Microsoft Identity Manager 2016 (MIM 2016) is not one product but a family of products working together to mitigate challenges regarding identity management. In this chapter, we will discuss the MIM family and provide a brief overview of the major components available. The following diagram shows a high-level overview of the MIM family and the components relevant to an MIM 2016 implementation:
Within the MIM family, there are some parts that can live by themselves and others that depend on other parts. To fully utilize the power of MIM 2016, you should have all the parts in place, if possible. At the center, we have MIM Service and MIM Synchronization Service (MIM Sync). The key to a successful implementation of MIM 2016 is to understand how these two components work—by themselves as well as together.