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Cyber Security architect at Avanade
Real User
Apr 19, 2022
Great multi-factor authentication and passwordless authentication and sign-in with support for SAML and OAuth
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution offers business to business and client to business support."
  • "We have applied this solution to multiple organizations and it has helped them manage their environments efficiently."
  • "Azure AD does not support legacy authentication protocols, such as NTLM or Kerberos."
  • "Most of the features come with a P1 or P2 license. With the free version, you do not get much."

What is our primary use case?

The main reason for implementing this solution was to help our customers to access internal or external resources seamlessly while allowing them to have full control over access and permissions. 

This enterprise identity service provided our customers with many security features such as single sign-on, multifactor authentication, and conditional access to guard against multiple cybersecurity attacks. 

Most of the clients have either Office 365 with hybrid solutions, a multi-cloud environment and they want to leverage Azure AD to manage access to those clouds or they have hybrid deployments with legacy apps on-premises and on the cloud as well. 

How has it helped my organization?

We have applied this solution to multiple organizations and it has helped them manage their environments efficiently. Moreover, it provided a high level of security and security features that are appreciated by most of our clients.

In hybrid scenarios, this is one of the best products you could have. It helped many of our customers to manage resources on-premises and in the cloud from a single dashboard. 

It helped our client to control permissions and review permissions for employees who have left the organization which kept them on-control over access and permissions granted to their employees.

What is most valuable?

The solution has many valuable aspects, including:

  • Password policy enforcement
  • Conditional access policies
  • Self-service password reset for could users and on-premises
  • Azure Active Directory Identity Protection
  • Privileged Identity Management
  • Multi-factor authentication 
  • Passwordless authentication and sign-in
  • Business to business and client to business support
  • Support for SAML and OAuth

There are many more features that are very useful and can be used as part of the P2 package. There is no need to install any agent or tool to utilize those features except when extending advanced features to the on-premises active directory.

What needs improvement?

I believe the product is perfect, however, it could be improved if it could integrate with other clouds with fewer efforts and provide the same functionality it provides to Microsoft products.

Most of the features come with a P1 or P2 license. With the free version, you do not get much.

The objects in Azure AD are not managed in organizational units similar to what you get in the windows server active directory, which makes it more difficult to delegate administrative tasks

Azure AD does not support legacy authentication protocols, such as NTLM or Kerberos.

Azure AD is unaware of group policies. If you would like to use the same on-premises group policies, then you need to use the passthrough authentication method with your existing on-premises AD servers. This would compromise the high availability of the cloud and create a single point of failure.

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For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this tool for more than five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

A Very stable solution, I never saw the service down, unavailable, or anything like that.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is highly scalable. There are no worries at all about the bandwidth or any other concerns. 

How are customer service and support?

We've had a very positive experience and our clients are adopting it more as their sole identity and access management solution. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did use the SailPoint Identity Platform. There was no cloud solution at that time which is why we switched.

How was the initial setup?

The ease of setup depends on the scenario and the use cases of your organization. 

What about the implementation team?

We are a vendor team and most of the implementation for enterprise clients is done via us or similar vendors. 

What was our ROI?

The solution has a high ROI when adopted properly in your organization.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Make sure to check which features your organization requires. Find out if they are applicable to all users or just a bunch of them before deciding on buying a license.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at many products, however, I do not want to mention the products' names. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. We are a consulting company that provides IT services to enterprise clients
PeerSpot user
Tom Kost - PeerSpot reviewer
ICT Project & Solution Manager at Kanton BS
Real User
Apr 14, 2022
Free to use with a good user interface and good performance
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is free to use and you can use it for every service."
  • "Having the single sign-on or the multi-factor way with just allowing the application with one tap to authenticate is really smart."
  • "Adding a new account can be tricky."

What is our primary use case?

The Authenticator app is a client application on your smartphone, usually, and you configure your profile in the cloud. I use it with my Android smartphone. 

This is a Microsoft standalone application, which the user installs usually on a mobile device, either iOS-based or in my case, Android-based. Then you add your enterprise accounts into the Microsoft Authenticator app, your work account from Microsoft 365, or your whatever on-premise account, which makes uses the Azure or whatever IDP, identity provider so that you can do single sign-on or multi-factor sign-ins.

How has it helped my organization?

It's an authenticator. How it's used really depends on the use case that it is configured with. If you are using your Microsoft 365 work account, if your organization requires you to do multi-factor authentication, not just with the username and password, with an additional factor like the Microsoft Authenticator app, then it simply offers that extra level of protection and security.

You can manage locally additional pathways or passwords. You can collect your credit card information or whatever secret notices in the authenticate app. This is something that got the addition the last couple of years.

What is most valuable?

You could use it for different use cases. 

The Azure AD-integrated single sign-on scenarios are the most useful due to the fact that, if you are in a cloud application that you have on your smartphone, the Authenticator just requests you to allow or deny the access as a factor. Other applications require a token where you have to enter in an additional pin. Having the single sign-on or the multi-factor way with just allowing the application with one tap to authenticate is really smart.

