Microsoft Entra ID Reviews

The primary use in my organization is for identity and identity security management. In our case, it's in our hybrid infrastructure, where it's not the cloud-native option; it's based on on-prem identity infrastructure on the cloud. We use it to manage our identity in a multi-cloud scenario. 

We use it also for our software developers for credentialing. They use a single credential, and they can use multiple platforms, like, GitHub, Google Cloud, AWS, et cetera. 

The product is connected to our security operation setups.

We also use it in our organization to on and off-board the users constantly. It helps strengthen our permission management and privilege access management. For example, if one of our engineers or users needs temporary sole permission to perform an action, we use the product to temporarily grant that security role, or that extra permission that will last a certain amount of time. After the desktop is completed, the permissions are revoked. That way, users do not have a sensitive role constantly enabled.  

The overall identity management and lifecycle management capabilities are great. We can support our entire operation. For example, we can create an onboarding package for the users so that at the right moment they have everything that they need and access to exactly what they need when they need it, and this will help our transition team when new users start. They can have the password, credentials, et cetera, all accelerated while making sure there are no security gaps. 

Entity management is great. We can provide access for short amounts of time as needed. 

When we develop applications, we leverage Entra ID to create an application like an identity so we can tailor the security posture of an application that is often used or exposed on the public internet for customers. 

To summarize, identity lifecycle management, privileged access management, and identity and credential management for developers and applications are all the best aspects of the product, in a nutshell.

Entra ID provides a single pane of glass for managing user access as well HRID of API capability for third-party integration. The single pane of glass positively affects the consistency of the user's sign-on experience. That is one of the strongest points. Using a single pane of glass and then adding HID, like a gatekeeper for identity, is very helpful. The user now knows what they expect when they authenticate an application or they authenticate a portal or simply consume Microsoft Office since the experience is very consistent. It's always the same. Our support knows when, in which scenario, and what could be a problem and then quickly can help the user to overcome an issue. The single pane of glass actually is the beauty of the product.

Security policies can now be very consistent and very granular and can be completed in specific ways for individual users. For example, there is a way to tailor your security experience for certain container reviews. A sensitive user, a high-risk user, or a developer, can have a custom mail detail or security policy that will impact only them while the rest of the standard users will not be affected by an end security policy since their workloads wouldn't require that.

The portal is really handy. It's exactly what you would expect it to be. The management center is very comprehensive. We've had no problems with the useability of the admin access and the capability of the product offering. 

This solution removes a lot of burdens, especially for us as cyber engineers. With a few clicks, we can create and target certain users. It will provide inputs and insights on scenarios and security settings. It will send warnings before we enable policies to let us know what might be affected. It helps us on the front end to avoid security configuration mistakes. That's for the sake of security as well as the user, who could otherwise be blocked every now and then by an incorrect security policy. 

We use Entra ID's conditional access feature to enforce fine tune and adaptive access controls. We use that for user identity and to protect workflows. In EntraID, an application in the directory, it's considered an identity, even if it is an application. Therefore, we can create a policy for users as well as for applications where it will authorize access only if certain conditions are made. We use that extensively.

The conditional access feature positively affects the robustness of a zero-trust strategy to verify users. We use the conditional access feature in conjunction with the Microsoft Endpoint Manager.

We can use combined security products that fit with the product. It's very effective. It ensures security overlap.

I'm working with a verified ID as well. Users can use that single identity to access what they need and to configure the software developer pipeline to use that Microsoft-managed ID to push and pull code from restart to the application. If you have multiple other solutions, for instance, GCP, you can use that federated credential to manage software and code regardless of the cloud provider that is used by using the unique identity. This makes the work of developers more secure since they only need one ID. Otherwise, they will put on a piece of paper, their username and password for each application that requires access. With this solution, you have one identity secured to move them all, and it's easier for the developer who can be more productive while staying more secure.

We've used the product to onboard or move new employees. That's part of the identity lifecycle workflow that we are experiencing. It's probably the number one product for HR management when it comes to user onboarding. It helps onboard and offboard remote workers with ease. After all, not all departments require the same applications, for instance. With this product, we create the prerequisites by creating an access package. 

Verified ID is good when it comes to privacy and control of identity data. Privacy control is a mix of responsibilities between the organization and Microsoft Cloud, of course. There is full transparency with Microsoft covering this data, however, nothing is perfect. If Microsoft changes something, since they are linked, it may affect performance.

