Overview
Identity management, provisioning, role management, and authentication are key services both on-premises and through the (hybrid) cloud. With:
- The Bring Your Own Apps (BYOA) for the cloud and the Software as a Service (SaaS) applications,
- The desire to better collaborate a la Facebook with the “social” enterprise,
- The need to support and integrate with social networks, which lead to a Bring Your Own Identity (BYOI) trend,
Identity becomes a service where identity “bridges” in the cloud talk to on-premises directories or the directories themselves move and/or are located in the cloud.
Active Directory (AD) is a Microsoft brand for identity related capabilities. Within on-premises world, Windows Server AD provides a set of identity capabilities and services and is hugely popular (88% of Fortune 1000 and 95% of enterprises use AD). Azure AD is AD reimagined for the cloud, designed to help you solving the new identity and access challenges that come with the shift to a cloud-centric, multi-tenant world.
Azure AD is the identity foundation for many Microsoft services like Office 365, Intune, Dynamics CRM, and others. Azure AD is a comprehensive identity and access management cloud solution, utilizing the enterprise-grade quality and proven capabilities of Windows AD on-premises. It combines core directory services, advanced identity governance, security and application access management.
This series of whitepapers on Windows Azure AD offerings comprises:
- Active Directory from the on-premises to the cloud.
- An overview of Azure AD.
- An overview of Azure AD B2C.
- Introducing Azure AD B2B collaboration.
- Azure AD & Windows 10: Better together for Work or School.
- Azure AD/Office 365 single sign-on with AD FS in Windows Server 2012 R2.
- Azure AD/Office 365 single sign-on with Shibboleth 2.
- Leverage Multi-Factor Authentication with Azure AD.
- Leverage Multi-Factor Authentication Server on your premises.
- Leverage Azure AD for modern Business Applications.