The solution is free to use and you can use it for every service.

They recently redid the user interface a few months ago and it looks good.

I've found the solution to be stable and scalable. 

What needs improvement?

Adding a new account can be tricky. I do it a lot and therefore am used to it, however, if you don't you tend to forget the process. If you had a bottom menu and the settings menu, for example, be added to the bottom menu instead of a different place, the top right corner, it might be more intuitive.

One area of improvement is always with global offerings from large companies where we have a lot of users that require help. Users need videos, et cetera, in their own language, and in German, there is not much from Microsoft. These are products that have a very, very fast life cycle. They upgrade the services and applications in a very high rhythm every couple of months, and even Microsoft does not have the resources to offer the learning material in all the regions, however, they offer their services.

We have then to add some additional use via manuals of how to set up, et cetera, as we have users that are not willing or cannot understand videos in English that come from Microsoft.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for two to three years. It might even be longer than that.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. I haven't had any problems so far. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The product scales well. 

The goal is to have everyone using it. We are in the rollout phase, and in my organization of about 1,500 users, after a couple of weeks, we have maybe a third of the population starting to use the application. 

This is like this every rollout. It takes a couple of weeks to a month. In the end, we will have around 7,500 users using Microsoft Authenticator or the Microsoft multi-factor authenticator service that allows you to choose different factors. We have a lot of things using the Authenticator app. 

How are customer service and support?

We have central support organizations and I don't access Microsoft support myself. Therefore, I can't speak to their level of service.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I've used many authenticator applications. I used already Microsoft Authenticator when it came out, maybe five, six, or seven years ago. Then I used Google Authenticator and other authenticator applications. You can, however, use these all in parallel. For example, if you mix your private and your work accounts in the same applications, or if your smartphone is managed by your company and you want to separate your private accounts from any corporate policy that can delete your smartphone, you can use different authenticators for different purposes. Right now, I have the Authenticator app in front of me, and I have seven accounts configured, and this is a mix of private and corporate or work accounts.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is easy. You just download it and start using it. 

We don't need to worry about maintenance. This is a service from Microsoft.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution doesn't cost anything to use.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I'm the Chief Security officer of our organization. I always have to do some research on these topics.

What other advice do I have?

I'm a Microsoft customer.

I'd advise any user to use MFA these days. There's not just war in Ukraine. There's also war in this kind of space and a multi-factor authentication method is a must just to make your cyber life a little bit safer at least.

I'd rate the product eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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Mangesh Masaye - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager at UPL
Real User
Jan 30, 2022
IAM service with seamless installation; has good authentication and single sign-on features
Pros and Cons
  • "Very stable and scalable IAM service with good SSO and authentication features."
  • "What I like most about Azure Active Directory is its SSO (single sign-on) feature, as we have a community of users with different IDs and passwords, and this feature helps integrate all these."
  • "Though the installation was seamless, it took longer than expected to be completed."

What is our primary use case?

We use Azure Active Directory to add authentication for users when they sign into the applications. We also use it to provide single sign-on (SSO) to applications.

What is most valuable?

What I like most about Azure Active Directory is its SSO (single sign-on) feature, as we have a community of users with different IDs and passwords, and this feature helps integrate all these. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Azure Active Directory since 2016.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Azure Active Directory is a very stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Azure Active Directory is scalable.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support for this solution is fine.

How was the initial setup?

Installing this solution was seamless, but it took time for it to complete. It took one month.

What about the implementation team?

We used an integrator to deploy Azure Active Directory.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Azure Active Directory has different licensing plans. We're on a yearly subscription. It is expensive, but if you look at the technical benefits it provides, the price for it is decent. If the cost of the license could be lowered, then it would be better.

What other advice do I have?

Azure Active Directory is a cloud-based solution in which we have done our integration with our applications.

We currently have five or six different teams using this solution. We have three people with admin rights, 3 technicians, and a technical team. Some users have admin rights, e.g. general admin rights, while some have basic rights.

Our plan to increase the usage of Azure Active Directory depends on how many new employees will join the company. It could happen.

I'm recommending Azure Active Directory to other people who want to start using it because it meets requirements.

I'm giving Azure Active Directory a score of 10 out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1263438 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Global Cloud Architect at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Jan 4, 2022
Good support for SAML 2.0 and OIDC-based setups for our remote identity providers
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution has come a long way. Now, with the Azure AD B2C offering integrated as well, we've got a full IAM-type solution for our customer-facing identity management. In addition, when it comes to user journeys we now can hook in custom flows for different credential checking and authorizations for specific conditional access."
  • "When it comes to ROI, there is low friction and a high, immediate return on investment."
  • "If somebody is using an IdP or an identity solution other than Active Directory, that's where you have to start jumping through some hoops... I don't think the solution is quite as third-party-centric as Okta or Auth0."

What is our primary use case?

