identity management

From Authentication to Innovation – the Evolution and Future of CIAM

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Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) has evolved significantly over the past few decades, transitioning from basic authentication systems to complex, user-centric frameworks designed to enhance security, personalization, and compliance. As digital transformation accelerates, the landscape of CIAM continues to shift, reflecting the changing priorities of businesses and the growing expectations of users. This article explores the evolution of CIAM and predicts future trends that will shape the management of digital identities. The Early Days of CIAM: A Focus on Access In its infancy, CIAM was primarily a technical solution aimed at securing access to online resources. Basic username-password authentication systems dominated the scene, offering limited functionality and minimal user experience. Businesses implemented these systems to prevent unauthorized access, but they often overlooked the user’s perspective, leading to friction and frustration. Security breaches during this period highlighted the vulnerabilities of password-only systems. As attackers grew more sophisticated, businesses began exploring additional layers of protection, such as two-factor authentication (2FA) and single sign-on (SSO). These innovations laid the groundwork for modern CIAM, introducing the concept of balancing security with usability. The Shift to User-Centric CIAM The rise of e-commerce, social media, and mobile applications in the 2010s marked a turning point for CIAM. Businesses began recognizing that digital identity was not just about access control but also a critical component of the customer experience. User-centric CIAM systems emerged, emphasizing seamless registration, personalized experiences, and trust-building. Key innovations during this phase included: These advancements demonstrated the potential of CIAM to drive customer engagement and loyalty while meeting stringent security and compliance requirements, as they enable organizations to create personalized experiences that resonate with individual users. By leveraging advanced analytics and machine learning, businesses can gain deeper insights into customer preferences and behaviors, allowing for more tailored interactions that foster long-term relationships. Moreover, the integration of multi-factor authentication and adaptive security measures ensures that user data is protected without compromising the convenience and accessibility that customers expect. The Role of CIAM in Modern Digital Ecosystems In modern digital ecosystems, Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) serves as a cornerstone for enabling secure, user-friendly interactions. It provides the tools needed to authenticate users, safeguard sensitive data, and deliver personalized experiences. As businesses expand their digital footprints and integrate more interconnected platforms, CIAM ensures seamless access, compliance with regulations, and the trust needed to foster meaningful relationships with users. Moreover, CIAM has expanded its scope beyond traditional use cases to include workforce and partner identities, creating a unified approach to identity management across all stakeholders. This holistic framework enables organizations to streamline access controls, ensuring that employees, partners, and customers enjoy a consistent user experience while securely accessing the resources they need. By integrating these diverse identity groups, businesses can enhance collaboration and communication, driving productivity and fostering a culture of innovation. Future Trends in CIAM and Identity Management The future of Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) is being shaped by rapid technological advancements and evolving user expectations. Emerging trends such as decentralized identity, AI-driven authentication, and enhanced privacy controls are redefining how digital identities are managed. As businesses strive to meet growing demands for security, personalization, and compliance, these innovations are set to transform the CIAM landscape, ensuring a more seamless and trustworthy digital experience. Challenges Ahead While the future of CIAM holds immense promise, challenges remain. Balancing security with user experience, addressing the digital divide, and managing the complexities of global compliance are ongoing concerns. Furthermore, fostering trust in new technologies like DI will require collaboration between governments, businesses, and technology providers. The evolution of CIAM reflects the broader shifts in the digital landscape—from access control to user empowerment. As identity becomes the cornerstone of digital interactions, businesses must invest in innovative, secure, and user-centric CIAM solutions to stay ahead. By embracing emerging trends and addressing challenges proactively, organizations can shape a future where digital identities are secure, seamless, and empowering for all.