The visibility and control for permission management are excellent. Integrations are becoming more and more native. It helps reduce our surface risk when it comes to identity permissions. When in combination with Microsoft Sentinel, it's really feature-rich. I can also create reports for when management wants to assess problem areas.

It's helped to save time for your IT admin waiters or HR department. There is a reduction of recurring tasks by up to 50% to 70% compared to the legacy solution. It's tricky to contemplate how much money is being saved, however. 

The product has affected the employee user experience in a positive way. The organization is very happy with it.

Sometimes with this solution, since our old API can have some latency and short links if you want to enable permission on a system application can be some delays. For example, sometimes, when a user requires their access, sometimes it's not happening in real-time; they just wait a couple of minutes before the TCI really provides it. Sometimes this can create confusion if a user an engineer or a developer believes that the solution is broken. The solution is not broken. It just sometimes has a delay. That is something that I encourage Microsoft to fix. During the pandemic, we had a lot of conditions with the remote workers. So when the capacity increased, there could be latency. However, that is a Microsoft scalability problem that they have to address at a certain point. That said, it's not a dealbreaker.

It would be good to have more clarity around licensing. It's a bit technical for those strictly dealing with budgets. 

I would like to see a little bit of improvement in the resiliency of the platform. Entra ID has a global point of presence worldwide, however, if one node goes down in a geographical location, it has a global impact. Sometimes even a simple certificate that is not renewed on time can cause global issues. Microsoft should improve global operations and sandboxing. So if one of the nodes is down in Asia, it won't take down the United States as well. The redundancy and the resiliency of the product should be improved over the global geographical scale of the product.

In terms of features, at the moment, the solution is covering everything. I don't see a new feature needed aside from improving their API.

I've been using the solution since 2015 or 2016. I've used it since before the name change.

Overall, the product is stable. It's 99.9% stable. 

In my current organization, we have around 100 users on the solution. However, we have B2B integrations that include 3,000 to 4,000 users.

Microsoft does scale up to hundreds of thousands of objects. The solution scales well.

If you need more than fifty thousand objects that can be created in a single tenant they can be created within an additional directory.

Microsoft offers different tiers of support according to the licensing model. The support is great. Generally, at first, you get a general engineer. They'll tell you to go and check an article. I tend to tell them the issue and lay out the problem and ask them not to send me an article since I am an expert. then I'll get to a second-phase engineer that can help. However, once you get to the right person, support is excellent. 

Positive

I have experience with One Identity, SharePoint, SharePointIQ, and InsightID.

I like how this product has a view on a single pane of glass. Out of the box, it can serve multiple types of organizations that may have multi-cloud strategies. It also has good third-party integration and reporting capabilities. Everything we need to start is right in one solution. 

We do have Okta, which we are phasing out. We use it for some B2C scenarios. It's an excellent product and has solved problems for us over the years.

When you set it up the product, there's always a combination of business people, decision-makers, and IT people, and I always encourage business and decision-makers to read the Microsoft adoption framework for Entra VNS Ready. So that way the decision makers have an idea of how to use the product and which features are required. Then we start with the technical part. 

We should basically start always with an assessment. How many users do you have? Which one is the office license model? And so on and so forth. When the assessment is done and when we have an idea of the topology of the user, we can start the design. We ask, okay, would you like to be cloud native? Would you like to have a hybrid model where you have an on-prem identity shipped to the cloud? And based on the decision, we'll start by usually setting up Azure AD Connect. 

Azure AD Connect is a solution that's on-prem. We'll onboard the identity on the cloud and all the security tokens that come with it. Then, of course, we start to plan the identity migration.

Based on the call on existing users, the next design is to onboard a lifecycle identity for the new commerce that will join and for people that will lead. It's important to read the Microsoft architecture and adoption framework for InsightID. And based on that, then we go into the nitty gritty technical decisions. 

The setup can be handled by one person. However, once you begin to integrate it with 95% of the organization and need to touch messaging systems and mail systems, you'll need to collaborate with others. If you are using the Internet and SharePoint, you need an Internet engineer. You likely need a few people to assist.

The maintenance aspect is not difficult. It's a SaaS and Microsoft handles most of the burden. You just need to perform hygiene rather than maintenance, for example, removing people you no longer need. While maintenance is mostly taken care of, people should pay attention to the Azure cloud as Azure can cause security holes with changes. 

We have witnessed a return on investment, however, it's hard to quantify. Definitely, in the long run, there's a benefit to leveraging the product.