We use Azure Active Directory for quite a few things. We use it for security group management of authorized principals who need access to get SSH-signed certificates for user logins. We use it for automated jot-based (JSON Web Token) self sign-on for our lowest, least privileged credentials on certain products. We also use AAD for B2B coordination of SSO when we're bringing users onto our platform, where they have Active Directory on their side. We use the OIDC-based SSO flows through AAD to merge project-level AADs back to our corporate AAD for internal single sign-on flows.

What is most valuable?

  • There is tech support to help with any OIDC-based setups between organizations.
  • It has good support for SAML 2.0 and OIDC-based setups for our remote identity providers.

The solution has come a long way. Now, with the Azure AD B2C offering integrated as well, we've got a full IAM-type solution for our customer-facing identity management. In addition, when it comes to user journeys we now can hook in custom flows for different credential checking and authorizations for specific conditional access. 

What needs improvement?

I don't think the documentation is where it needs to be yet, for user journeys and that type of flow. There is still trial and error that I would like to see cleaned up.

Also, they do have support for SAML 2.0 and it's very easy to set up linkages to other Active Directory customers. But if somebody is using an IdP or an identity solution other than Active Directory, that's where you have to start jumping through some hoops. So far, our largest customers are all using Active Directory, but I don't think the solution is quite as third-party-centric as Okta or Auth0. Those solutions have a lot of support for all kinds of IdPs you want to link up to.

Finally, a couple of months ago I was on a team that was looking at low-cost MFA for SSO, where we would control the MFA on our side, instead of having the remote database handle it. In those kinds of flows, there aren't as many off-the-shelf options as I would like. There were cost implications, if I recall, to turn on 2FA. Also, the linkages that they had set up off-the-shelf—obviously they had the Authenticator app—meant that if you wanted to do something with Duo Mobile or any of the other popular 2FA providers, it seems it might have taken us more time than we wanted to put into it.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Azure Active Directory for a couple of years now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is great.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is also great.

How are customer service and support?

We have an enterprise agreement with Microsoft, so we aren't typical folks. Through that agreement, we get a dedicated technical account manager and that person is able to escalate tickets when necessary. I have found Microsoft to be very responsive when needed, although we haven't really needed them that often.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We use Azure a lot, and therefore, AAD was an obvious choice and we thought, "Why not use it?"

How was the initial setup?

They've done a good job on OIDC. That was a pretty simple, seamless setup. We've done that with multiple remote IdPs now, and I don't recall too many issues there.

What was our ROI?

There is much less cost investment going into it now. We didn't have to do a volume buy to get onto the platform. When it comes to ROI, there is low friction and a high, immediate return on investment.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It's relatively inexpensive in comparison with third-party solutions. It's highly available and supported by Microsoft Azure in our enterprise agreements. With the addition of their B2C tenants, it's hard to beat from a cost perspective now.

They changed their pricing for B2B access. You used to need shared licenses so that, if you were paying for a Premium AAD on your side, that would allow you to have five shared external mapped users. They've blown that all up and it's now dirt cheap. It works out to pennies per user per month, instead of dollars. A P1 user license in their system was $6 per user per month, which is cost-prohibitive for a lot of B2B SSO flows, but now it's down in the pennies range.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
it_user1752234 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Manager at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
Real User
Jan 4, 2022
Great security features with an enhanced GUI and multi-factor identification
Pros and Cons
  • "The security features are great. They will report in advance to you in the case of suspicious activity."
  • "Before Azure Active Directory, it took effort to provide cloud access to on-premises users, but with Azure Active Directory and AD Connect, we are able to sync on-prem users to the cloud with minimal effort and we don't have to manage keeping multiple entities for the same user."
  • "The support could be better. Lately, they sort of dropped off a bit in terms of quality."

What is our primary use case?

I am a systems manager. I use Azure Active Directory every day for my support job.

Our authentication tools to single sign-on portals are hosted in different cloud products, like Amazon or GCP. So, we create an enterprise application and Azure Active Directory to give our users for authentication access to various public URLs.

How has it helped my organization?

Before Azure Active Directory, it took effort to provide cloud access to on-premises users. With Azure Active Directory and AD Connect, we are able to sync on-prem users to the cloud with minimal effort. We don't have to manage keeping multiple entities for the same user.

What is most valuable?

The multi-factor authentication (MFA) is one of the best aspects of the product. 

The security features are great. They will report in advance to you in the case of suspicious activity. 

The GUI is pretty enhanced. You can configure applications or do whatever they need to do. 

What needs improvement?

Azure Active Directory currently supports Linux machines. However, the problem is that you get either full or minimal access. It would be very nice if we could have some granular authorization modules in Azure Active Directory, then we could join it to the Linux machine and get elevated access as required. Right now, it is either full or nothing. I would like that to be improved. 

We have the ability to join Windows VMs to Azure. It would be nice if we could have some user logs, statistics, and monitoring with Azure Active Directory.

