What is our primary use case?
Our main use cases with Microsoft Entra ID involve extending our on-premises Azure into the cloud, starting with messaging in M365 and syncing the IDs up, but we also do a significant amount of work with enterprise apps, app registrations, and different types of identity within Azure.
What is most valuable?
Within Microsoft Entra ID, I appreciate being able to perform the SAML configurations for enterprise apps and app registrations, SSO, which is something that we are using heavily with Conditional Access for the MIDFS.
The implementation of Microsoft Entra ID has had a huge impact on our secure access to the apps or resources in our environment, as we can use Conditional Access to apply MFA going into apps, which definitely helped with our compliance.
The integration capabilities of Microsoft Entra ID have influenced our zero-trust posture quite a bit, as we actually use the zero-trust worksheets that Microsoft put out, we are doing PIM, and applying PIM on various items, along with Conditional Access policies, so I would say we are using it quite a bit for that.
What needs improvement?
I do not have anything to share at the moment on how Microsoft Entra ID can be improved or what additional features should be added in the next release.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Entra ID heavily for six months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I assess the stability and reliability of Microsoft Entra ID as pretty solid, aside from that Front Door issue recently, since everybody makes mistakes.
Other than that Front Door issue, I have not experienced any other downtime, crashes, or performance issues. There was about a month ago when you could not get into the portal, but aside from that, the users kept working, we just could not access it.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Microsoft Entra ID scales with the growing needs of my organization, and I experience no issues there.
We have expanded usage, as we are continually growing and merging tenants with a parent company that acquired us.
How are customer service and support?
On a scale from one being the worst and ten being the best, I would rate my customer service and technical support as a five.
I give it a five because it depends on who you get; some people are awesome, and some people, I can find answers through Google before I get a response from them, so it just all depends on the engineer. Once you get past the first engineer, you normally get some pretty good help.
In evaluating the customer service and technical support, I think that everybody is always nice, and I can tell they all try, but you just do not seem to get a high-level expert on the first contact, and it sometimes takes too long to escalate quickly when needed, which is my best recommendation.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to adopting Microsoft Entra ID, I was using another solution, which was just on-premises AD.
How was the initial setup?
The process of merging tenants has been somewhat smooth; we are still going through it, but we pretty much did a net new on their side, Greenfield, so the user accounts are all new, and we did not actually migrate them, but we are adding around 15,000 users to the tenant, so it seems to just be doing its job, syncing, and creating the accounts.
My experience with deploying Microsoft Entra ID is that we have had it for so long that I actually did not deploy it at this company; it was already deployed, and I had to fix a lot of things, but Entra Connect, it all just kind of works, and I have no major complaints that I can think of.
My experience with the deployment has been good, as there were no issues that I could think of, and I have done several upgrades to it, and it all just kind of works.
What was our ROI?
I do not know the cost, so I cannot say for sure if I have seen a return on investment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Regarding my experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Microsoft Entra ID, I do not manage licensing, so I cannot speak to that. It is expensive, but thankfully, I do not manage the licensing.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before selecting Microsoft Entra ID, we considered other solutions and determined that we are a Microsoft shop, so we pretty much needed it for Teams and email and everything else.
What other advice do I have?
Since implementing Microsoft Entra ID, I do not have any metrics on the frequency or the nature of the identity-related security incidents in my organization that I can share.
Our organization's approach to defending against token theft and nation-state attacks has not changed as a result of Microsoft Entra ID, as it is constantly changing because we are always trying to improve.
The implementation of the device-bound passkeys in Microsoft Authenticator is something we are working on switching to, so I cannot say for sure; we are using some other MFA.
The advice I would give to another organization considering Microsoft Entra ID is that I do not really have any; it just kind of works, and I think it is a good solution that works well despite not having all the features of some other options. I give this solution an overall rating of nine.
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?
Other
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.