Google Cloud Identity is a unified identity, access, app, and endpoint management (IAM/EMM) platform that gives users access to apps with single sign-on, provides multi-factor authentication to protect users and company data, and enforces policies for personal and corporate devices and endpoints.
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Microsoft Entra ID
Score 8.9 out of 10
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Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Microsoft Azure Active Directory or Azure AD) is a cloud-based identity and access management (IAM) solution supporting restricted access to applications with Azure Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) built-in, single sign-on (SSO), B2B collaboration controls, self-service password, and integration with Microsoft productivity and cloud storage (Office 365, OneDrive, etc) as well as 3rd party services.
Microsoft Entra ID offers the same or very similar services to the other products but in a package that is familiar and recognizable to everyone. It enjoys better community support and world-class security and reliability.
For example, if the system you are building is a general application service that does not primarily focus on ID management, it would be wise to use a service like Google's rather than developing your own IDaaS. While there may be cases where an IDaaS other than Google's is acceptable, Google is likely one of the best solutions when considering user recognition and ease of use. On the other hand, Gmail addresses are commonly used for other purposes, and users may not pay much attention to password management, so you should avoid using them for systems that require security. To strengthen security, you should consider making multi-factor authentication mandatory, etc.
If you have a mixed solution, such as different types of devices with different types of operating systems, it could be more complicated. But if you have already decided that your company will be a Microsoft company in terms of everything internally running with Microsoft software, like the operating system, Windows 11, then this is probably the best way to use it. So if you have mixed or hybrid solutions or scenarios, maybe it's not exactly what you mean.
Many people at our company work remotely, including the sales and procurement teams. So people usually travel from one country to another country. Some people travel to Australia or some people travel to Canada based on the business requirements. So we usually audit the sign-in logs and verify whether the user is valid while they're using our company's email ID to perform their day-to-day operations.
This time, I investigated it in advance, and it worked as expected, so I don't have any specific ideas for improvement.
Additionally, if we were using another IDAAS, it would have been beneficial to have knowledge on how to integrate it with Google tools, along with some relevant case studies.
I say "cost" on a per-user basis for smaller organizations, which is why Microsoft has small-business programs. I'm trying to figure out if anything is uniquely gripping. I guess transitions to and from, but to be honest, that's where we live. The difficulty of adopting Microsoft Entra ID when you didn't start there as an organization is a little bit sizable, but that's the case with any identity provider. It's not anything endemic to Microsoft Entra ID. It works. It's efficient.
MSFT Entra ID has been essential for managing our geographically dispersed team. We're confident that it will scale with us as grow, and we'll be able to take advantage of additional security and ID management features as they become necessary. Being able to centrally manage our user access from anywhere with a small support team is such a relief.
I chose Google because I thought it would be the best fit, but I didn't fully consider other cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, etc.), so I rated it 8. We assume that current Japanese users are familiar with Google, because we feel that there are far more people with Google email addresses than those with IDs on other cloud services.
Simply because of what I mentioned earlier, the feature set sort of keeps changing and they do a lot of, they integrated with a lot of the other tools and so for users who are not as well seasoned, it may be a little bit more complicated for them to begin working within the tool.
I have not needed to engage support for anything at this time. I have been able to find the answers either online or in a knowledgebase. I tried to skip the question but it would not let me, so I rated a 9 based on other interactions with Microsoft support I have had
Make sure you use a good partner. Our implementation was a bit longer and more problematic than we expected. Our partner got it done, but, in my opinion, some of their inexperience and staffing issues were evident.
We adopted Google Cloud Identity as an additional feature because it allowed us to integrate with it using multi-factor authentication. The IBM Cloud platform remains valid, and we have no plans to discontinue its use for identity management. From the user's perspective, we simply added more authentication options. This also ensures we are prepared for future use when multi-factor authentication becomes available for user apps on the IBM Cloud.
Microsoft Entra ID is not as stand-alone product as competitors like Okta. It may lack some of the features that competing products have but on the other hand it integrates both technically and license wise with other Microsoft cloud services and is easy to deploy. It is also the easiest way to extend identity management to the cloud if you already have Microsoft Active Directory in use.
Microsoft Professional Services' technical knowledge is appreciable as consultants design the solution as per customer requirements. Mapping of features per user specifications and assisting Customer IT engineers to implement so they can manage and administer the services.
From a business perspective, there were two steps.
First, we switched from our in-house ID management system to a cloud service. This allowed us to focus our development resources on application development.
At the same time, we were able to localize the handling of personal information, which resulted in increased efficiency in management aspects, including handling external inquiries, and in the development of encryption.
The second step was adding Google Cloud Identity as an option.
This allows more users to easily use our services. It can be said that this has improved user convenience.
I expect Google to accommodate future changes in authentication requirements, such as biometric authentication.
I think managing costs was probably the biggest one as a nonprofit. We're always worried about the financial impact that any product can have. And as licenses change or they are shut down, migrating to the proper product without going over budget is always something we are concerned about. But for the most part, it's been positive. Microsoft works for us as nonprofits to make sure that we get very fair pricing.