Microsoft Azure

Azure Active Directory (Azure AD)

Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) is Microsoft's cloud-based identity and access management service. It helps your employees sign in and access resources, whether they're in the cloud or on-premises.

Key Concepts

  • Users and Groups: Manage user identities and organize them into groups for easier permission management.
  • Applications: Integrate your applications with Azure AD for single sign-on (SSO) and secure access.
  • Authentication: Supports various authentication methods, including passwords, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and passwordless options.
  • Authorization: Control access to resources based on user roles and permissions using Azure RBAC and Conditional Access policies.
  • Hybrid Identity: Seamlessly integrate Azure AD with your on-premises Active Directory for a unified identity experience.

Azure AD Features

Azure AD provides a comprehensive set of features to secure your cloud and hybrid environments:

  • Single Sign-On (SSO): Users can sign in once and access multiple applications.
  • Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Enhance security by requiring multiple forms of verification.
  • Conditional Access: Implement intelligent access policies based on user, location, device, and application.
  • Identity Protection: Detect and remediate identity-based risks.
  • Application Proxy: Provide secure remote access to on-premises web applications.

Getting Started with Azure AD

To begin using Azure AD, you typically need to:

  1. Create an Azure AD tenant if you don't already have one.
  2. Add users and assign them appropriate roles.
  3. Register your applications with Azure AD.
  4. Configure security policies like MFA and Conditional Access.

Example: Adding a User


# Using Azure CLI
az ad user create --display-name "Jane Doe" --user-principal-name "jane.doe@yourtenant.onmicrosoft.com" --password "ComplexPassword123!" --force-change-password-next-login true

Example: Configuring Conditional Access Policy (Conceptual)

Conditional Access policies help enforce granular access controls. For instance, you might require MFA for users accessing sensitive applications from untrusted locations.

Refer to the official Azure AD documentation for detailed policy configuration.

Read the Full Azure AD Documentation

Azure Key Vault

Azure Key Vault is a cloud service for securely storing and accessing secrets, such as API keys, passwords, certificates, and cryptographic keys. It allows you to encrypt keys and secrets that are controlled by your .NET applications.

Learn about Azure Key Vault

Azure Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

Azure RBAC enables fine-grained access management of Azure resources. By assigning roles to users, groups, service principals, or managed identities, you can grant or deny access to specific Azure resources.

Explore Azure RBAC