Empowering the Future of Identity Management with IBM Security Verify Governance

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As digital transformation reshapes businesses worldwide, managing user identities and securing access to sensitive data has become more challenging than ever. Organizations are forced to navigate complex IT environments, hybrid cloud architectures, and increasingly stringent regulatory requirements while ensuring that users have seamless, secure access to the resources they need. This is where identity governance becomes critical, and IBM Security Verify Governance (ISVG) appears as a leading tool in empowering the future of identity management. In this article, we explore how IBM Security Verify Governance addresses modern identity management challenges, provides comprehensive security, and unlocks new opportunities for organizations looking to secure their digital future. What are the key features of IBM Security Verify Governance? IBM Security Verify Governance (ISVG) is a comprehensive identity governance solution that streamlines the management of user identities, access, and compliance. Its key features include automated user provisioning and deprovisioning, which ensure efficient onboarding and offboarding processes. The platform supports identity lifecycle management, handling changes in roles and departments to keep access rights up-to-date. It enforces role-based access control (RBAC) to maintain consistent and appropriate user permissions, and access certification processes help organizations meet regulatory requirements. ISVG also includes segregation of duties management (SoD) to prevent conflicts of interest, along with policy management that standardizes access across systems. Integration capabilities allow for seamless governance in hybrid IT environments. Additionally, ISVG offers analytics for insights, self-service access requests, password management, and comprehensive audit reporting to enhance security and efficiency. Together, these features make ISVG a powerful tool for modern identity management. How ISVG is transforming the way organizations govern access and mitigate risks? IBM Security Verify Governance (ISVG) is at the forefront of this transformation, revolutionizing how organizations govern access and mitigate risks. As organizations face increasingly complex security challenges, ISVG provides the tools necessary to foster a secure environment that balances user convenience with robust governance, ultimately empowering organizations to navigate their digital ecosystems with confidence. Here are some key ways in which ISVG is making an impact: The solution automates the process of access reviews and certifications, enabling organizations to quickly verify that users have the appropriate level of access. By replacing manual processes with automated workflows, ISVG reduces the likelihood of human error while ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements. Organizations can set up dynamic policies that automatically adjust access based on real-time context and user behavior. ISVG continuously monitors user activities and can trigger alerts or restrict access when suspicious behavior is detected, enhancing security posture by proactively addressing potential threats. ISVG incorporates risk-based authentication strategies that evaluate the context of each access attempt, such as location, device, and behavior patterns. This adaptive approach helps to ensure that only legitimate users can gain access, while also providing a seamless experience for trusted users. ISVG delivers a holistic view of user identities and access permissions across the enterprise. This centralized visibility empowers IT and security teams to identify potential vulnerabilities and make informed decisions regarding access management policies. ISVG seamlessly integrates with existing applications and identity repositories, allowing organizations to leverage their current technology stack while enhancing governance and security capabilities. This makes it easier to adopt the best practices without overhauling existing systems. As organizations grow and evolve, their access management needs change. ISVG is designed to scale with the organization, offering flexibility to adapt to new applications, partners, and user bases, ensuring that governance remains effective regardless of size or complexity. What new opportunities bring ISVG for organizations? IBM Security Verify Governance (ISVG) brings several new opportunities for organizations by transforming identity management into a more streamlined, efficient, and strategic function. The platform creates opportunities for stronger regulatory compliance by providing tools for continuous access monitoring, certification, and audit reporting. With ISVG, organizations can consistently demonstrate adherence to regulatory standards, such as GDPR or HIPAA, through comprehensive and real-time insights into access management practices. This enhanced compliance capability reduces the risk of fines and penalties while ensuring data security and privacy. ISVG also allows businesses to better address the dynamic needs of modern digital environments by integrating seamlessly across both on-premises and cloud-based systems. This adaptability makes it possible to govern identities and access consistently across diverse IT environments, supporting hybrid work models and digital transformation initiatives. With the platform’s analytics, organizations gain deeper visibility into access trends and potential risks, empowering them to make more informed decisions about identity governance and to proactively address security issues.