Decision-makers dealing with budgets will sometimes struggle to really understand the kind of license that's needed. When you are doing multi-cloud the costs can be a little bit higher. It may not be cost-effective if you do not how to use the platform.

The price point is pretty high.

However, for Android and Office users, it's very useful to have.

We use a hybrid approach on-prem. We have some log applications and some legacy applications that require us to have an active directory as a primary identity source of view. This means that we ship our identity to the cloud, however, we don't have a vice-versa mechanism. 

I'd advise potential new users should investigate by creating a POC free of charge. Microsoft offers free credits for POCs. These can be extended for a certain amount of time.

I'd encourage anyone to contact a Microsoft representative and set up a POC and get training material and really evaluate the product first. Once you use it, there's no going back.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

There are many use cases. The main use case is identity synchronization to on-prem with AD Connect. Another main use case is related to conditional access. Automated licensing is also one of the use cases. 

It is also used for identity access management with specific workflows, rules, etc. Permission or role management for applications is another use case, but I have never used that in production. I have demonstrated it to multiple customers, but they were not there yet.

The main benefit is that you have one repository for identities. That is very important for main companies. If you have worked with or are familiar with the concepts of on-prem Active Directory, you can easily start with Microsoft Entra ID. You have everything in one area. You have application identities, workload identities, and other identities in one area. It is very convenient and powerful. It helps with centralized identity management. You can also connect with your partner organizations. It is quite powerful for collaboration with your partners, customers, etc.

Microsoft Entra ID provides a single pane of glass for managing user access. It is pretty good in terms of the sign-on experience of users. It is easy to understand for even non-technical people.

With this single pane of glass, we also have a good view of the security part or security policies. From an admin's perspective, we have complete logs of everything that is happening in almost real time. We have pretty much everything we need. In recent times, I have not come across many use cases that could not be covered.

With conditional access, you can make sure that you have control at any time. It is a part of the zero-trust strategy. Any access is verified. You have a very good grasp on identity and devices for compliance. You can manage any issues through Microsoft Entra ID. Most companies I have worked with let you bring your own device, and device management is very important for them. They have a tight grasp on who can connect and which devices can connect to their network or cloud resources.

There have been improvements in the onboarding and the leaving process. It has always been a challenge to make sure that people are given the right access right at the beginning and that their access is disabled at the right moment. Historically, while auditing clients, I could see people who left the company five years ago, but their access was still active. Permission management has been helpful there. It is a nice thing to implement.

In terms of user experience, we have not received any feedback from the users about Microsoft Entra ID, which is good because it means it is transparent to them. It works as expected.

My two preferred features are conditional access and privileged identity management. They are very powerful. I like conditional access a lot. It is an easy way to secure identities.

Privileged identity management helps to control who is requesting access, when, and what for. It gives you a nice overview of what is happening in your tenant and why people are doing certain things. You can easily detect outliers or if something is wrong. 

They can combine conditional access for user actions and application filtering. Currently, they are separated, and we cannot mix the two. I do not know how it would be possible, but it would be interesting.

For permission access, there can be a bit more granular distinction between Microsoft applications. Currently, you have a pack of things, but sometimes, you only want to allow one of the things and not the whole pack. For example, you just want to allow the Azure portal, not the whole experience. However, such scenarios are rare. Overall, I am pretty happy with where we are today. It is always exciting to do new things, but for the customers I have worked with, it covered 99% of the scenarios.

I have been using it since I started using Azure and M365. It has been almost six years.

It is very stable.

It is very scalable. I have not met any limitations, but I do not have clients with more than 2,000 users. 

I have used their tech support one or two times. It is pretty good. I would rate them a nine out of ten.

Positive

I have worked a bit with Okta and AWS IAM, but they are more expensive than Microsoft Entra ID. I last worked with Okta about two years ago. At that time, Okta was more advanced and intuitive in certain aspects.

Microsoft Entra ID is a no-brainer if you already do not have a solution and if you have on-prem Active Directory. If you already have something, then the choice can be different. Microsoft Entra ID works for various use cases because you have connectors with pretty much every application on the planet. You have a lot of possibilities to integrate. You can also integrate with on-prem. In terms of security, there are a lot of features to protect your identity. It is quite helpful and appealing, so if you do not have anything and you are going to use Microsoft technologies, it is a no-brainer. Similarly, if you are a cloud company just starting, and if you choose Azure, Microsoft Entra ID is a no-brainer. If you choose another cloud, you can go for another solution.

I have been working with cloud and hybrid deployments. There are a few cloud deployments, but I work a lot with hybrid deployments.

