Identity Management Chapter

Identity management technologies maintain user identity data, such as group memberships and physical office locations and e-mail addresses, across all the applications and OS services that use the data. Microsoft’s primary identity management technologies are the Entra ID hosted identity service (previously Azure Active Directory [AAD]), used by most Microsoft hosted services, and the Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) and Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) components of Windows Server used on-premises. The company’s identity management development effort now focuses almost entirely on Entra ID. 

Microsoft 365 Identity refers to the family of Microsoft 365 hosted security services, all of which fall under the Microsoft Entra brand. Entra services, particular Entra ID, are designed to provide identity and access management (IAM), reporting, and governance features to Microsoft 365 hosted services such as Office 365, and to a degree, Windows and third-party endpoints.