Microsoft · Identity
Entra ID
Also known as: Azure Active Directory, Azure AD, AAD
Microsoft's cloud identity service — verifies who someone is and controls what they can access. Formerly called Azure Active Directory.
Microsoft Entra ID — formerly called Azure Active Directory — is Microsoft's cloud-based identity and access management service. It's the system that verifies who someone is and controls what they can access.
When an employee signs into Microsoft 365, SharePoint, or any application connected via Single Sign-On, Entra ID is doing the authentication in the background. It's also where you manage user accounts, groups, licenses, and access policies.
Entra ID is not the same as on-premises Active Directory, though Microsoft has worked hard to bridge the two. On-premises AD is the traditional Windows domain system designed for users inside a physical network. Entra ID is cloud-native and designed for the reality that users access resources from anywhere.
The features that matter most: conditional access (require MFA from unmanaged devices), device compliance integration with Intune, and the ability to serve as your central identity provider for hundreds of third-party applications via SAML and OIDC. If you have Microsoft 365, you already have Entra ID — the question is how well you're using it.