Identity Lifecycle Management as a Comprehensive Framework Within Cybersecurity

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In the ever-growing digital world, where data breaches and cyber threats are ever-present dangers, the management of user identities has become a cornerstone of cybersecurity. Identity Lifecycle Management (ILM) stands out as a crucial aspect of security frameworks within organizations. ILM encompasses the comprehensive processes involved in managing the identities of users from their initial creation through to their eventual deactivation. This lifecycle includes the creation, maintenance, and deletion of user accounts and ensures that users have appropriate access to systems and data while preventing unauthorized access. By streamlining identity management, ILM not only enhances security but also improves operational efficiency and compliance with regulatory requirements. This article explores the complexities of Identity Lifecycle Management, highlighting its importance, key components, and the role it plays in safeguarding organizational assets. Defining Identity Lifecycle Management Identity Lifecycle Management (ILM) is a comprehensive framework within cybersecurity that governs the creation, maintenance, and termination of digital identities. This process encompasses all the activities associated with managing user identities and their access to various systems and applications throughout their lifecycle within an organization. ILM ensures that users have the appropriate access rights at all times, balancing security needs with operational efficiency. It includes the initial setup of a digital identity when a new user joins an organization, involving the assignment of a unique identifier and initial access rights based on their role. Components of Identity Lifecycle Management The components of Identity Lifecycle Management (ILM) are essential elements that collectively ensure the secure and efficient management of digital identities within an organization. These components include: All these components work together to create a robust ILM system that helps organizations manage user identities securely and efficiently, safeguarding sensitive information, complying with regulatory requirements, and minimizing the risk of identity-related threats. What are the solutions and tools for Identity Lifecycle Management? Solutions and tools for Identity Lifecycle Management (ILM) encompass a variety of software and platforms designed to streamline and automate the management of digital identities throughout their lifecycle. These solutions typically include identity and access management (IAM) platforms, which provide a comprehensive suite of features such as user provisioning, access control, and authentication. IAM platforms enable organizations to create, modify, and delete user accounts efficiently while maintaining strict security controls. As a conclusion to this point, we can confirm that effective ILM relies on a combination of IAM platforms, directory services, SSO and MFA solutions, access governance tools, and robust audit and reporting capabilities to manage digital identities securely and efficiently throughout their lifecycle. The Role of ILM in Modern Cybersecurity In modern cybersecurity, Identity Lifecycle Management plays a pivotal role in safeguarding organizational assets by providing a structured framework that enables organizations to systematically create, maintain, and retire user identities, thereby mitigating risks associated with unauthorized access and identity-related threats. By automating the processes of access provisioning and de-provisioning, ILM ensures that users are granted appropriate access rights based on their roles and responsibilities, while promptly revoking access when it is no longer needed. This reduces the likelihood of security breaches caused by outdated or excessive access permissions. Basically, ILM is integral to modern cybersecurity as it provides a comprehensive approach to managing digital identities, protecting sensitive information, and ensuring that access controls are both effective and compliant with industry standards. This not only enhances the overall security posture of an organization but also supports operational efficiency by streamlining identity management processes.

How to protect digital identities in the era of AI?

