Identity synchronization, rebuilt
Sinkrona Connect does the job of the Microsoft Identity Manager 2016 Synchronization Service: connector spaces, metaverse, join, projection, precedence, provisioning. It runs on today's platform instead: Windows, Linux or containers, with a REST API and a real browser admin portal.
MIM 2016 extended support ends on January 9, 2029. There is no 1:1 successor from Microsoft, and cloud governance products do not cover everything the Sync Service does on-premises.
What MIM end of life meansWhy a sync engine, still
Cloud directories and governance suites decide who should have access. Someone still has to bring together what every system knows about a person, settle which system is right, and carry the result out everywhere, in the right order. That is the synchronization engine's job, and it hasn't gone away.
HR, Active Directory, LDAP, SQL databases, SaaS apps and the in-house system nobody wants to touch. Each one holds a piece of the same person. Joining those pieces into one identity is the hard part, and everything built on top assumes it has already been done.
Cloud provisioning moves data from one source to one target. A real environment needs the title from HR, the phone number from telephony and the e-mail address from the mail system, with clear rules for who owns each value. That takes a metaverse with precedence, not a pipe.
An IGA suite or Microsoft Entra ID Governance says what should be true. Making it true in every connected system, with retries, confirmation and no duplicate accounts, is the sync engine's part. That's why the two work well together.
Ten or fifteen years of join rules, attribute flows and rules extensions describe how your organization actually works. Keeping that logic on a modern engine is faster and safer than redesigning it for a new product.
The admin portal runs in any browser. Everything you see here is also available through the REST API.
If you know MIM Sync, you already know Sinkrona Connect. We kept the behaviour and the words and replaced the platform underneath.
Management agents, connector space, metaverse, join and projection rules, precedence, run profiles, the Joiner and Preview. They behave the way you expect, so your team does not have to start over.
.NET 10 on Windows, Linux or containers, with MongoDB as the data store. No .NET Framework, no SQL Server licence and no Windows-only service account dance.
Every operator action is a REST call with an OpenAPI contract, including runs, joins, preview, retries and configuration export. The admin portal uses the same API as your scripts.
Sinkrona Connect is a general-purpose synchronization engine. It imports, exports and aggregates data from your connected systems through one central repository, the metaverse. Every connected system gets its own staging area, the connector space, where its objects are synchronized to and from the metaverse.
The engine manages the connection to each system through a connector, and carries out provisioning and deprovisioning in the connected systems. The metaverse, the connector spaces and the configuration all live in one NoSQL database (MongoDB), and it is all configured and operated through the REST API.
Full and delta import, full and delta sync, export, reverse join, attribute flow precedence, multi-valued set semantics, provisioning, deprovisioning and DN renames.
A change that arrives on import can be synchronized and staged for export right away, so you don't wait for the next full sync cycle. You turn it on per management agent.
Run one object through every rule and see exactly what would change, then commit that preview. "What-if" checks for configuration changes, too.
Run profiles and run-profile sequences on CRON schedules. You no longer need Task Scheduler and batch files.
A compiled built-in function library (Trim, Concat, IIF, Split and more) covers most flows. Management agent and metaverse extensions in C# handle the rest.
Idempotent exports, explicit state machines and automatic retries with error categories. Connector and extension calls are isolated, time-boxed and protected by circuit breakers.
Live dashboard, Metaverse Designer, connector space and metaverse search, the Joiner, run history drill-down and object details in any browser. No remote desktop session needed.
When a metaverse object changes, Sinkrona looks for its existing account in the target system and joins it, instead of provisioning a duplicate.
Reset a password with unlock and "must change at next sign-in", or change it, from the portal or the REST API, on one account or every connected system of a person. Every attempt is logged; the password never is.
Groups often have members someone added by hand, or people Sinkrona never sees. Tick one box, and Sinkrona only adds and removes the members it manages and leaves everyone else in the group.
Export the whole server or one management agent as JSON, keep it in Git, and import it on another server. Every import shows what it will change first. Passwords and data are never in the file.
Administrator, Operator, Joiner, Browse and PasswordSet, enforced on every page and every API call. Give the helpdesk password resets and nothing else, or let an auditor look without touching.
One search box for people, objects, management agents and runs. Every object shows which systems it is in, where each value came from and what changed in every run.
Every configuration change records who, what, when, before and after, with a correlation ID you can follow from the portal into the logs.
| MIM 2016 Sync | Sinkrona Connect | |
|---|---|---|
| Runs on | Windows Server | Windows Server, Linux (x64 and Arm), containers |
| Runtime | .NET Framework | .NET 10 LTS |
| Data store | SQL Server | MongoDB |
| Administration | Desktop client (Synchronization Service Manager) | Browser portal + REST API |
| Scheduling | External (Task Scheduler, scripts) | Built-in CRON schedules |
| Sync granularity | Whole run | Whole run or per object |
| Group members it does not manage | Removed on export | Kept, if you choose |
| Configuration | Separate XML exports per server and management agent | One readable JSON file, checked before import |
| Connectors | ECMA2 (.NET Framework) | Sinkrona SDK, ECMA2-style interfaces |
| Support horizon | Extended support ends January 9, 2029 | Actively developed |
Everything Sinkrona leaves out or does differently, with the reasons →
All bundled connectors are built only on the public SDK. Anything they can do, your own connector can do too.
Users and guests, security and Microsoft 365 groups with members and owners, managers and licenses through Microsoft Graph, with delta import. Signs in with a certificate, a client secret or a managed identity.
Any LDAP v3 directory with its own schema, over LDAPS or StartTLS. Delta import from OpenLDAP's accesslog, passwords with the server's own hashing, and account lock and unlock with the password policy.
HR systems, SaaS and in-house APIs that do not speak SCIM: object types described in JSON, the common paging styles, and Basic, bearer, API key, OAuth 2.0 and client certificate sign-in.
Bring your own connector
public class HrConnector : IMAExtensible2CallImport
{
// The same interfaces you know from ECMA2, on modern .NET.
// Most connectors and rules extensions move over with a recompile.
}The free edition is a complete sync engine. Paid editions add scale, enterprise integration, compliance and support, never basic sync features. Paid editions are priced per production server, not per user. And we build it with the community: ideas, feature requests and reviews of proposals are welcome.
Free
Per server, per year
We review your management agents, rules extensions and run schedules, and tell you what moves as is, what needs a recompile and what is worth simplifying.
Recreate your management agents and flows. Recompile your ECMA2 connectors and rules extensions against the Sinkrona SDK.
Import into Sinkrona Connect while MIM keeps running, and compare the results object by object with Preview before you export anything.
Turn on exports in Sinkrona Connect and retire the old server. It's quiet, planned and reversible until the last step.
Before you plan: what Sinkrona does differently from MIM Sync – and why →
Who is behind Sinkrona
Sinkrona is created by Søren Granfeldt and owned by his company Goverco ApS (CVR DK33783000). Søren is an identity management specialist from Denmark who has spent years building and running FIM and MIM solutions.
Many in the MIM community know Søren as the author of the PowerShell Management Agent (PSMA), the free connector that lets FIM and MIM synchronize with anything PowerShell can reach. It is used in FIM and MIM installations around the world.
Sinkrona Connect comes from the same experience: keep the parts of the Synchronization Service that work, and fix the platform, the tooling and the operations around it.
Read the original announcement from 2019 about why Søren started Sinkrona.
We are looking for a small number of pilot customers who run MIM Sync today. You get early access, direct contact with the developers and founding-customer pricing. We get your feedback. Want to hear more? Write or call Søren directly.