When we subscribe to MFA, the users get MFA tokens. However, it is not a straightforward process to embed any of the OTP providers. It would be good if Microsoft started embedding other third-party OTP solutions. That would be a huge enhancement.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Active Directory for two years.

This product is used every second of every day.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution offers nice stability and performance. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

In my organization, there might be as many as 60,000 people who utilize the solution. 

The scalability is awesome. You don't even need to think about scalability because Microsoft manages it.

We use it on a daily basis.

How are customer service and support?

The support could be better. Lately, they sort of dropped off a bit in terms of quality. Recently, Microsoft support has not been doing such a good job. Previously, they used to do a good job.

In the past, AD Connect was not syncing. It threw errors in the beginning. So, I had to call up technical support to solve the problem. At the time, we were satisfied with their assistance.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I am also using AWS.

Azure Active Directory is not an Active Directory product. It is just the application proxy. You need to have an on-prem solution. Azure Active Directory would just be a proxy that uses the on-prem data and hosts the application. It is not a full-scale Active Directory solution. However, it has a lot of enhancements. The traditional on-prem Active Directory hosts the users and computers as well as some additional group objects. 

On the other hand, AWS Active Directory has all the capabilities of the traditional Active Directory with limited access for the administrator. All domain administration and sensitive credentials will be managed by AWS. So, you don't need to worry about application delays or syncing issues.  

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is simple.

It is pretty easy to set up the product. You subscribe in Azure Active Directory. By default, it will have an extension where you need to register. If you need a custom domain name, then you need to register with your public DNS providers to create the DNS public entry. You will then have to prove that you own the domain name. Once it has been proven, then your Active Directory pretty much works. 

If you need to sync up your on-prem users with the Azure Active Directory, then you need to have an AD Connect server installed at the VM-level domain. It should be credentialed so AD Connect can use credentials to read your on-premises and sync it to the cloud. Once this has been done, you are good to go. As an enhancement, for whatever user you are syncing, you can mandate them by adding them to a group or rolling out an MFA policy.

What about the implementation team?

Since it is pretty straightforward, you just need one person to deploy it.

I implemented it in an hour.

Some maintenance is required. However, it is not on Azure Active Directory's part. Rather, it is for AD Connect. Often, we see that the connection is getting lost or something is not happening. Sometimes, port 443 might not be open from your on-prem Azure Active Directory. In that case, if you haven't implemented it in the beginning, then you need to do this. For a high availability solution, if you find that the machine is having additional issues, then you might need a higher AD Connect device. I would probably also deploy it with a different availability.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution has three types of tiers:

  1. E1 has very basic features. 
  2. You get limited stuff in E2 and cannot have Office 360 associated with it. 
  3. E3 is on the costly side and has all the features.

If you need to have an Exchange subscription or email functionality, then you need to pay more for that.

What other advice do I have?

We are using both the on-premises version and the SaaS version.

I would advise potential new users to learn a bit about the product before jumping in. If you are new, you need to do background research about Azure Active Directory. You also need to understand its purpose and how you want to leverage it. When you have a draft architecture in place, then you can go ahead and implement this solution. If it needs to be reimplemented, it is just a matter of five minutes.

I would rate the solution as nine out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
it_user1709859 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head, IT Infrastructure at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees
Real User
Dec 13, 2021
Integrates well with other applications and makes monitoring easy
Pros and Cons
  • "Application integration is easy. MFA and password self-service have reduced most of the supportive work of IT. We use multi-factor authentication. Every access from a user is through multi-factor authentication. There is no legacy authentication. We have blocked legacy authentication methods. For people who use the MDM on mobile, we push our application through Intune. In a hybrid environment, users can work from anywhere. With Intune, we can push policies and secure the data."
  • "After the move to Azure AD, the security level is high."
  • "Sometimes, users are not happy, but at the organizational level, it is good. It is costly, but the improvement is good in terms of performance and security."

What is our primary use case?

We have integrated our internal applications and cloud applications with Azure AD. We also have a few external applications for which we need to implement a self-service portal and handle requests such as password reset.

We have external applications such as Cloudspace, and we have integrated Azure AD with Cloudspace. We mainly use a single sign-on. Our main target is to go through all single sign-on applications and integrate them with Azure AD. We also need to audit everything in Office 365. Our mail system is Office 365, and we also do some auditing.

We are also implementing Intune. We have deployed some basic policies for mobile devices, and we are working on improving those policies. We need to configure conditional access and improve policies for the applications and devices. We are doing some testing, and it is in progress.

In terms of deployment, we have a hybrid deployment of Azure AD. We have the 2019 version of AD on-prem.

How has it helped my organization?

We are able to do complete onboarding through AD. The users have access through the AD login, which is synced with Azure AD. We have a hybrid environment, and every cloud application is accessed through AD. We have defined AD policies related to password expiration, limitations, etc. It has provided smoother accessibility.