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Making online transactions increasingly secure, despite the rise in cyberattacks and data theft, has been a growing challenge for our economy since the pandemic. More and more companies feel that their existence is threatened by cyber-attacks. Identity fraud and other online threats are also becoming increasingly sophisticated. According to a recent study, digital identities pose one of the greatest threats to the compromise of IT systems. In the financial sector for example, numerous attacks have recently been successful because employees with privileged access rights have been spied on and digital identities have been stolen through phishing campaigns. Therefore there is an urgent need to better protect our identities from theft and damage in the digital age. After all, our identity is the centrepiece of our online lives. Data leaks, malware or insecure networks and connections are a gateway to identity theft. AI will further accelerate this by generating code that only experienced hackers could create. AI-generated forgeries will become increasingly authentic and easy to use against victims. Identity protection will become one of the most important elements of data security. To better protect themselves in a digitally hostile environment in the future, organisations should push for a digital approach to data protection and risk management. What does identity involve and how we can protect it? Our online identity consists of several layers. On the one hand, there is our personal data that we use to verify ourselves, such as email, place of birth, date of birth and name. But it also includes things like bank details and other tokens – even biometric data. The following basic steps help protect identities from AI-powered risks. These are principles that, if followed, can provide identity protection for individuals, as well as legal obligations that companies must fulfil to mitigate risk and protect both customers and employees: The online identity check at a glance There are various ways in which users can have their identity verified online. This can be done through the use of facial recognition tools, video calls and the presentation of personal information. The use of multiple forms of proof increases the level of trust and security. For example, linking transactions to a one-off secure onboarding can provide a high level of trust – as long as this onboarding is thorough and verified. One example: passports. Official auditors rely on a few measures to verify them, but they trust them because the onboarding process for securing a passport is rigorous. Real-time ID verification: It enables organisations to access and process customer information in seconds. This is particularly useful when checking IDs or financial transactions, as it can ensure that a company has up-to-date information. Verifying the identity of signatories is important to help organisations reduce fraud and money laundering and provide a frictionless experience for signatories, as today a fast and mobile-friendly online process is crucial for customers. Biometrics: These are fingerprint or facial recognition. Biometric technology is the frontrunner among identity verification tools and is used, for example, to unlock smartphones. As biometric technologies have already proven to be beneficial for personal security and ID verification, it stands to reason that they will also provide a secure way to verify electronic signatures in the near future. They also assure companies that no unauthorised person can gain access to personal data. Verification of identity without ID: There are various alternatives for authenticating a signature without the need for ID. If the signatory does not have an ID card to hand, knowledge-based verification can be used. Alternatively, authentication via mobile phone will be used more frequently in future to re-authenticate a known user. This involves sending an access code or text message to a mobile phone number or using the phone itself as an authentication vector and ID. Reducing fraud with AI While AI can increase the scope and scale of cyber risks, it also plays an important role in risk mitigation: in the future, AI will support identification during initial onboarding and all subsequent steps by providing a layer of assurance that looks for evidence of trust or signs of deception. It is important that customers perceive a company’s digital signature process as secure, as a positive and secure customer experience will influence whether they want to continue using the company’s services. There are also many use cases where AI is already being used to detect fraudulent activity – such as detecting relevant signals or patterns of unlikely user behaviour on a platform based on previous experience. However, the ideal scenario is to utilise both humans and AI to increase security and trust. Both can bring risks, but together they help to optimise resilience to cyber-attacks and strengthen identity protection. To summarise, simple changes to processes, a clear understanding of digital identity protection and regular employee training on cyber security and data protection can often lead to significant improvements in corporate security.

Why Identities are the heart of digitalization and cyber security?

