As we all know, Azure Active Directory wheter you like it or not, is going to be “the-place-to-be” regarding identity management in a Microsoft-based environment. And why shouldn´t you embrace that fact? Given their recent success in Gartner reports, Azure AD gives you the scalability and the safety you need in order to operate in times like these.
IAM in Azure AD is much, much more than you probably could imagine. From Azure AD Free (comes with every Office 365 supscription) to Azure AD Premium P2 the supply of security features in regard to IAM is massive. Conditional Access, Risk-based Conditional Access, Priviliged Identity Management, Access Reviews, Multi-factor Authentication, Passwordless Multi-factor Authentication…. The list just goes on and on.
The biggest issue however when I talk to my customers (I work as a consultant within the realm of Microsoft 365 and Identity Management in both local environments, hybrid and cloud) is the cost of licenses. They seem expensive in that the model of the license is based per user per month, quickly racking up costs for an IT-department. Are the licenses expensive though? Given that you utilize your licenses to the max, I would argue “No”. If you have say, a P1 subscription and you utilize every inch of those licenses to the max, I would say that you are paying less than you would with similiar implementations on-prem.
Microsoft may not always be “best-in-class” in all regards when it comes to security, identity access management, information security etc. But they offer, quite often a lot of bang for the buck.
In this blog, which I hope to be able to update on a weekly basis, I will give you some tips, trick and help in order to use the wonderful features that many of us already know and love. Be sure to follow me on LinkedIn (although most of my communication there will be in Swedish), Twitter and TechCommunity.
Stay tuned for exciting posts about Azure Active Directory and what you can use in your profession in order to help your and/or other organizations to move forwards to a more Cloud based world.
