Infrastructure Manager at a consumer goods company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Improved stability and straightforward to set up but licensing is confusing
Pros and Cons
  • "Azure is the leading market solution because of its history, features, and maturity."
  • "The technical support can be confusing - if you're looking for something very specific, it can be hard to get the right answer or a solution."

What is our primary use case?

My main use is for directory services, including identity access, management policies, access control, authentication features, and endpoint management.

What needs improvement?

The licensing model makes it difficult to understand the real cost of the solution, especially because it changes all the time.  

For how long have I used the solution?

I have fifteen years of experience with Active Directory.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability has improved from a couple of years ago. From time to time, there are service interruptions, but they're not a problem.

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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This solution is easily scalable.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support can be confusing - if you're looking for something very specific, it can be hard to get the right answer or a solution. Google Workspace's support is stronger - it's fast and easy, and they go the extra mile without asking.

How was the initial setup?

Active Directory is straightforward to set up.

What other advice do I have?

Azure is the leading market solution because of its history, features, and maturity. I'd rate this solution seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Advisor at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Plenty of useful features, highly stable, responsive support
Pros and Cons
  • "All of the features are amazing, such as identity governance and privileged identity management."
  • "Azure Active Directory could benefit by adding the capability for identity life cycle for the on-premise solution. For example, an HR solution, which is built on-premise or, in general, better on-premise capable solutions."

What is our primary use case?

I have been using Azure Active Directory mainly for access management, identity governance, access reviews, and patent management.

What is most valuable?

All of the features are amazing, such as identity governance and privileged identity management.

What needs improvement?

Azure Active Directory could benefit by adding the capability for identity life cycle for the on-premise solution. For example, an HR solution, which is built on-premise or, in general, better on-premise capable solutions.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Azure Active Directory for approximately four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Azure Active Directory is highly stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have found Azure Active Directory to be scalable.

How are customer service and support?

Every time I open a support case or support ticket, the response is very quick. They have been able to have a resolution to the issues I have had in a timely manner.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The E5 plan we are using contains the premium plans for Azure Active Directory. We are not paying only for the Azure Active Directory Premium licenses. We have it already included within our E5 plan.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend Azure Active Directory to others. it is integrated with all Microsoft platforms. It has a lot of useful features that can help security IT administrators.

I rate Azure Active Directory a ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
PeerSpot user
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Vice President, Product Engineering at Logitix
Real User
Robust, and ideal for user management and group management
Pros and Cons
  • "The portal version of the Azure active directory is pretty robust."
  • "The integration between the Azure active directory and the traditional active directory could be improved upon."

What is our primary use case?

We have an Azure active directory and we also have our own on-prem AD instances.

We basically use the solution for user management, group management, policy management.

What is most valuable?

The portal version of the Azure active directory is pretty robust.

The solution is very good for different types of management, including, user, group and policy management requirements.

What needs improvement?

The integration between the Azure active directory and the traditional active directory could be improved upon. We have two active directories that are installed on virtual machines, which are traditional active directories. The interactions between the two are very limited. For example, I could modify users in our own private instances of AD, however, they won't propagate up to the Azure active directory and vice versa. For us, the integrations are the biggie between the on-prem or the self-hosted AD versus Azure AD.

The traditional AD instances that we maintain have UIs that are very archaic and monolithic and very difficult to navigate. They should update the UI to make it easier to navigate and make it overall more modern.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using the solution for a while. We are actively using it now.

What other advice do I have?

We're using the latest version of the solution at this time.

In general, I would rate this solution at an eight out of ten.

If there were better integration capabilities between active directories, I would likely rate this product higher.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Vice President of Technology at Ecuity Edge
Reseller
User authentication that is reliable and scales well
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the ease of scalability."
  • "I think the documentation and configuration are both areas that need improvement."

What is our primary use case?

I am using this product for user authentication.

What needs improvement?

I think the documentation and configuration are both areas that need improvement. 

The product changes and gets updated, but the documentation doesn't keep pace.

The initial setup could be simplified.

I would like to see a better UI tool.

For how long have I used the solution?

The company has been using this solution for approximately four years.