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Everyone is talking about digital transformation. It helps companies to improve the customer experience, simplify business processes and prepare for future challenges and business requirements. However, this modernization also poses new challenges in terms of cyber security and data protection. This is because the use of local and multi-cloud/remote environments means that users can access data from anywhere. Identity governance is therefore shifting with the use of identity federation and personal devices (BYOD). At the same time, the number of data access points, roles and user accounts is increasing – including privileged accounts. In such a complex IT ecosystem, it is difficult to manage and control identities and their access effectively. Attacks on identities are a daily routine It is well known that the top management level is directly responsible for its corporate risks and consequently their management. This also includes risks relating to Identity Governance & Administration (IGA), as they have a major impact both operationally and financially. Identifying and managing identity-related risks is fundamental, as the consequences of a security breach in connection with identities range from reputational damage to financial losses in the form of fines or ransomware payments. In order to create effective risk-based access and identity management programs, the focus is on the risks of each individual identity: These risks have been exacerbated by the global pandemic, but the theft of access data is also on the rise. In this regard, we recommend focusing on distributed, remote workplaces and employees as well as efficient monitoring of digital threats and the fulfilment and assessment of legal and industry-specific data protection and security requirements. It is also advisable to check access to sensitive customer and financial data as well as transactional processes. Identities take centre stage Today’s requirements are forcing companies to place identity and its context at the centre. For example, an identity can be both an employee and a customer, a doctor can be a patient or an employee can be a citizen. In combination with agile business models, job sharing, job rotation, etc., access management has evolved from a traditional perimeter-based to an identity-centric approach. We see time and time again that organisations struggle with the following four areas in particular: A holistic Identity Governance & Administration (IGA) that not only targets cloud, hybrid and/or on-premises security, but also the expectations of users and companies with regard to data protection, data security and cyber security can provide a remedy here. IGA solves open issues in IAM IGA is an important aspect of managing and controlling identities and the corresponding access authorisation. At the same time, IGA helps to solve IAM challenges such as inappropriate and/or outdated access to company resources, remote employees, time-consuming provisioning processes, weak Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies or strict compliance requirements. All of these issues increase the security risk and weaken the compliance position of companies. With IGA, companies can automate their access management workflows extensively – even beyond their own perimeter – and thus reduce risks. IAM guidelines can also be defined and implemented. Last but not least, this enables companies to actively review user access processes for compliance reporting and proactively initiate automated measures. For this reason, more and more companies are modernising to IGA in order to continue to meet the increasing compliance requirements of eHealth, SOX, ISO/IEC 27701, PCI DSS etc. in the long term. But it’s not just compliance that benefits from IGA! IGA improves the overview of what users can and cannot access. This enables IT administrators to optimise identity management and access control, efficiently mitigate risks and protect business-critical systems and data. With the right IGA tools, organisations can protect themselves in today’s complex IT and cyber security landscape, improve their resilience and achieve scalable growth. Business-to-identity as a key element IGA is the secret supreme discipline in the areas of governance, risks and compliance. Identity Governance & Administration with all its disciplines such as Privileged Access Management (PAM), Customer Identity & Access Management (CIAM) etc. are key functions for strategic security objectives such as: Zero Trust Completeness, Need-to-know, Security by Design, Security by Default. A central element in identity-centric management is to place identity at the centre of security strategies, based on a business-to-identity framework with IGA. Such a framework includes best practices for effective management of the identity-related threat landscape, overcoming hurdles in the context of automation and ensuring security by design in the centralised governance of identities. IGA tools also support the tracking and control of user access, both for local and cloud-based systems. This allows you to ensure that the right users have the right access to the right systems throughout the lifecycle, as well as detect and prevent unauthorised access. By implementing the right controls with Identity Governance and Administration, organizations can significantly enhance their security posture, ensure compliance with regulatory requirements, and streamline user access management to improve efficiency. IGA solutions provide a comprehensive framework to manage digital identities, define and enforce access policies, conduct access reviews, and generate audit-ready reports. This holistic approach not only reduces the risk of data breaches but also enables businesses to adapt rapidly to changing security landscapes and align IT processes with corporate governance objectives.

How Identity Governance Solutions Manage Digital Identities Across Enterprises?

