the difference is between Active Directory (AD) and Microsoft Entra ID (recently called Azure AD) ?

Do you know what the difference is between Active Directory (AD) and Microsoft Entra ID (recently called Azure AD)? 🤔

Well, here are the key differences :

🟢 Deployment environment
– Active Directory : On-premise solution requiring physical domain controllers
– Entra ID : Cloud service hosted and managed by Microsoft, requiring no local infrastructure

🟢 Authentication protocols
– Active Directory : Uses Kerberos and NTLM for authentication
– Entra ID : Uses modern protocols such as SAML, OAuth2 and OpenID Connect

🟢 Device management
– Active Directory : Manages devices connected to the corporate network or via VPN
– Entra ID : Manages devices wherever there’s an Internet connection, integrates with Intune

🟢 Identity provider
– Active Directory : Identity provider for local domains
– Entra ID : Identity provider for M365 apps

🟢 Control and Policies
– Active Directory : Group Policy Objects (GPO)
– Entra ID : Intune and Endpoint Manager

🟢 Cloud integration
– Active Directory : Limited cloud integration, requires Azure AD Connect for synchronization
– Entra ID : Native integration with Microsoft 365, Azure and thousands of SaaS applications

🟢 Advanced security
– Active Directory : Basic password and certificate management
– Entra ID : Multi-factor authentication, conditional access, intelligent password protection

Thanks