Previously, when we had on-premise AD, to reset their own passwords, users had to use a VPN or bring their laptop to the office. With self-service, users can easily change their passwords. This reduces the workload for IT support. If their password gets locked, they can unlock it themself by using Azure AD. Previously, it was also difficult to integrate with external applications, but with Azure AD, integration with external applications is easier. 

Azure AD makes it easier to see and monitor everything in terms of access. We can see sign-in logs or audit logs, and we can also integrate devices by using Intune. So, we can manage BYOD devices inside the organization.

What is most valuable?

We are using Conditional Access, MFA, and AIP. We have integrated it with Intune, and we already have DLPs.

Application integration is easy. MFA and password self-service have reduced most of the supportive work of IT. We use multi-factor authentication. Every access from a user is through multi-factor authentication. There is no legacy authentication. We have blocked legacy authentication methods. For people who use the MDM on mobile, we push our application through Intune. In a hybrid environment, users can work from anywhere. With Intune, we can push policies and secure the data. 

The audit logs are very good for seeing everything.

For how long have I used the solution?

We started using it at the end of last year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable. I haven't faced any issues. There could be some issues related to syncing because of on-prem, but overall, it is quite stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I don't have much experience with scalability. I only use tier one or Premium P1, and I want to move to Premium P2 that has more security levels and more advantages.

In my previous companies, there were a thousand users. In my current company, we have less than 500 users. It is working fine, and there are no issues.

We plan to expand our usage. If it is possible, we plan to upgrade our subscription to Premium P2. We have introduced it to one or two companies who were looking for such a solution. We have already introduced the Azure AD hybrid platform for companies that had only an on-prem setup.

How are customer service and support?

Sometimes, there are issues, but they are usually because of user mistakes. We are able to fix such issues. We are able to find the issue and do troubleshooting. We are able to find information about what is wrong and how to fix it. 

Their support is okay. They are able to resolve the issue, but sometimes, there is a delay because the ticket goes to the wrong person or the wrong time zone. I would rate them an eight or a nine out of 10.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have only been using Microsoft solutions.

How was the initial setup?

It is easy to deploy and not complex, but it also depends on your requirements. We have tenants and subscriptions, and we connect AD to Azure AD through Azure AD Connect, and they are periodically synced.

The connectivity took a day or two. It doesn't take long. Sometimes, there could be issues with on-prem because of not having a standardized setup or because of parameter duplication, but after we resolve the issues, it doesn't take long. For its setup, only one person is generally required.

What about the implementation team?

It was implemented by me, and I also had one guy's support. 

Our infrastructure team takes care of the maintenance part. They are taking care of monitoring. If there is an alert or something happens, they take care of it. It doesn't require much maintenance. One person can manage it.

What was our ROI?

We have been able to achieve our target and requirements for security. After the move to Azure AD, the security level is high. The users have to change passwords and do MFA a few times if something goes wrong, and if they can't, the device is going to block them. Sometimes, users are not happy, but at the organizational level, it is good. It is costly, but the improvement is good in terms of performance and security.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It is a packaged license. We have a Premium P1 subscription of Office 365, and it came with that.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Two or three years ago, we were looking at some open-source solutions.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Azure Active Directory a nine out of 10.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
Infrastructure Manager at trt18
Real User
Nov 22, 2021
Enables us to apply security policies and manage a large number of users and their hardware
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the ability to deploy and make changes to every workstation that I need to. We use it to control policy and I can apply the right policies to all our 1,500 workstations, notebooks, et cetera."
  • "We are really happy with how the functionality Azure Active Directory gives us."
  • "The process for buying licenses from Microsoft is somewhat messy and really hard to do."

What is our primary use case?

We are using it for all non-structured data and as an identity manager for all of our accounts. In addition, we use it also to authenticate Google services, because we have Google Workspace for email, and to integrate other tools with our services. We are able to keep it all going, balanced, and synchronized. It's very good. We use it for just about everything that we need to do an identity check on.

How has it helped my organization?

We couldn't live without the Active Directory services. It has helped to improve our security posture. We have a lot of users and hardware to manage and we can do that with Active Directory.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the ability to deploy and make changes to every workstation that I need to. We use it to control policy and I can apply the right policies to all our 1,500 workstations, notebooks, et cetera.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the Active Directory solution for three years. I'm responsible for almost all infrastructure services in our organization.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's pretty stable. In the three years, the service has never been down.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

As far as I know, it works for 10,000 and 100,000. It's just difficult to find current information, such as how much hardware and how many licenses we would need to keep it going. But it's scalable and works really well. We can keep adding servers and scale up or out.

We don't have another company that provides support for Active Directory. On my team, there are three people who work with it, and we have about 2,000 users in our company.

How are customer service and support?

To be honest, I can barely navigate Microsoft's support. Microsoft is so well-known and there is so much information to look up on the internet, that we have never come to the point where we have actually had to open an issue with Microsoft's team. We can almost always find out the information that we need by looking it up with Google or in Microsoft's Knowledge Base.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We used to use LDAP, a free tool, but since almost all of our hardware needed integration, we had to move to Active Directory. We couldn't apply the policies that we needed, using open source, and we couldn't keep the integration going the way we needed to.

