Az AD Connect - Hybrid Identity

👉 Overview

👀 What ?

Azure AD Connect - Hybrid Identity, or simply AD Connect, is a service from Microsoft that helps organizations create and manage their identity infrastructure in a hybrid environment. It allows for seamless authentication and identity management between an on-premises Active Directory instance and Azure AD, Microsoft's cloud-based identity service.

🧐 Why ?

Identity management is a critical part of any organization's infrastructure. With an increasing number of services moving to the cloud, it's essential to have a robust and secure way to manage identities across both on-premises and cloud environments. AD Connect helps address this need by providing a seamless way to manage and synchronize identities between on-premises Active Directory and Azure AD.

⛏️ How ?

AD Connect can be implemented by installing the AD Connect software on a server in your on-premises environment. Once installed, you can use the AD Connect wizard to configure the synchronization settings between your on-premises Active Directory and Azure AD. This includes options for filtering which objects are synchronized, enabling password hash synchronization or pass-through authentication, and configuring automatic upgrades.

⏳ When ?

AD Connect was first released by Microsoft in 2015 as a way to simplify the identity management in hybrid environments. It has since become a key component of many organization's identity infrastructure.

⚙️ Technical Explanations

At its core, AD Connect works by synchronizing the identity data from your on-premises Active Directory with Azure AD. This synchronization can occur in several ways, depending on your specific needs and configuration. The most common methods are password hash synchronization, where the hash of the user's password is synchronized to Azure AD, and pass-through authentication, where the authentication request is passed through to the on-premises Active Directory for validation. On top of this, AD Connect also provides features for more advanced scenarios, such as federation integration, seamless single sign-on, and multi-factor authentication.