Power of Azure and Active Directory

Are you ready to tap into the full potential of Microsoft Azure with Active Directory? Look no further! This comprehensive guide will walk you through everything you need to know to unlock the power of Azure and leverage its many features with Active Directory. From setting up your Azure environment to integrating it seamlessly with Active Directory, we’ve got you covered. We’ll explore the benefits of this powerful combination, including enhanced security, simplified user management, and streamlined access control. Whether you’re a seasoned IT professional or new to the Azure world, this guide offers step-by-step instructions and insider tips to help you make the most of your Azure-Active Directory integration. Discover how to migrate your existing directory to Azure, leverage single sign-on for seamless authentication, and gain insights into advanced security features. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to harness the true potential of Azure with Active Directory. Empower your organization and take your cloud management to the next level with this comprehensive guide. Get ready to unlock the power of Azure today!

What is Active Directory?

Active Directory (AD) is a directory service developed by Microsoft for Windows domain networks. It plays a crucial role in identity and access management for a broad range of applications and IT services. AD provides a centralized platform where administrators can create and manage user and group accounts, define security permissions, and apply policies across the network.

Key Components of Active Directory

Understanding what makes up Active Directory is essential for maximizing its capabilities. Here are the core components:

1. Domain Services: The core functionality of AD, enabling the identification and authentication of users and computers in a network. Each domain can have multiple organizational units (OUs) to structure resources effectively.
2. Users and Groups: Users are individual accounts with specific roles and permissions. Groups simplify management by aggregating users who require the same access or capabilities. By defining groups, administrators can efficiently control permissions and policies.
3. Organizational Units (OUs): OUs are containers used to organize users, groups, computers, and other OUs. They allow for better management and application of Group Policies, which can dictate the configurable settings and permissions for the users within them.
4. Group Policies: These are rules that apply of settings and behaviors across various domain objects. With Group Policies, administrators can enforce security settings, implement software installations, and manage user environments efficiently.

Active Directory vs. Azure Active Directory explained

“Active Directory vs. Azure Active Directory”? Okay, I readily admit that this match-up will never inspire the same passion as “Coke vs. Pepsi,” “Marvel vs. DC” or “Kirk vs. Picard.” Still, these two core Microsoft technologies affect your digital life more than you might realize, so it’s really important to understand them.

Active Directory vs. Azure Active Directory: Key similarities

The name “Active Directory” reveals a lot about what Active Directory (AD) and Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) have in common. Let’s start with “directory.” In general, a directory is an organized list of things, like the fat Yellow Pages that used to land on your (or your parents’) doorstep or the Contacts list on your phone. Both AD and Azure AD maintain a database or directory of objects; one of the most important types of object is the user account, which includes details like a person’s username and password, as well as their real name, job title, department and so on.

Active Directory vs. Azure Active Directory: Key differences

Structure

In Active Directory, the primary unit is the domain: a group of related users, computers and other AD objects that are stored in a single database (directory) and can be managed together. A small company might have only one domain, but larger organizations often have multiple domains, such as separate domains for different locations or business units. Multiple domains can be combined into a tree, and multiple trees can be grouped into a forest.

Azure AD does not have any of these things. Instead, the basic building block is the tenant: a dedicated instance of Azure AD for a particular company. You create your tenant when your organization signs up for a Microsoft cloud service like Office 365. Your Azure tenant has a dedicated directory that includes all your users and performs services like authentication and authorization for you.

Authentication

Both Active Directory and Azure Active Directory perform authentication, but they use completely different protocols for getting the job done. (A protocol is basically a set of rules for exchanging data between different machines, including how the information will be structured and how each side will send and receive it.

Active Directory has been around so long that the authentication protocols have evolved a great deal, from LM to NTLM, and then to the currently supported NTLMv2 and Kerberos. Each advancement made it harder for imposters to fool the system and successfully authenticate using someone else’s credentials.

Azure AD doesn’t support any of these protocols. Instead, it uses modern authentication protocols like OAuth, SAML and OpenID Connect. Moreover, Azure Active Directory authentication is a multifaceted process that includes components like self-service password reset, Azure AD Multifactor Authentication, Conditional Access policies and even password-less authentication.

Authorization

Active Directory and Azure Active Directory also perform authorization in quite different ways. In both cases, authorization is a complex process that involves a great many components; I’m going to focus on only the most important elements, so don’t mistake this short blog post for a comprehensive discussion.