Its setup is straightforward. I am very used to it now, and for me, it is pretty straightforward. The deployment duration depends on the features that you want to enable. Features such as conditional access require discussions with the customers. Generally, two weeks are enough. You might also have to train the internal team on it, which could take a bit more time.

You do not require too many people for deployment. One or two people are normally enough.

In terms of maintenance, it is very easy to maintain. You might have to add another business case for your customers or simplify something you put in place. You have to be aware of the new features, etc.

Microsoft Entra ID must have saved organizations money, but I do not have the data.

Its price is okay. It is easy to go from a P1 to P2 license. It is not exactly a bargain, but I would recommend the P2 license.

Make sure to use MFA and conditional access wherever possible.

Overall, I would rate Microsoft Entra ID a nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for user integration; we have many users around the globe and use it for authentication syncing in Microsoft 365 and SSO, and the product provides a single point of use. Our environment encompasses many offices around the world. 

As we have a hybrid deployment, providing our engineers access rather than allowing them direct access to our Azure AD server is easier, reducing our security concerns. Our end users can also reset passwords themselves without going through our support or services teams.

The solution saves us a lot of time for our IT department and others. Taking into account onboarding, IT, and HR concerns, Azure AD gives us 50% time savings weekly.

Azure AD saves us a lot of money. 

Overall, the solution positively affects the employee user experience in our organization. We can manage all kinds of activities and other MS products from a single pane of glass, including users, endpoints, roles and permissions, mail, and more. This ease of management ensures a positive experience for our end users.  

Single sign-on, license management, and role management are the most valuable features. Integration with Microsoft 365 is also very valuable. 

Azure AD provides a single pane of glass for managing user access, which makes the user sign-on experience very consistent; users can access multiple applications with the same credentials.  

The single pane of glass makes the security policies we apply consistent.  

We use Azure AD Verified ID to onboard remote employees, and it's pretty quick.  

Verified ID is excellent for privacy and control of identity data; many options, such as multi-factor authentication, are available. 

We have used the solution's Permission Management, which provides good visibility and control over identity permissions. It's an easy feature to operate, and the portal is intuitive.

The custom role creation function could be improved as it's somewhat tricky to use. 

We've been using Azure AD for over five years. 

The product is stable. 

Azure AD is a scalable solution; we have around 10,000 end users managed by 12 to 15 engineers. 

The technical support team is good; I rate them eight out of ten.

Positive

We previously used an in-house Active Directory and Okta Workforce Management. Azure AD is more affordable, has the benefit of being a Microsoft product, and allows single sign-on from the same page. Onboarding products is more manageable with Azure AD, and we prefer to use the Microsoft suite rather than mixing and matching from multiple vendors.  

The initial setup was straightforward. 

Azure AD is worth the money and provides us with an ROI. 

The pricing is good; it's not cheap but very reasonable. 

I rate the solution nine out of ten, and I recommend it. 

I use Microsoft Entra ID to manage and reset user passwords and set their requirements so they can access the environment.

The Entra portal offers a unified interface to oversee user access. Through the Entra portal, I can access my resources. I utilize the quick user and quick group features to assign users to roles according to their permissions, missions, and development tasks. This involves our EBAC and RBAC systems, assigning tools, and linking them to functions required for executing tasks. After completing these assignments, we place these users in groups and grant them access to specific resource environments, aligned with their designated tasks within those environments.

The Entra portal does not affect the consistency of the security policies that we apply.

The administration center for managing identity and accessing tasks within our organization operates according to the established protocols and procedures prior to its implementation. We utilize account provisioning, RBAC, authentication, authorization, password management, security, and incident management. These are all components that we have implemented to facilitate access and development within our environment.

There are certain things that have helped improve our organization. First, security. With Entra ID, we have been able to implement SSO capabilities for our applications and most resources in our environment. This means that we can use a single credential to access all of our resources, which makes it more difficult for hackers to gain access. It also makes it easier for our users to sign in to resources without having to remember multiple passwords. Second, Entra ID allows us to implement multiple authentication factors. This adds an additional layer of security by requiring users to verify their identity in more than one way. For example, they might need to enter their password and then also provide a code from their phone. This makes it much more difficult for unauthorized users to gain access to our systems. Entra ID also makes it possible to define roles and permissions based on each user's needs. This allows us to grant users only the access they need to do their jobs, which helps to protect our data and systems. Finally, Entra ID allows us to implement conditional access controls. This means that we can restrict access to resources based on factors such as the user's location or the device they are using. This helps to protect our data from unauthorized access, even if a user's password is compromised.