We are really happy with how the functionality Azure Active Directory gives us. I have a security policy applied to all workstations. Before, all of our users could configure their machines the way they wanted to. As a result, we often had to reconfigure and do other things to them as well because the computers were crashing. We almost don't have to do that anymore.

How was the initial setup?

The trick was to immigrate from LDAP. We had to get all the properties from the files into Active Directory, so it took some time. When we did that, there were some issues with the system and we had to do it manually. It would be nice if they had a service that would make it easier to migrate from LDAP to Active Directory, keeping all of the properties from files and non-structured data as well.

What was our ROI?

It gives a good return on investment. The amount of first-level support we have had to give internally has dropped a lot since we applied the policies and restricted our users. But our users are now more satisfied because their computers don't have the issues that they had before. Before Active Directory, there were many issues that our users complained about, like worms and malware. We don't have those issues anymore. Even with endpoint protection we had some cases of viruses in our company, but now we don't have them either.

Directly, I couldn't calculate the return on investment, but indirectly we saved by reducing work for our team, and we are keeping our users satisfied.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The process for buying licenses from Microsoft is somewhat messy and really hard to do. We have to talk to someone because it's hard to find out how many licenses we need. If I'm applying for 2,000 users, how many Windows licenses do we need?

They could also charge less for support. You buy the license, but if you want to keep it in good standing, you have to pay for the support, and it is expensive. It's okay to pay for the license itself, but to pay so much for support...

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We were thinking about buying another tool, to be capable of managing and keeping all the identities within our organization current. But we had to go straight to Microsoft because there are no other solutions that I know of. By now, almost all organizations are using Windows 10 or 11, and it would be hard to achieve the possibilities that we have with Active Directory if we used another service.

What other advice do I have?

We are integrated with NetApp because we use NetApp storage. It's pretty awesome. We are also integrated with many others, such as our data center hardware with storage from IBM. We're using it for logging switches, as well. It works really well.

My advice to others would be to look at the options and focus on how you can pay less. Do the research so that you buy just the essential licenses to keep it going. If you don't do the sizing well, you can buy more, but it's expensive to keep it going and pay for support.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
it_user1690884 - PeerSpot reviewer
Dynamics 365 CRM / Power Apps Developer at Get Dynamics
Real User
Nov 18, 2021
Excellent documentation and app registration services with very reliable stability
Pros and Cons
  • "The initial setup was very straightforward."
  • "Using Azure AD app services, we don't have to care about secure access to our Dynamics 365 data, as Azure AD performs the authentication on behalf of our application and that's great."
  • "A couple of years ago, I experienced some difficulty in implementing the solutions, the services of Azure AD. In one instance, I was not able to configure Azure AD for a registration. This was two or three years ago. However, currently, the documentation is very clear and there are no loopholes or anything that could hinder even a simple IT administrator to implement these services."

What is our primary use case?

Azure AD is primarily integrated with all of the Microsoft services, such as Microsoft 365, Office 365, and Dynamics 365/Power Apps. Behind the scenes, we are, in one way or another, using Azure AD for our application security, identity management, and to access purpose services. At times, we need to configure some advanced features to provide access and identity to third-party apps to integrate with Dynamic 365. 

How has it helped my organization?

Unfortunately, I don't have any numbers and metrics related to organizational improvement off-hand.

That said, using Azure AD app services, we don't have to care about secure access to our Dynamics 365 data. Azure AD performs the authentication on behalf of our application and that's great. We don't have to implement security on our side to secure access for third-party services or third-party software or applications.

Azure B2C has also helped us in providing secure access to the Power Apps portal, or external content.

What is most valuable?

The app registration services are great. This basically simplifies security in order to give access to third-party apps from within Microsoft services such as Dynamics 365 and Power Apps. We can do this in a very secure manner using the AD. This really very simplifies the identity and access management for us.  

I use Azure B2C for providing access to external users. It was a really great experience to configure Azure AD B2C. I like this feature, as it provides a single sign-on for existing or new users; even new Azure AD users can be provided with sign-ins to our portal.

The solution has features that have helped improve our security posture. For example, without Azure B2C or any third-party identity service like Google or Gmail, we are compelled to store users' credentials and sensitive data in Dynamics 365 contact table somewhere. By using Azure B2C, we are totally independent of this.

The solution hasn’t affected the end-user experience. Usually, users are not so IT aware, so they don't feel an impact related to the change. We know that having secure access for them is important for them and also for us, however, they don’t feel any noticeable difference with the extra security in place.

What needs improvement?

Honestly speaking, I haven't thought about where areas of improvement might be necessary.

Everything was very smooth every time we used Azure AD. In other Microsoft solutions, we come across some bugs or workarounds, et cetera. However, as far as Azure AD is concerned, or maybe, to the extent that we are using it at least, we haven't come across any issues.