In Active Directory, there are three primary ways for controlling what users are permitted to do:

AD security group membership — An AD security group is basically a list of user accounts and a set of permissions that are granted to every user in the group. There are a variety of built-in security groups, such as Domain Admins and Guests, and you can create your own custom ones as well. For example, you might have a security group called “Finance Team” that allows everyone in the group to run certain applications and modify certain files relevant to their collective responsibilities.

Directly assigned permissions — You can also directly assign permissions to Active Directory objects like user accounts. This enables very fine-grained control over access, but it is generally not a best practice because managing the permissions for each user individually is highly error prone and becomes impossible to effectively manage almost immediately.

Group Policy is a very powerful feature of Active Directory that affects many processes, one of which is authorization. It enables centralized management of users and computers, so, for example, you can use it to prevent anyone from executing commands from the command prompt on their machine or copying data to a removable device. It can also be used more granularly, for instance, to block unidentified users on remote computers from connecting to a network share.

So, when an authenticated user tries to do something — such as read a piece of data or run an application — Active Directory decides whether to allow the action by (among other things) checking the permissions they’ve been granted directly and via their security group memberships and the rules laid down in Group Policy.

Azure AD handles authorization very differently. Again, it’s a complex process that I’m not detailing completely, but here are the main components:

Azure AD security groups— Security groups in Azure AD are similar in structure and function to those in on-premises Active Directory: All members of the group are granted all the permissions assigned to the group. However, Active Directory groups are comprised of on-prem user accounts and control access to on-prem applications and resources, while Azure AD security groups are comprised of Azure AD user accounts and are used to grant access to Microsoft 365 resources, such as SharePoint Online.

Microsoft 365 groups(formerly called Office 365 groups) — AMicrosoft 365 groupis kind of like an Azure AD security group on steroids. It has a list of members, but it’s also coupled to resources and workloads for the group, such as a SharePoint team site and a shared Exchange mailbox. Microsoft 365 groups can include users from both inside and outside your company, and they can be configured for dynamic membership, which means group members are added or removed automatically based on attributes such as department, location or title.

Azure AD roles — Azure AD roles grant specific sets of permissions to different types of administrators. For example, the Global Administrator role grants access to all administrative features in Azure AD and to services that use Azure AD identities, such as the Microsoft 365 Security Centre, Exchange Online and SharePoint Online. The Exchange Administrator role, as the name implies, grants a user global permissions within Exchange Online. There are dozens of built-in Azure AD roles, and you can also create your own custom roles.

Computer and device management

In Active Directory, one of the most powerful tools for managing computers is Group Policy. For instance, you can use Group Policy to block users from adding new Microsoft accounts on a particular computer, prevent the installation of unauthorized machines, lock a computer after a certain period of inactivity, automatically install software updates on all computers, and prevent the use of removable storage devices.

Azure AD, as we have already seen, does not have Group Policy. Instead, device management is done with Microsoft Intune. You can set up different rules for organization-owned devices and personal (BYOD) devices enrolled in Intune. Options include blocking jailbroken devices, pushing certificates to devices so users can connect to your network via a VPN, and wipe corporate data from a device that is lost or stolen.

How Does Azure Active Directory Work?

Users and Groups

Users and groups serve as the foundational components of Azure AD. You can categorize users into groups that share similar behaviors. For instance, you might place your Product Management team in a specific Azure AD group and assign permissions at the group level. This way, when a user leaves the organization, you only need to deactivate one account while the rest of the group remains intact.

Azure AD accommodates users from both within and outside your organization. To clarify, Azure AD can include identities for employees in your organization as well as external users who possess a Microsoft account. This setup allows you to integrate individuals from outside your organization into your tenant and assign them specific permissions, making them feel like part of your internal team. When implemented effectively, this arrangement enhances the security of your organization’s data.

Adding Users and Groups to Azure AD

There are several methods to populate your users and groups in Azure AD. Organizations can choose the most suitable approach based on their size, resources, and existing infrastructure. Below are the primary methods for adding users and groups to Azure AD:

1. Azure Portal

The Azure Portal provides an intuitive interface that allows administrators to create and manage users and groups easily.

