Management and Security

The Office 365 management platform will improve through 2016. The platform is the customer’s primary tool for user identity management and Office 365 data encryption, it can help secure mobile client devices and the Office 365 data they contain, and it can help organizations uncover threats or anomalous behavior in their Office 365 environment. However, organizations that want to manage other applications and services with the same tools as Office 365 will need to purchase additional services from Microsoft.

Office 365 Management Platform Background

The Office 365 management platform includes the following:

• A directory service, Azure Active Directory (AD)
• A mobile device management service based on Microsoft Intune
• An encryption service, Azure Rights Management
• Advanced Security Management for threat protection and use discovery.

It also offers other administrative tools through Web, scripting, and mobile management interfaces.

Microsoft updates Office 365’s management platform components continuously, starting with customers in Office 365 First Release. The capabilities described here are likely to be available for production use in the United States by mid-2016, and some began rollout in the third quarter of 2015.