In terms of identity and access management and concerns, all of our needs are provided by the existing implemented features.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the advanced feature of Azure AD for the last three years or so.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Currently, Azure AD and most of the Azure services are very, very stable. A couple of years ago, I experienced some difficulty in implementing the solutions, the services of Azure AD. In one instance, I was not able to configure Azure AD for a registration. This was two or three years ago. However, currently, the documentation is very clear and there are no loopholes or anything that could hinder even a simple IT administrator to implement these services.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I am just using the product for integration with Dynamics 365 and Power Apps solutions. Right now, we are integrating with Azure AD in a very simple manner. I'm not sure if we plan to expand usage.

In our company, 100 to 200 people are connecting to PowerApps portals using Azure AD B2C.

There are two or three developers right now who use Azure AD for identity and access management purposes. Managers will not be using Azure AD in that it is not used to configure and trigger solutions using Azure.

How are customer service and support?

We haven't used customer support contact up to this point. Everything that we need is already provided through the documentation. So far, we haven't had any need to contact customer support for Azure AD.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did not use a different solution before we used Azure AD. We only use Microsoft solutions.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was very straightforward. The documentation is very good and the steps are very well documented. I remember three years ago I encountered some undocumented feature or maybe a bug when configuring Azure AD for apps registration. However, lately, this is not the case. Currently, the documentation is very up-to-date and very clear, and almost every time I register the user, the apps in Azure AD, and configuration the Azure B2C have helpful documentation. They probably made some form of an update to the system that fixed any past bugs or issues.

The deployment hardly takes 15 to 30 minutes - and that's for app registration. To complete the whole process on the Azure AD side and on our Dynamics 365 side - including Azure B2C - it took, when I implemented it for the first time, one hour to set up everything. That was the first time. Since then, I've gotten faster and it now hardly takes 30 to 40 minutes to configure Azure B2C.

What about the implementation team?

We are an IT company ourselves. A hundred percent of the time we use our own skills and documentation to implement everything related to Azure AD and Dynamics 365 or anything else.

What was our ROI?

We have seen an ROI due to the fact that it integrates with other Microsoft services very seamlessly. In that sense, it definitely saves time and cost as opposed to implementing something that we don't know, such as other identity systems. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I don't know much about the pricing. As far as licensing is concerned, there are two options. There is a set of free services that are offered through a free license and if you have a Microsoft tenant or any Microsoft service such as Dynamics 365 or Power Apps, you have access to a free set of services that Azure AD provides. This includes registration and some other items. 

If you want to use Azure AD's advanced features, they are not provided for free. There are two types of premium licenses that are available for anyone who is a registered licensed user.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate different solutions before we chose Azure AD. This is due to the fact that, in the Microsoft ecosystem, Azure AD fits best in terms of providing access and identity management to all of the other Microsoft online services.

What other advice do I have?

We are a Microsoft partner.

I'm not sure which version of the solution we're using. This is an online service. As I'm a Dynamics 365/Power Apps developer, usually I don't bother to check what version of Azure AD is currently hosting on the online services.

I would advise new users, if they are using Microsoft online services, that Azure AD is the best choice for all identity and access management requirements. This is due to the fact that it is in the same ecosystem. It understands the needs of its own vendors much better compared to any other external identity service.

I'd rate the solution a perfect ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
it_user1692840 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Systems Administrator (Servers and Storage) at University of Bath
Real User
Nov 18, 2021
Straightforward to set up and use, scales well, and MFA improves our security posture
Pros and Cons
  • "Conditional Access is a helpful feature because it allows us to provide better security for our users."
  • "This product has improved our overall security posture."
  • "I would like to see improvements made when it comes to viewing audit logs, sign-in logs, and resource tags."
  • "In my opinion, the on-premises deployment is still king with respect to stability. We are able to control what's happening there, unlike the cloud instances when the service is down."

What is our primary use case?

We use the Azure portal to create users, assign rights, build policies, etc. I'm not an administrator for that part of our system but that is basically what we use Azure AD for.

How has it helped my organization?

Conditional access has helped us to better provide more security for our users and MFA has helped us to provide more security for users who are working from home. They use their own personal devices.

Azure AD has helped us to provide security for applications that I didn't have access to.

This product has improved our overall security posture. Everybody is working from home using a VPN. We recently migrated everybody to MFA, which is required to connect using the VPN. People are now more aware of their passwords and overall, gives them better security.

Using the Self Service Password Reset functionality has helped to improve our end-user experience because they no longer have to deal with the service desk to do so. It also helps the service desk because it relieves them of the need to help users when it comes to password changes, allowing them to focus on other things.

What is most valuable?

We use all of the services that are offered by Azure AD. We use Azure AD Connect, SSPR, app registration, application proxy, and more. We use everything for different services that include conditional access, authentication methods, etc.

Conditional Access is a helpful feature because it allows us to provide better security for our users.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see improvements made when it comes to viewing audit logs, sign-in logs, and resource tags.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Azure Active Directory for approximately six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

In my opinion, the on-premises deployment is still king with respect to stability.

