Microsoft releases beta of Forefront Identity Manager 2010 R2

Listen up you enterprise fanatics, we have news: Today Microsoft released the beta of Forefront Identity Manager 2010 R2. As of now, there is no known ship time for the final R2 edition.

Forefront Identity Manger 2010 was released in March of 2010. The R2 beta contains the following features, according to Microsoft:

Credential management with web-based password reset

Historical reporting using integration to the System Center Service Manager data warehouse

Greater ease of use through enhanced initial load performance, improved diagnostics and enhanced load and scale performance

Additional support for Microsoft Outlook 2010, and Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010

I you want to download the software, head here.

Microsoft calls Forefront Identity Manager “a comprehensive solution for managing identities, credentials, and identity-based access policies across heterogeneous policies.” If that makes no sense, ZDNet has a simple-English definition: “FIM is Microsoft’s digital-identity-management product that integrates with Active Directory and Exchange Server. FIM handles tasks like identity synchronization, certificate management, user password resets, user provisioning, etc.”

As the product is aimed directly at the enterprise, it is not as sexy to discuss as other topics, but that does not make any less interesting, or important. The product is built by Microsoft’s Identity Group, which is tasked with security for the cloud. Since Microsoft just had a snafu with cloud data, products like this (from that group) are worthy of note.

And of course, as we have said before, we are bringing you more enterprise coverage, whether you like it or not.