Conditional access is a way to make decisions about enforcing security policies. These policies are made up of "if this, then that" statements. For example, if a user wants to access a resource, they might be required to complete a certain action, such as multi-factor authentication. If a user tries to sign in from a risky location, the system will either block them or require them to complete an additional layer of authentication.

The conditional access feature does not compromise the robustness of the zero-trust strategy, which is a good thing. I have configured it in my environment based on primary monitoring. We have certain locations that we do not trust users from. If a user tries to sign in from one of these locations, which the system automatically detects, they will be required to complete an additional layer of authentication. With zero trust, we do not trust anyone by default. Anyone trying to access our environment externally must be verified.

We use conditional access with Endpoint Manager. When configuring conditional access, we consider factors such as the user's location, device, and country. These are the things that we put in place when configuring the policy. We create users, put them in a group, and then decide to apply conditional access to that group. So, this particular group has been configured under conditional access. This means that no matter where they are, what device they use, or what activity they want to perform in the environment, they will be required to meet certain conditions that have been configured in the conditional access policy.

We use Verified ID to onboard remote users. SSO is configured for this purpose so that users do not have to remember multiple IDs, passwords, or usernames. This can be tedious when logging in to multiple applications. Once SSO is configured for our users, we also configure self-service password reset so that they can reset their passwords themselves if they forget them. With SSO, users only need to remember one credential, their Verified ID. When they log in to an application, such as Zoom, they are redirected to the identity trust provider, which is Entra ID. Entra ID requires a sign-in. Once the user enters their Verified ID into Entra ID, they are redirected back to Zoom and are issued an access token, which allows them to access Zoom. In this way, users can automatically access all other applications in the system that they are required to use to carry out their day-to-day tasks in the company.

Verified ID helps protect the privacy and identity data of our users. Data access management is all about the user's identity. The three main components of data access management are identity, authentication, and authorization. Identity access management is about protecting user information and ensuring that they only have access to the resources they need to perform their jobs. Verified ID is an additional layer of security that helps to ensure that users only have access to the right applications and resources. It does this by verifying the user's identity and ensuring that the resources are being accessed by the right person. Verified ID also uses certificates to confirm the trust and security of the system.

Permission management helps with visibility and control over who has access to what resources in the environment. For example, an HR manager should only have access to HR resources. To achieve this, we put users into groups based on their job function, such as the HR department. We then grant permissions to these groups to access the resources they need. This way, no one in the HR department can access resources that are meant for the financial department. Permission management helps to reduce unauthorized access to resources and prevent data breaches. Before we grant access to resources, we perform a role-based access control analysis to determine the permissions that each role needs.

Entra ID has helped us save a lot of time by streamlining our security access process. From time to time we conduct an access review to ensure that only the right people have access to the environment and resources.

Entra ID operates on multiple platforms and devices, which reduces the time spent on manual tasks and increases productivity. Its ability to integrate across our centers worldwide, providing accessibility, has saved us money.

Entra ID has improved the user experience and performance. It has enhanced performance by saving users time from having to log into so many applications, systems, or plug-ins. Now, they can log in using their Entra ID. It has also helped with security by enabling multi-factor authentication, which has cut down on attempted hacks. Entra ID has also made enrollment easier for users.

The valuable features I use daily are enterprise application, conditional access, identity governance, password monitoring, and a password reset.

The downside of using a single password to access the entire system is that if those credentials are compromised, the hacker will have full access. It would be more beneficial if Entra ID could be completely passwordless.

I have been using Microsoft Entra ID for six years.

Entra ID is stable. We have never had stability issues.

Entra ID is scalable.

I would rate Microsoft Entra ID a ten out of ten. I enjoy using Entra ID and I see the benefits of using it.

No maintenance is required, except for occasional log reviews.

I use it to access my work applications. When I install Microsoft Teams or Outlook, or I want to access my work applications, I authenticate myself using Microsoft Authenticator.

During the pandemic, one of the challenges for organizations was how to secure their IT networks. People were working remotely, and some of them were working from the remotest locations. It gave confidence to the organization that only the right person was getting access to work applications.

It also improves your customer experience or employee experience. You don't have to rely much on servers. 

Being able to easily authenticate yourself on the MSA app is valuable. It is easy to use. Rather than receiving a code in an SMS, you can just verify that it is you. You don't have to punch in any password or any six-digit code. That's the feature that I like the most.