We are able to control what's happening there, unlike the cloud instances when the service is down. If Azure AD is down then it will affect the ability of our users to log in.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Both Azure AD and the on-premises Active Directory solutions are scalable.

We have approximately 30,000 objects hosted in Azure AD. Usage will be increased as need be, as we have more users and we have more objects to add.

How are customer service and support?

I would rate Microsoft support and eight out of ten.

Support provides access to good resources and good backend tools that we can use to resolve issues.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We migrated to Azure Active Directory from Windows Active Directory.

How was the initial setup?

In my previous organization, I was involved in the implementation and it was very straightforward. It was straightforward in the sense that we didn't encounter any major issues because we were already using Windows Active Directory. The only issue we had was that we had to move people in batches, and not at the same time.

Our deployment took approximately one month.

As part of the implementation strategy, we first moved our Exchange to Office 365. This was the initial migration of users from on-premises to Azure AD. The primary phase was to start using Office 365 for our email instead of Exchange.

What about the implementation team?

We migrated from our on-premises Exchange solution to Azure AD with our in-house team. There are some of us in the infrastructure team, plus my manager.

What was our ROI?

In terms of our overall Azure experience, I can see that this solution yields a return on our investment. However, it is difficult to quantify.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The cost is billed on a per-user licensing basis.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate any other options.

What other advice do I have?

I think that overall, using Azure AD is very straightforward.

My advice for anybody who is considering Azure AD is to look at the products, understand the role of AD, and see how it works in their environment. Then, before they roll out, test it well.

The biggest lesson that I have learned from using this product is that it helps with better organization and allocation of rights and security.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
it_user1710252 - PeerSpot reviewer
manager at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Nov 18, 2021
Scales well, improves usability, and reduces friction
Pros and Cons
  • "It's a quite comprehensive solution and it scales quite well within our required scale as well, which is very useful."
  • "The product has helped to improve our security posture."
  • "The solution has certain limitations. For example, it has very little governance functionality."

What is our primary use case?

The solution is our main identity provider and federation platform. We use it for authentication and for federations, for some provisioning, and a little bit of governance.

What is most valuable?

It's a quite comprehensive solution and it scales quite well within our required scale as well, which is very useful.

The product has helped to improve our security posture. The Azure stack has built out a lot of analytics features. Now, we can more effectively investigate issues. 

The solution has positively affected our end-user experience by improving our usability and reducing friction.

What needs improvement?

The solution has certain limitations. For example, it has very little governance functionality. This is, of course, a choice made by Microsoft to see which areas they want to have deep functionality, and which areas they believe are more profitable for them. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using the solution probably since the mid-'90s when it was invented.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution has generally been quite stable. They've had some problems with the MFA and other things, however, they are a lot better at keeping the system stable than we are.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

What we have seen is that we are running into some of the limitations of scalability. That said, we are more than half a million or 700,000 internal users at the moment. There are relatively few organizations globally that are as big as we are.

We're seeing, for example, that the parcel reset, to sync parcel reset from on-premise into the system is challenging. It's more than the 30 seconds that you typically want. It's even sometimes more than the two minutes that Microsoft promises in their SLAs.

We see that our syncing is slow. We have to run it every three hours, which causes problems with being able to service our business efficiently.

Those are the main problems I've seen. On top of that, there are certain features that have run into challenges, for example, the AEDS is not fast enough.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is actually quite good. It's rather rare that we have problems with support.

They have been very good at informing us about when they have outages. That's something we really appreciate as it saves us a lot of time. If something on their side is broken, they tell us so that we don't have to look to find any problems in our systems. That's one reason I really like the way they've been handling things.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

The system we used before was IBM ISAM.

The ISAM setup was on-premise and it's very expensive to run and maintain. The support for Microsoft is much better, which is an additional advantage for us.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was complex.

We have half a million users from 20 different offices. They've all got different ways of wanting to do things, including the way we have to build the federation infrastructure, for example.

This has been a four-year project, and we're probably going to continue with it for the next year or as long as we'll be using the product.

The initial build we did was a six-month build.

Our implementation strategy was to delegate sections, including delegating identity and federation setup.

We have five full-time personnel that handle the maintenance aspect of the solution. We have outsourced the actual hands-on maintenance. This firm has a couple of engineers, an architect, and an engagement lead. We have three solution delivery managers on hand, however, they do other tasks as well and are not necessarily dedicated to AD.

What about the implementation team?

We used a systems integrator to assist with the initial setup. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The product is priced quite well. The way that Microsoft prices per user and month is quite attractive to us. The level of the license cost is quite good as well.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate other options. Choosing Active Directory was a management choice. 

What other advice do I have?

We are just a customer and an end-user.

I'd advise those considering the solution to find a good partner to work with. You do need to have an experienced system integrator with you when you do the implementation. The integrator we brought on did a good job on our side.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft Entra ID Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: September 2026
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft Entra ID Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.