We are using the latest version.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's a stable solution. We have not experienced any issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Microsoft Azure Active Directory Premium is a scalable solution. It scales very well.

We all use this solution daily. We are a team of five the company.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

The most valuable feature is the ease of scalability.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is fairly complex.

We are a smaller company and it only took us two days to deploy.

What about the implementation team?

We did not use an integrator, we used in-house knowledge.

What other advice do I have?

If you are familiar with Microsoft, this is the product to use.

I would rate Microsoft Azure Active Directory Premium an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner, Reseller
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Cloud Consultant at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
Consultant
The most beneficial feature would be the effectiveness of having a hybrid set-up. The tech support is inconsistent.
Pros and Cons
  • "The most beneficial feature would be the effectiveness of having a hybrid set-up."
  • "Initially, we wanted to exclude specific users from MSA. So, we had a condition policy, which forces MSA for all the users. So we wanted to exclude users who are using an NPS extension. So it was not listed, as a NPS extension was not listed outside an application, in actual, so, we go back and were not able to exclude users using NPS extension from MSA. So that was one limitation that we found and we had to work around that."
  • "Tech support is inconsistent."

What is our primary use case?

We need it for running MSA protection for most of the users. We need Azure AD Connect because they are highly on primary setup, so they need to sync on primary with Azure AD.

How has it helped my organization?

From the beginning when I joined the company, they were already using Azure AD Premium. The most wanted features would be the synchronization between the Windows AD, Azure AD, because there are so many capabilities that just because we can't sync their own from Azure AD.

What is most valuable?

The most beneficial feature would be the effectiveness of having a hybrid set-up. When we need to create an account, we create it in Auto Activator 3. Even though the users are created and managed in Windows really, we can use all the benefits of the cloud, as well.

What needs improvement?

Right now I can't point out a particular feature, but sometimes when we work, it evolves.  There are so many features that are out recently, so it'd be hard to set up MSA for obvious remote users, so users who are using Azure are hard to use it remotely. So, while we're setting that up, we have face of issues which show the limitations of Azure.

Initially, we wanted to exclude specific users from MSA. So, we had a condition policy, which forces MSA for all the users. So we wanted to exclude users who are using an NPS extension.  So it was not listed, as a NPS extension was not listed outside an application, in actual, so, we go back and were not able to exclude users using NPS extension from MSA. So that was one limitation that we found and we had to work around that.

We noticed recent additions on display that have been in recent updates. On the board, there are some features that still need help. 

For how long have I used the solution?

One to three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is pretty good. Earlier, there were freezes here and there. But, we overcame it. What w have now is stable, but they are trying to include more features.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have almost 500 users. So, it is pretty easy. They are including more features, which enhances onboarding and decommissioning users. From an actual perspective, it's pretty easy to scale.

How is customer service and technical support?

Tech support has its up and downs. So, sometimes it will take one week, and other times two weeks to resolve a case. Sometimes they have to respond fast, and they do so. It is not consistent.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It's really affordable. It does not feel as if it is too costly. It's okay to spend this money for this product or feature. Yeah, I think it's affordable.

What other advice do I have?

If you have connections with a PSP partner, it will be easy, I guess. If you're buying an Azure AD Premium independently, you won't have a helping hand from them. You'll have support  but, not much other than that. With a PSP partner, you will feel like that you can implement or you can quadrate.

Once Azure is developed, and fully established, it will be a perfect product. It is still in the development stage at present. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Solution Engineer at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Supports our expansion of services to the cloud, but the MyApps interface needs enhancement
Pros and Cons
  • "This solution serves as the basis to understand the MS SSO and MFA capabilities."
  • "The SSO MyApps interface is very basic and needs better customization capabilities."

What is our primary use case?

We use this solution to extend on-premises Active Directory to the cloud.

How has it helped my organization?

This solution will support the expansion of services and servers into the cloud.

What is most valuable?

This solution serves as the basis to understand the MS SSO and MFA capabilities.

What needs improvement?

The SSO MyApps interface is very basic and needs better customization capabilities.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for six months.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
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Download our free Microsoft Entra ID Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: April 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft Entra ID Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.