It does give you the confidence that no one else can access your details or can have access to your account because it does add a second layer of security. Even if someone hacks the server where my details are stored, unless and until I authenticate myself on MSA, even hackers won't be able to get into my account.

It works absolutely fine from the login perspective. You can also configure it on third-party devices, and it works pretty well. I haven't faced any issues from the login point of view.

They can improve how people manage their accounts. They can simplify and provide more information about adding or updating a phone number or email id in the MSA account. A lot of time users do get confused about where to go. For example, if I've changed my mobile number, where do I go and change my mobile number in the MSA account? A lot of time, employees think if they change the phone number in the HR database, it'll automatically get changed on the MSA account, which is not the case. Microsoft can simplify that and add these questions in the FAQ documents as well. They can provide more clarity about how it is different from your organization's database.

Voice recognition could be added going forward. With a smartphone, such as iPhone, as well as with Windows Hello for business, you already have facial recognition. Voice recognition is something that could be added going forward, especially for people with special needs.

I have been using it for a year.

It is quite stable. Coming from Microsoft, you don't question the stability factor at all. I have Microsoft Authenticator installed on my phone, and even when I switched organizations, I could simply add my new workplace email id, and it worked absolutely fine. It is quite stable, and it gives you a good user experience.

Scalability-wise, it is quite good. We were rolling it out to 150,000 people across the globe and different geographies. One of the good things is that Microsoft doesn't need any introduction anywhere. In terms of user experience, it is right up there. It is also right up there in terms of how different work applications align with it. I would rate it quite high.

Technical support was good. We didn't have to rely on Microsoft's technical support big time because the solution worked very well overall. We had our third-party technical support team involved as well.

Positive

Before Microsoft Authenticator, we used Okta Multi-Factor, and prior to Okta, we were totally relying on passwords, which was obviously very risky. 

We switched to Microsoft Authenticator because when you implement the whole Microsoft 365 suite, especially in a large organization, all the work applications sync pretty well with Microsoft, and you already have a good relationship with the vendor. 

It was initially on-prem, but later on, we shifted it to the cloud. When I joined the organization, it was already on-prem, and I helped to shift all the data from on-prem to Azure cloud. The process was a little complex. We had a few on-prem issues, and we had to redo the capability testing to check if those issues will arise on the Azure Cloud as well. It was complex because we were again asking some of the users who had changed their phone numbers to go and re-add their phone numbers. If they had the same phone number, it would have worked fine, but if they had changed the phone number, once it is shifted from on-prem to Azure Cloud, it wouldn’t have worked anymore. So, they had to re-add their phone number. The challenge was to identify those users and convince them to redo the activity. This switchover took about two quarters or six months.

We had a team of about 7 to 10 people from project management, change management, IT, and global IT teams. We are a massive organization. It was being rolled out to 150,000 people across the globe.

We did pilot testing across different functions and across different geographies. That's the standard practice that we follow in our organization.

We have seen an ROI. We were able to secure our IT networks by more than 80%. More than 80% of the audience did subscribe to MSA and used it for logging into their work accounts.

It took us two to three months to realize its benefits from the time of deployment. We did run a pilot batch. We were trying to customize the solution according to our network. Within a quarter, we were able to identify its benefits.

I'm not totally aware of the pricing and licensing, but I do know that the pricing and licensing must be quite balanced. We are a pretty old client of Microsoft, and MSA is just one of the services we use from Microsoft. There's a whole Microsoft 365 suite that's implemented as well. I'm sure it is something that is acceptable to both parties.

We were totally relying on Microsoft. We didn't evaluate any other vendor.

To those looking to evaluate this solution, I would advise doing proper pilot testing to iron out any hurdles later on. It is important to take a call on whether you want to adopt the on-prem model or the cloud model. Obviously, the on-prem model is not sustainable if you're trying to secure your IT networks. The cloud model is more sustainable in that sense. I would advise taking that call right in the beginning.

I would also advise considering how to secure third-party devices. There might be third-party contractors who don't have the company laptops, but they do have company email ids to log into the company accounts from their own devices. You should work out how you are going to add those devices to the secure cloud.

I would rate it a nine out of ten. In the next version, if they can come up with voice recognition, especially for people with special needs, it will be helpful.

Microsoft Entra ID is used for user management and directory governance, including conditional access management, sync user management, group management, and application and SSO connections. In short, it is a user, policy, and access management solution for environments with 10,000 to 50,000+ users.

