User profile service and User Profile Synchronization
service
This is a common question that many of SharePoint
administrators think at the beginning, what is the difference between those and
why they are used. Here is the answer for your question.
Explanation:
Coming to a background of user Profiles
The service application is used to import the users from
other directories such as LDAP, Novell, Tivoli, Unix into SharePoint. There are
many changes in user profile included in service application from Moss 2007 to SharePoint 2010
and 2013.there are two ways that we can import users. In Moss 2007 we have only
option is to import users from AD to SharePoint. We cannot update the user
information Vice Versa. When Coming into SharePoint 2010 and 2013,we have both
the options depends on our Farm. It should be like we can only get the user
from AD->SharePoint
and It should be like the user update
can be done from SharePoint
t-> AD
FIM(Forefront identity manager)is also introduces in
between AD and SharePoint in SharePoint 2010 to get the updates.
3 data bases will be created after creating the user
profile service application, those are
·
Profile
database – used to store user profile information.
·
Synchronization
database – used to store configuration and staging information for
synchronizing profile data from external sources such as the Active Directory
Domain Services.
·
Social
tagging database – used to store social tags and notes created by users.
Each social tag and note is associated with a profile ID.
Difference of User profile service and User
Profile Synchronization service
It’s very simple to understand
·
User profiles – contain detailed information about people in an
organization. A user profile organizes and displays all of the properties
related to each user, together with social tags, documents, and other items
related to that user.
·
Profile synchronization – provides a reliable way to synchronize groups and user
profile information that is stored in the SharePoint Server 2013 profile
database together with information that is stored in directory services across
the enterprise.
User Profile Service:
This service should be used, If we just want to import
the users from AD only not to update the user information in a way from SharePoint->AD.
It’s a single way of communication
User Profile Synchronization service:
This service should be used, If we want to update the users information Vice versa.
If the information for a user is updated in SharePoint, it should be reflected
also in AD because of this service. It’s a Two way communication
