Making the Right Identity Choices for Azure AD and Office 365

Based upon a recent survey, 62% of Gartner’s clients plan to migrate to or implement Office 365 in the next few years. And if you are using Office 365, you are relying upon the identity management functions within Azure Active Directory. But Azure AD is so much more than Office 365’s identity backbone. It is an identity management as a service (IDaaS) platform with SSO, user management and multi-factor authentication (MFA); it also supports the Azure IaaS environment and Microsoft’s Enterprise Mobility Suite.

Adoption of Azure AD and Office 365 requires careful planning. Enterprises must figure out how to connect users to Office 365 and SaaS applications—via user management and authentication into Azure AD. Our clients tell us that the biggest security concern for Office 365 is compromised user passwords (hint hint, consider MFA for Office 365). And to make matters more confusing, enterprises can choose from a selection of Microsoft and 3rd party federation, directory synchronization and MFA solutions to unify the on-premises world with Azure AD.

We just published three research documents to help enterprises leverage Office 365 and Azure AD. They are chock full of actionable guidance—including selection of MFA systems, deployment of hybrid identity components (like directory synchronization and federation), configuring Office 365, leveraging Azure AD’s OAuth and OpenID connect capabilities, and federating across tenants.

Making the Right Identity Choices for Azure AD and Office 365

Decision Point for Integrating On-Premises Identities With Azure AD and Office 365

Decision Point for Selecting a Multifactor Authentication Solution for Azure AD and Office 365

The intersection of Azure AD, Office 365 and identity remains a popular topic for our clients. Our Catalyst Conference in August will feature a number of talks on the topic. Hope to see you there!