Microsoft takes steps toward consolidating its cloud services onto a single domain

Microsoft currently uses a large number of different domains for its various Microsoft 365 apps and services. On April 26, officials announced plans to reduce fragmentation by bringing its authenticated, user-facing Microsoft 365 apps and services onto a unified "cloud.microsoft" domain.

Microsoft opted for the cloud.microsoft name because it plans to bring more than just the Microsoft 365 services to the name at some point, officials noted. The company's goal with this change is to reduce sign-in prompts, redirects and other issues when navigating across apps. For admins, the consolidation should help reduce complexity of allowed-lists.

To start, only net-new services will be deployed on the new cloud.microsoft domain.

"In most cases," no customer action will be required to keep using Microsoft 365 apps and services, officials said. Microsoft already has added ".cloud.microsoft" to the official list of Office 365 URLs and IP address ranges.

Microsoft officials said they will notify customers at least 30 days in advance before changing the domain for any existing service which requires customer network configuration. For any domain changes requiring updates to customer apps or other more complex customer actions, officials said they will provide "targeted communications" and "ample time" for adjustments.

This sounds, at least in theory, like a change that shouldn't have a lot of negative impact on Microsoft cloud-services customers. However, customers should stay vigilant in case there are any infrastructure, software and firewall issues which potentially could arise with the introduction of any kind of new top-level domain.