Microsoft Entra ID provides a single pane of glass for user management.

Originally, it was just an integration within Entra ID with limited governance and scalability. Over time, more and more features such as Certificate Authority and Privileged Identity Management have been added, and the amount of governance and controls has increased. As a result, we can now control more aspects within Azure AD. For example, in the beginning, we could not review sign-ins. We could only see simplified final messages. Now, we have more insight into sign-ins, and the overall service has improved. It is now more stable and reliable, which is most important.

Microsoft Entra ID's conditional access feature to enforce fine-tuned and adaptive access controls work. 

When Microsoft Entra ID is implemented properly it can help save our staff time.

If the implementation was done properly, the user experience was seamless. It may have even improved the experience, given that it supports single sign-on and cross-platform access. For example, signing on to enterprise applications was even better. So, it depends on the engineers who implement the product, not the product itself.

Microsoft Entra ID's valuable features include integration capabilities, a simplified Active Directory approach, scalability, conditional access, and privileged identity management.

The single pane of glass has limited filtering options within the directory.

The robustness of the conditional access feature of the zero trust strategy to verify users is adequate but not comprehensive. This means that it is still possible to deceive conditional access.

The group management and group capabilities have room for improvement.

I have been using Microsoft Entra ID for over five years.

Microsoft Entra ID is mostly stable, but we had some issues with MSA. We must have a backup plan when using a cloud provider. If we put all our trust in one provider, that's on us, but most of the time, the service is stable.

Microsoft Entra ID is scalable. When we provision more and more users, we do not notice any impact. User management may be more difficult due to the portal, loading times, and so on, but provisioning the users themselves is not a problem. We have service limitations, but based on those, we can have a large number of users and work on them smoothly.

The quality of technical support depends on the engineer assigned. I've been working with Microsoft One, and while they have some awesome engineers, I've also had situations where they didn't seem to know what they were talking about.

Neutral

In my previous role, I worked with Google for enterprise, and it was a nightmare. I also worked with Okta, which is not as seamless as Microsoft Entra ID when it comes to MSA and policy management. However, maybe that's the feature, the improvement that can be done. Even though Okta has more errors and is more annoying as a product, it does have one positive: it is a cross-platform product. We can integrate it with non-Microsoft products, while Microsoft works really well with its own products. So, if we use Endpoint, enterprise apps, and 365 services, it will work most of the time, ten out of ten. But if we try to integrate anything else that is not a Microsoft service, it will be a disaster or we will not be able to onboard the service. That is something that Microsoft could improve: make it cross-platform.

The deployment time depends on the knowledge of the engineers and the cloud approach. Therefore, it can take from a few months to a few years, and sometimes it may result in the provisioning of everything because of a gap in knowledge of the people deploying. I have seen really bad deployments because the people were not cloud-ready.

We have seen a ten percent return on investment.

I think the pricing is efficient, but the licensing is overly complicated and difficult to understand. There are many tricks in the licensing that weigh against us.

I would give Microsoft Entra ID seven out of ten.

Conditional Access works well with Microsoft Endpoint Manager, but there are better options, as Endpoint Manager is not the best service.

Microsoft Entra ID is an enterprise-level solution.

Microsoft Entra ID does not require maintenance, but the conventional access policy, AD Connect, and server-related ATSs all do.

We use Entra for things like, multifactor authentication, user backups, registrations, and other identity management tasks. 

We use Entra ID for 3,000 users, and there are multiple third parties integrated into it. The solution is part of the fabric of our company, so it's essential. 

The solution has saved IT administrators and HR staff time. We build Power BI dashboards on top of it to provide some insights. We're feeding all of the users into that. We've built an aggregator that takes all the sign-in logs and all of that data available in Entra and surfaces it through Power BI, so we can reuse it in different parts of our organization. It makes sense to build the dashboards in Power BI, so that it's centrally available and part of a bigger data set. 

Entra's license management features have saved us money because we can allocate licenses to groups and users. We've built reports on top of that license group user information. We can see how many licenses are being used and whether it's over-provisioned. 

I like Entra's ability to integrate the Active Directory with third-party solutions. It's straightforward. I like the ability to define third-party systems and make the AD the primary identity provider.

Entra offers a single pane of glass that helps us keep our security policies consistent. It helps to drive behavior through security and role-based groups. We use privileged identity management for elevated roles in security groups. 

I started using Entra when it was still called Azure Active Directory. It has been about 10 years. 

