford Computer Group because we offer:
- Over 20 years of Microsoft identity expertise
- One of the UK’s largest specialist MIM consulting teams
- Deep experience across complex enterprise environments
- Fixed-price support options
- Strategic identity consultancy
- Proven migration and modernization expertise
- Support for both legacy and modern Microsoft identity platforms
Whether you intend to retain MIM or begin planning your migration, we help you make informed decisions based on your business requirements.
If you’d like to know more, our team of MIM experts would love to hear from you.
- Call for an informal chat on +44 (0)1865 521200
- Chat with us using the live chat at the bottom right of this page
- Complete this form
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