What is Azure Active Directory and its Benefits?

With an increasing number of businesses investing in the infrastructure for handling their remote workforce, many of them are getting inclined to the cloud for handling their in-house IT projects. This works in most scenarios because the cloud is designed in a way that makes the entire process of accessing things simple even if it isn’t in the office.

More than anything, the cloud is capable of handling multiple tasks all at once if not all tasks that require in-house hardware and overhead. One of the best choices of the cloud-based identity solution is that of the Microsoft Azure Active Directory.

The Microsoft Azure Active Directory is also known as the Azure AD or AAD is actually a cloud-based identity solution that offers great functionality that is needed from any identity solution. The simple act of moving the corp identity to the cloud is needed for certain SaaS applications that one might want to use. In addition, it is also a security concern for the companies to integrate the accounts/identities in the cloud.

In this blog, we will have a detailed look at the Microsoft Azure Active Directory and the benefits that it offers.

What is the Azure Active Directory?

The Microsoft Azure Active Directory is a cloud-based identity and an access management service that is meant to assist the employees for things such as signing and accessing resources. With the help of AAD, it becomes possible to access external resources like the Microsoft 365, Azure portal, and many other SaaS-based applications.

Various internal resources like the applications on a corporate network and intranet combine with any cloud applications developed by an organization can also be accessed. Basically, the primary advantage of Azure AD lies in the flexibility that it brings to the table with its entirely cloud-based architecture. This signifies that it can either act as the only directory of an organization or it can also sync with an on-premise directory through the Azure AD Connect.

Both ways, the Azure Active Directory identity protection allows the users to access the same applications and resources simultaneously with the goal to benefit from features like multi-factor authentication, single sign-on, conditional access, etc.

All in all, it offers a single and integrated place from which one can manage the identity, compliance, and security over an entire IT estate.

Who is Azure AD for?

Azure AD is mostly used by the following people:

• IT administrators: Being an IT admin, a person can use the Azure AD for controlling access to an application and the app resources based on the business requirements. For instance; once can use Azure AD for requiring multi-factor authentication when accessing significant organizational resources. Other than this, the Azure AD can also be used for automating the user provisioning between an existing Windows Serve AD and a cloud application including Microsoft 365. Lastly, Azure AD also enables some of the powerful tools to automatically assist user identities and credentials for meeting the access governance requirements.
• App Developers: Being an app developer, one can use the Azure data services as a standard-based approach for adding a single sign on to an application while enabling it to work with the pre-existing user credential. Furthermore, Azure AD also offers APIs that assist in building a personalized application experience with the use of existing organizational data.
• Microsoft 365, Azure, Office 365, and Dynamics CRM Online Subscribers: Being a subscriber, one can use the Azure AD. The Microsoft 365, Azure, Office 365, and the Dynamics CRM online tenant are already an Azure 365 tenant. One can immediately begin to manage access to integrated cloud applications.

Now that we have understood what Azure AD is and who it is meant for, let us now have a look at the innumerable benefits that it is capable of offering one by one.

1. High Availability

Microsoft Azure AD is immensely available with the help of architecture design that is spread over 28 data centres and that too in multiple areas. Additionally, it also consists of an independent building block for providing the scale and availability.

There are three major components for every directory position on Azure AD called the Active primary, Passive primary, and the secondary replica. The first or the active primary component is where the entire write up takes place and gets prompt replicated to another data centre.

The second component is the passive primary which is a similar topology as the Active primary but another data center in which the writes are replicated from the Active Primary. This can take the role of an active primary at any time.

The last component called the secondary replica is right where all the reads happen from these replicas that are located at numerous data centers spread across geographies. There are multiple replicas like these and the data gets replicated in all of them asynchronously. Microsoft offers 99.9% SLA for all the paid versions of Azure AD.

2. Hassle-free access

With the help of Azure AD access to the applications across the cloud and the on-premises can be way more simplified. In just one identity, it is possible to access thousands of SaaS applications and on-premise applications using a single sign-on. One can also achieve a single sign on to an on-premise application using the pass through the authentication or federation.

With the use of Application Proxy, one can also publish the on-premise for a rather safe remote access. There is absolutely no need to change the network infrastructure or use a VPN. Users can access all these applications just as any SaaS application over the internet.