No one would say Entra isn't scalable. Some of our deployments were for large UK government projects. One of the largest Azure Active Directory deployments was at NHS which has 2.4 million users. We run and manage the identity part of that service for the NHS and a bunch of other things. 

We're involved with some massive deployments of that critical national infrastructure, including the governance and compliance around it. That's tens of thousands of endpoints. It's the NHS, so that includes people's local doctors, hospitals, and people in the supply chain. 

I rate Microsoft support five out of 10. It's just okay. 

Neutral

Entra isn't too difficult to set up. We follow the Microsoft cloud adoption framework. There's a phase that involves aligning with best practices and making sure it's secured appropriately.

Entra includes things like multifactor authentication, conditional access, etc., so I think it justifies the cost. 

Entra is fairly priced. We get it through an E5 license, so it isn't an issue.  It also costs nothing to our customers. 

I rate Microsoft Entra ID 10 out of 10. I would recommend it if you're using Microsoft or Azure. If not, I would still think about it because creating a tenant is free. There's only a licensing cost once you start putting users on it. 

I use Microsoft Entra ID in my company for provisioning and deprovisioning identities and access.

In the organization where I work, Microsoft Entra ID helps automate the process of creating accounts and purging multiple accounts when they are no longer needed.

The most valuable components of the solution are provisioning and deprovisioning since both features work.

My organization is less familiar with some of the new tools in the market, so I don't know whether I can speak about what needs improvement in Microsoft Entra ID presently.

I have to absorb whatever I have learned about Microsoft Entra ID. I don't know if I can say what additional features need to be introduced in the product, but I can say that the product looks promising based on what I have learned about Microsoft Entra ID.

Attempts to simplify hooks to perform access management are not always easy, but in my organization, we might be able to make some progress in the future.

Microsoft's technical support has shortcomings where improvements are required.

I have been using Microsoft Entra ID since 2005. My organization plans to enter into a partnership with Microsoft, but presently, we are just a customer.

Microsoft Entra Verified ID is a very stable solution.

I have not had any issues with Microsoft Entra Verified ID's scalability feature.

There are 1,50,000 end users of the solution in my organization.

I rate the technical support a seven out of ten.

Neutral

My company has been using Microsoft Entra ID since the release of its earliest version, which was in the mid-2000s.

I was involved in the original deployment or initial setup of Microsoft Entra ID in my organization, and we found it to be a complex process. In the past, my organization was involved in the migration process from a custom Oracle-based solution to Microsoft Entra ID. Microsoft Entra ID was a product that was a new acquisition for Microsoft at the time, in which some custom development work by our company's team was required.

The product is used for our enterprise, an academic medical center with many different hospitals, owing to which the tool is deployed centrally.

The solution is deployed on hybrid cloud services offered by Microsoft Azure Cloud.

The product's deployment phase was carried out with the help of my organization's in-house personnel.

My company has not used many of the new features available with the product's new prices, so I cannot speak if I have seen an ROI from the use of the product in my organization.

I have seen an ROI from the use of the solution if I consider its past usage in our organization since we were able to eliminate work that a lot of people had to do manually, like the creation or deletion of identities.

I work for an academic medical center, where there is a watch kept over every dollar spent. I do have concerns about the micro charges for different levels or features of the product.

My company did consider a product from IBM against Microsoft Entra ID during the evaluation phase. My company chose Microsoft Entra ID since we were involved with Microsoft Active Directory Domain Services. Microsoft Active Directory Domain Services was a nicely tied product with Microsoft Entra ID.

Microsoft Entra ID provides almost a single pane of glass for managing user access, but not in my organization's environment because we have a little bit of custom work to do at our end. It looks like my organization might be able to see how the solution provides a single pane of glass for managing user access in the future.

A single pane of glass affects the consistency of the security policies, as it helps reduce a lot of confusion for the IT professionals who need to work with Microsoft Entra ID. It is very confusing when IT professionals have to bounce to different URLs to find access to tools needed to do their jobs, which was an issue for me, but it looks like there have been some improvements.

I don't use Microsoft Entra Verified ID.

I do use Microsoft Entra Permissions Management, but probably not the way it is designed to be used.

The solution has helped my organization's IT admins and the HR department save a lot of time.

The solution has helped my organization save money, but I cannot quantify it.

I ardently carry out processes where I build out and test a solution and then run a proof of concept before moving to a particular product. I suggest that others who plan to use Microsoft Entra ID consider the aforementioned aspects.

I rate the overall product a nine out of ten.