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.
$6
per user/per month
Zscaler Internet Access
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Zscaler Internet Access™ (ZIA) is a secure web gateway (SWG), delivering cloud native cyberthreat protection and zero trust access to the internet and SaaS apps.
It is especially good for organizations that are otherwise in the Microsoft ecosystem (Microsoft 365 applications). Microsoft Entra ID is really well supported sign-in method in various SaaS-applications and they often have step-by-step guides how to deploy the SSO with Microsoft Entra ID. It's less suitable for organizations that might use other productivity tools than M365 or do not have Windows-based computers.
It's best suited for a distributed remote workforce, securing internet access for users from anywhere. Suitable for highly regulated industries, such as banking and Healthcare. Not a good fit for an organisation where most of its legacy is in an on-premises environment. Bandwidth-intensive industries like media/entertainment firms.
Single Sign-on helps ease the user experience, allowing users to avoid typing multiple passwords.
The identity and management are straightforward to use and easy to connect to other applications, as well as third-party applications.
The support of remote work. Nowadays, many people work from home and need to access their accounts. Microsoft Enterprise ID gives secure access to the company data.
Single Pane of Glass Management - Everything is very easy to access and monitor the entire environment from an internet security perspective.
Install Flexibility - We can and do install Zscaler Internet Access on both our client devices as well as our SD-WAN appliances and servers. This allows us to control internet security even on devices without an agent in our networks.
Probably the most primary thing is just the interface itself. It's frequently changing and so oftentimes we kind of have to go back and redocument our processes for our IT staff because the steps that they would take to perform a task one month. Now it's a totally different staff, new dashboard, even a new name for the product or the feature. So it would be nice if that stuff was a little bit more consistent.
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.
While Zscaler Internet Access (ZIA) delivers critical value in cloud security and RBI compliance, I rate renewal likelihood 7/10 due to evolving needs versus platform limitations. Below is my rationale:
I mean it's pretty good. It is click, click. I mean, oftentimes I can go to the expert or layer two support to get help. Suddenly I go to them. So it has to be pretty useful to be honest. I do a lot of, and there's a lot of, you could do research quickly online to find out how to do certain things. I think that's the only thing we can improve to in terms of kind of a best practice path is setting up it. But because I'm it profess of tons of years in co-management services, I can figure it out. But for others they may not be able to figure it out. You still need an IT person of course to translate all of that. But to me pretty straightforward. I come from the days of directory from 2008, 2000, Microsoft server 2000.
The application is easy to install and configure on all Windows devices. To troubleshoot any internet issue, we can easily collect all the relevant logs from Zscaler and check the exact issue. The only problem is with the uninstall, as a dedicated crew needs to provide the password.
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
Zscaler's ZIA support is quick and knowledgable. They respond within 1-2 hours of you submitting your ticket. They are very thorough and are typically ready to jump on a live troubleshooting session. Our ZIA platform and how we use is it unique so at times tickets can be open for weeks but we alway get quality support compared to other unrelated product support in our enterprise
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've used other Microsoft products and we've also used some standalone products, like each application you can have its own identity, so we've looked at some of those too, but we try to use the Entra ID as much as possible because it offers a wider range of reliability.
Zscaler Intenet Access outperformed the competition due to its lightning-fast policy delivery and cross-compatibility. It is easy to track employee usage and block unnecessary websites, reducing company internet usage. Zscalar installed on every system increases cloud-based software bandwidth, decreasing user turnaround time and increasing efficiency.
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.
I think it's had positive. It's enabled us to make authentication easier and more streamlined across the organization from frontline workers to back office workers.
It's allowed us to really adopt authentication policies and methods that suit that user and their work environment.
Has allowed us to remove other products that were suboptimal
Saved us money overall by stacking it with other Zscaler products
Created a more secure work environment for our users through intelligent internet policies that are not needlessly restrictive while still maintaining security best practices