Finally, the access panel is a web-based portal that is usually called my apps. Being an extraordinary and productive choice for a homepage for all the employees, it not only listed all the granted applications to the logged-on user but it also offers account management, group management through one view, and password reset. Moreover, it can also be accessed by supported web browsers and mobile applications.

3. Azure Works With Wide Range of Products

Azure AD works with more than just Microsoft software. Where Microsoft makes some of the most renowned and best productivity solutions in the entire world, there are some businesses that have other products in their office.

By using the Azure AD, one does not have to be locked into using just Microsoft products. The Azure AD helps other operating systems and virtual tools including a wide range of cloud collaboration tools and some popular cloud services like Salesforce, Microsoft 364, and also some corporate social media that enables businesses to mix all the solutions that work best for them.

4. Self Service Benefit

Microsoft Azure Active Directory can assist in saving a great deal of time and cost and these count for extremely safe and reliable features. Through the tool, users can reset the forgotten password by reacting to some of the additional security challenges.

The users can also change the password and unlock the account by themselves when the need arises. With the help of self-service group management, the users can create new groups and memberships for the independent groups owned by them.

5. Security

A secure access is one of the tops for any identity and Azure AD offers numerous features to achieve it. The multi-factor authentication offered by Azure Active Directory identity protection can add some two steps verification for the process of authentication to offer some additional layer of security to the user sign-ins. Azure multi-factor authentication is moreover an easy, scalable, and trustworthy solution and the level of availability guaranteed by Microsoft is almost 100%.

In addition, conditional access is another feature that is all the more beneficial because it provides control on how from where and who can effectively access the Azure data services. One can create policies to get additional access control that relies on the device types, applications, user roles, sign-in risk level, and network.

Another benefit called privileged identity management helps to manage and administer the IT systems while securing the privileged access critical for securing the business assets. With the help of Azure AD privileged identity management, one can reduce the number of admins and allow a just in time administrative access. This ends up offering a rich audit trail of admin access.

Finally, a dynamic group offers automatic group membership reliant on the user attributes. This additionally assists in offering access to the correct people on the attributes such as department, location, or any other, employee type and manually managing it.

6. Real-time monitoring

The Microsoft Azure AD decreases any possible threats that might arise to the business data by finding any unusual user behaviour and enacting the just in time access to the data.

This in combination with the Azure Active directory multi-factor authentication and conditional access enables a business to benefit from the enhanced application security and management control.

Finally, Azure AD offers comprehensive reporting that allows a business to monitor application usage and boost the security required for protecting business data from threats.

7. Collaboration

The Azure AD also offers collaboration outside the organization for the partners to access the internal project site or content. With the help of Azure B2B, the corporates can add in the partner groups and share the important information internally without ever worrying about the identity existence.

The partners can access the information by using their existing identity. For the applications used by the customers, one can create tenants with Azure B2C and customers can log in using their social and corporate email accounts. One just needs to create an app and Azure AD takes care of identity management.

8. Integration with Windows Server Active Directory

The Azure AD also enables integration with an on-premise identity provision that helps in managing access to the cloud features.

With just a single sign-on applied to the on-premise active directory, a seamless and effective working environment can be created for the users irrespective of whether they are working within an office or remotely.

9. Free Test Run

Before the final decision, it is possible to test the Azure Active Directory for free entirely to get a detailed feel for all that a solution has to offer. One can see for themselves that the Azure AD simplifies a business in every area.

What’s more is the fact that the Azure AD comes in various pricing plans for effectively fitting the business needs and budget of every client. The Azure Active directory empower employees to provide an access to the business world’s leading cloud applications and services and this is on the device that they select from anywhere they need.

10. Easy to use

Getting an access to the resources should be made easy for the end users. With just a single on, utilizing the same sign-in for Windows and all the applications means less trouble with credentials and fewer demands on the IT help desk.

This feature makes using Microsoft Azure Active directory very easy to use and work with.

Conclusion

As remote work continues to grow for becoming a viable alternative to working in the office, Microsoft continues to provide small and medium-sized businesses cost-effective and cloud-based solutions that keep the teams in touch and productive.

Being a cloud solution provider, Encaptechno has positioned itself to give the businesses best practices and solutions that can help in taking advantage of the wide range of offerings including the Microsoft Azure Active Directory.

Reach out to our consultants and know more about implementing Microsoft Azure. We will help you find the best fit designed specifically for your organization.