• To add a user: Navigate to “Azure Active Directory” > “Users” > “New User”. Here, you can fill out the details such as name, username, and role, and configure settings like password policies.
• To create a group: Head to “Azure Active Directory” > “Groups” > “New Group”. You can specify group type, assign a group name and description, and add members from existing users.

This method is straightforward, especially for smaller organizations with manageable user counts.

2. Bulk User Import

Organizations with a large number of users can take advantage of bulk import features.

• CSV Upload: You can prepare a CSV file containing user information (like usernames, email addresses, and roles) and upload it through the Azure Portal. This significantly reduces the timeand effort spent on user creation.
• PowerShell Scripts: For more advanced setups, PowerShell offers robust cmdlets that enable administrators to manage users in bulk. By writing scripts, you can automate user creation and group assignments, making it ideal for large enterprises with dynamic user bases.

Custom Domains

Adding a custom domain to Azure AD will reduce the frustration that your users’ experience as they migrate to the new system. The default Azure AD domain looks like this:

@notarealdomain.onmicrosoft.com

That’s a lot to type. If you configured Azure AD to use a domain that you own, your users would thank you. It would look something like @notarealdomain.com instead. That’s much easier to deal with.

Can I Replace Active Directory with Azure AD? No, Here’s Why

Microsoft’s Azure Active Directory is a cloud directory that underpins Microsoft 365 (M365) subscription services. It’s used to configure access to software as a service (SaaS) and on-premises applications, and it’s a requirement to access productivity, IT management, and security services. Azure has different subscription levels that gate off its capabilities; certain Microsoft services have dependencies on its Premium service tiers.

Those include Intune for endpoint management as well as components that will synchronize AD instances with Active Directory. Other features, like LDAP and RADIUS, still aren’t cloud resident and require a hybrid setup with AD.

Major differences will quickly become evident to admins. Familiar concepts such as GPOs are replaced by Intune and Microsoft Endpoint Manager, which again, are separate services. Organizational units are replaced by another model called administrative units, and nested groups are a legacy concept. Cloud directories have a flat hierarchical model where permissions are assigned to individual groups and users, either explicitly or implicitly or through automations that leverage user attributes.

Its access control model is based around securing assets versus a traditional network perimeter with AD. As such, Azure AD utilizes different protocols and more modern means of authentication and authorization, and it’s central to Microsoft’s architecture.

AD and Azure AD Aren’t the Same Thing

Microsoft won’t add modern identity and access management (IAM) features to AD. It remains an on-prem directory that enables IT departments to create and manage user accounts, create and enforce security policies, and control access to resources on corporate networks.

Ultimately, Azure AD works differently and uses different technologies. It’s a separate platform that can lock customers into a new Microsoft ecosystem. Significantly, new technologies that Microsoft created to modernize and secure AD aren’t available without it, and it’s rarely purchased alone.

Does my organization have Azure Active Directory?

If your organization subscribes to any Microsoft Online business service such as Office 365 , it has Azure Active Directory.

However, only some Azure Active Directory features are included for free. To get capabilities like self service, enhanced monitoring, security reporting and mobile device security, you need to upgrade to an Azure AD Basic, Premium P1 or Premium P2 license.

Conclusion

In summary, understanding the distinctions between Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) and traditional Active Directory (AD) is crucial for organizations navigating the modern IT landscape. While AD serves as a robust on-premises solution, Azure AD caters to the needs of cloud-driven environments, enabling more flexible and scalable identity management.

Organizations that are already part of the Microsoft ecosystem, through services like Office 365, will find that Azure AD is seamlessly integrated into their workflows. However, to leverage the full potential of Azure AD, including advanced features like self-service capabilities, enhanced security measures, and comprehensive monitoring tools, organizations should consider the appropriate licensing options.

By upgrading to Azure AD Basic, Premium P1, or Premium P2, businesses can optimize their identity and access management to better protect sensitive data and streamline user experiences. As enterprises increasingly pivot to cloud solutions, investing in Azure AD not only enhances security but also supports the digital transformation essential for competing in today’s market.

Ultimately, the shift from AD to Azure AD represents a fundamental change in how organizations approach user management and resource access, making it imperative for IT leaders to adapt their strategies accordingly. Embracing this transition will empower organizations to fully harness the benefits of the cloud while ensuring robust security and compliance

Want to understand how we managed Azure Active Directory at Enabla Technology? Reach out here.