A review from a user who was using Microsoft Active directory from 2003.
May 01, 2022
A review from a user who was using Microsoft Active directory from 2003.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft Azure Active Directory
An active directory is like the number one must-have software that any organization should have if they are using windows based operating system. With windows operating system, Azure active directory is "the" go to software that any organization should invest in. Azure active directory comes from their original on premise active directory software so the program has years of experience on the field. I started using windows active directory back in 2003 and when azure active directory service came on it was a no brainer decision to migrate from on-premise solution to cloud. The product primarily address user authentication, file sharing, Document management (Share point) Office tools access like MS suite etc. We cannot work without an active directory in this day and age where hybrid and remote work is the preferred solution. The software also tightly integrates with almost all business ERP solutions like SAP, Oracle MS Sql etc. So you don’t need to maintain a third party tool for access control to these software’s. They also work with your exchange services so that it makes our onboarding of new users a breeze.
- integrates with third-party authentication tools like OKTA and ping. This brings MFA functionality to your organization. The integration is quite simple to do.
- This can be used to control access to your networking devices like your on-premise routers and switches if needed.
- The access control policies are very vast. So you can set each department in your organization to each access control policy and their access to resources will be controlled.
- Documentation - Microsoft really needs to work on their documentation when it comes to doing more complicated tasks like working with API. The official documentation often gets us confused as to how to do certain tasks. We sometimes ended up spending hours trying to figure out how certain tasks are completed.
- No jammed down version - This is the go-to tool if you are invested in a lot of cloud-based solutions and if you have a lot of resources that need authentication. But for smaller organizations, Microsoft needs to bring packages with smaller features for SMBs with lower rates so that SMBs can come on board.
- integration with OKTA (MFA).
- Helps all our employees worldwide log in to our organization. We really like the uptime provided by the service. We never had issues with logging in.
- The software does generate enough logs and supports sending logs to SIEM tools for analysis for our SOC team. We use Splunk to collect data from azure. The software supports sending data to all major SIEM tools.
- Single sign-on would be our most positive impact with azure. We just need to log in once for our AD and all the other software will get logged in as well. Earlier we had to keep typing in the password over and over again which was a real pain.
- MFA integration would be another positive aspect because the rate at which a password can be cracked is mind-blowing. It is always good to have MFA functionality to provide extra security for our organization.
- We don't need to provide separate access to our ERP software. Our software has native support for azure so that integration works out of the box.
Back in the days when our company was primarily Linux and tiny we used to use free radius from Linux for our basic authentication. We only had around 3-4 Microsoft devices then and a few apple devices. But we outgrew the solution as soon as we started growing. We stuck with Microsoft's active directory from around 2003 when they were on-premise. We don't think we will move anywhere else as everything is maintained by Microsoft so we feel good that we only have to deal with one vendor.
Do you think Microsoft Entra ID delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Microsoft Entra ID's feature set?
Yes
Did Microsoft Entra ID live up to sales and marketing promises?
I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process
Did implementation of Microsoft Entra ID go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy Microsoft Entra ID again?
Yes