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After IT landscapes began to become more complex and the requirement to assign authorisations increased, identity management solutions were developed and introduced. These systems were and still are focused on the administration of users and their rights. Due to the ever-increasing threat situation and the associated stricter regulations, simple administration solutions are no longer sufficient in many cases. Auditors and accountants demand an insight into the allocation of user authorisations that they can understand. This is where modern identity governance solutions can help. Almost all security regulations require organisations to answer the following three questions regarding the management of users and their authorisations: – Who has access to the IT resources? – What can they do there? – How can I prove this – especially to auditors? While the first two questions can be answered by a conventional identity administration solution, providing proof of the authorisations assigned and the associated processes is often a major challenge. In addition, there is the requirement to present identities and authorisations in a way that is understandable for the specialist departments, which is usually only fulfilled by identity governance solutions. In this respect, these solutions answer all three of the above questions in a comprehensible form. The task of identity administration solutions is to manage identities by mapping the „user life cycle“ in the organisation. Identity governance, on the other hand, is intended to provide proof that users have the „right“ rights based on the organisation’s guidelines. Both are components of identity management and are often referred to together as identity governance and administration. There are several reasons why identity governance has become important and is becoming increasingly important. Firstly, more and more user groups (employees, partners, customers, etc.) are accessing an increasingly complex IT environment via more and more access points (mobile, cloud). Secondly, and this is likely to be the decisive factor, the increasing threat situation has led to the introduction of ever stricter compliance regulations that apply to more and more companies and organisations. Among other things, these compliance regulations also require proof of users and their authorisations. Identity governance solutions were developed from the perspective of specialist departments and auditors in order to make assigned authorisations transparent, traceable and easier to administer from their point of view and independently of IT. Their aim is to improve the implementation and verification of business processes and compliance regulations. The next evolutionary stage is Identity Analytics, which has developed from Identity Governance. Identity analytics provides a deeper insight into the users in the company, their rights and how they are used. Based on metrics, behaviour and context, it is possible to make predictions about usage and risks and react better to changing conditions in the area of user management. Identity governance solutions should provide proof that security guidelines relating to users and authorisations are implemented and that users have the right rights and not more rights than necessary. Identity governance solutions provide the information required for this proof. To this end, these solutions offer the functions described below: 1. Access visibility The basis for all other functions is first and foremost the central visibility of the assigned authorisations. Authorisations can be business roles, IT roles or authorisation objects defined in target systems (e.g. Active Directory groups). The display must clearly show which rights a person has on a target system. 2. Access certification As it is generally not possible to ensure that everything runs correctly when granting and withdrawing rights, their correctness must be confirmed regularly. Identity governance solutions allow the definition of recertification campaigns for this purpose, which can include the users to be certified as well as their rights according to certain selection criteria (only certain departments, only certain applications) Such campaigns, which can be monitored centrally, ensure that users only have the necessary rights. The prerequisite for this, however, is that the number of rights to be certified is manageable and understandable for the certifier. 3. Segregation of Duties One requirement of many compliance regulations is the strict separation of certain tasks within the organisation. For example, the same person should not normally be allowed to order goods and pay incoming invoices. Identity governance solutions support these requirements through segregation of duties (SoD). Segregation of duties refers to the basic separation of tasks controlled by rights. In contrast, dynamic SoD can only be realised by the application itself, as the context of the individual transactions is required here. In many Identity Management systems, SoD is described on the basis of defined roles. However, as roles are already used for the provisioning of rights, they are often complex and cannot be understood by auditors and accountants. Auditors think in terms of business activities. Modern identity governance solutions therefore define SoD rules on the basis of business activities. This is usually much simpler and more straightforward than defining roles and also provides a control mechanism that indirectly checks whether the roles are defined correctly. 4. Role management Roles are actually required by identity administration solutions for the efficient provisioning of rights. However, the administration of roles also falls within the scope of identity governance for two reasons in particular. Firstly, a lean role model is required in order to minimise the number of rights to be recertified and thus keep them manageable. On the other hand, the role management process requires in-depth knowledge of the business processes in addition to IT expertise. The person who has to model the roles is supported by so-called „role mining“. Here, the identity governance solution generates role proposals and, in the best case, visualises them graphically. 5. Risk management Certain rights and combinations of rights can pose a high risk for an organisation. These can be individual highly privileged rights, violations of SoD rules or unusual combinations of rights in a department. Risk management takes place in several stages: Modelling > Measuring > Recognising > Mitigating First, the risk is modelled, i.e. what constitutes a risk is defined. The next step is to check whether

What Are the Differences Between Active Directory und Azure AD?

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As managed service providers we are often asked by the clients whether an on-premises Active Directory or Azure AD is the best option? The decision on this question is not easy to make, because more and more cloud services are also spreading into traditional data center environments. Even though Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) and Microsoft Azure Active Directory look very similar, they are not interchangeable and there are a few key differences. Administrators considering a move to Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) for the authentication and authorization, need to understand exactly how the cloud-based platform differs from a traditional on-premises Active Directory (AD). With Azure Active Directory, Microsoft offers a directory service for the cloud. Even though the name is similar to Active Directory, the differences are serious. In this article, we are going to compare Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) with Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) and examine the most important differences. A local Active Directory is initially a combination of several services to manage users and systems. These include the Active Directory Domain Services and the Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS). AD DS is the central database that provides all directory services. AD DS is therefore the actual core of an Active Directory. Microsoft Azure Active Directory cannot create and manage the same domains, trees and forests that AD DS can. Instead, Azure AD treats each organisation as its own tenant, accessing Azure AD through the Azure Portal to manage its employees, passwords and access rights. Companies that opt for one of Microsoft’s cloud services, be it Office 365 or Exchange Online, are tenants or subscribers of Azure AD. On one hand, Azure Active Directory is a multitenant, cloud-based directory and identity management service from Microsoft. It combines core directory services, application access management, and identity protection into a single solution. Furthermore, Azure Active Directory is designed to support web-based services that use REST API interfaces for Office 365, Salesforce.com, etc. Unlike pure Active Directory, it uses completely different protocols (Goodbye, Kerberos and NTLM) that work with service protocols such as SAML and Oauth 2.0. With Azure AD, single sign-on scenarios can be implemented very easily. In addition to seamless networking with all Microsoft online services, Azure AD can connect to hundreds of SaaS applications via single sign-on. In this way, employees can access the company’s data without having to log in again and again. The access token is stored locally on the employee’s computer. You can also restrict access by setting up expiry dates for these tokens. On the other hand, Active Directory focuses on authenticating server services in the data centre. The service was not designed to deal with the challenges of authentication for cloud services. Active Directory does not natively support the connection and management of smartphones and tablets. In most cases, third-party tools are needed here. Azure Active Directory is directly connected to Microsoft Intune and therefore already offers functions for the management and connection of modern devices. Active Directory focuses on desktop computers and local servers. However, these devices can also become part of Azure AD and benefit from the functions of Microsoft Intune. It’s important to note that only Active Directory offers support for group policies. The group policy function does not exist in Azure AD. There are policies in Azure as well, but they are not compatible with group policies. Companies that rely on Azure AD and Active Directory must therefore build two policy infrastructures that take different approaches and thus support different settings. AAD is managed either in the Azure Portal or with PowerShell. In internal networks, Azure AD will certainly not be ready to replace Active Directory any time soon. In the cloud, Azure AD is better suited in most cases, but not every local server application can be easily moved to the cloud and use Azure AD. For example, it is not possible to extend the schema in Azure AD. Applications that require schema extensions must be installed in Active Directory. Trust positions between domains also do not exist in Azure AD. Administration in Azure Active Directory is delegated through Role Based Access Control (RBAC). Functions such as Privileged Identity Management (PIM) and Just-in-Time (JIT) are already firmly integrated here. These technologies also exist in ADDS, but must first be set up manually via server services. In most cases, separate servers are even required for this. Azure AD and local Active Directory can work together. Microsoft offers the possibility to synchronise local user accounts and group with Azure AD. The necessary tools are provided free of charge. Single sign-on scenarios can also be mapped in this way. If local Active Directory user accounts are required in Microsoft Azure, a domain controller can be operated in Azure that is connected to the local Active Directory. In most cases, companies therefore rely on Active Directory in the local data centre and Azure AD in the cloud. Through synchronisation, user accounts are available everywhere and can be used in a way that makes sense and can be implemented with the respective infrastructure. Microsoft Active Directory and Azure AD are suited to a particular IT environment. So, in which case you can use either solution or a combination of both? If you have an established on-prem intranet, then Microsoft AD is the best option. You probably have AD installed if the network is large enough and runs Windows Server. As mentioned above, Azure AD is designed for cloud authentication. This makes it the perfect IAM solution for organizations with a large cloud footprint. It also makes sense to consider Azure AD if you plan to move to the cloud. Combination of both solutions ensures seamless authentication between on-prem and cloud resources. As a conclusion we could say that Microsoft AD or Azure AD is not a matter of choice or preference. It’s more about what best works for your authentication needs. If you need a robust and integrated solution for managing user identities and access to applications

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