Microsoft has announced that Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) will be renamed Microsoft Entra ID.
We have grown accustomed to the inclusion of AD Plan 1 in Microsoft 365 E3 for enterprise clients, and Microsoft 365 Business Premium for small to medium businesses. Similarly, AD Plan 2 has been accessible either as a standalone add-on or as part of M365 E5. The only modification to these is that AD Plan 1 will be renamed as Entra ID Plan 1, while AD Plan 2 will become Entra ID Plan 2. There is no action required, and this has no impact on product functionalities, pricing, or licensing terms.
However, as we have seen with recent Microsoft announcements, Microsoft is enhancing the Entra family of products which comes at an additional cost. Entra ID Governance is the new cloud-delivered product that includes capabilities that were already available in Azure Active Directory, now part of Microsoft Entra, plus advanced tools to simplify identity, management, and governance of on-premises and cloud apps and resource. This is available for Microsoft Entra ID P1 and P2 customers costing US$7 per user per month.
There is a useful comparison of Entra ID P1, Entra ID P2 and Entra ID Governance here: Microsoft Entra Plans and Pricing | Microsoft Security
There are further products being added to the Entra family:
- Microsoft Entra Internet Access. This is currently in public preview and enables users to securely connect to private apps from anywhere. No information is available on the licensing or costs
- Microsoft Entra Private Access. This is currently in public preview and provides for secure access to internet, SaaS and Microsoft 365 apps. No information is available on the licensing or costs
- Entra Verified ID. This is currently free and included with any Entra ID Subscription:
- Verify and issue credentials from your organisation for any unique identity attributes
- Empower your users with ownership of their digital credential and greater visibility
- Reduce organisational risk and simplify the audit process
- Provide developers with a seamless way to create user-centric, serverless apps
- Entra Permissions Management is a standalone offering costing $10.40 per resource per month:
- Get multidimensional view of risks across identities, permissions and resources
- Automate least privilege policy enforcement in your multicloud infrastructure
- Prevent breaches caused by misuse and malicious exploitation of permissions
- Entra Workload ID is a standalone product costing $3 per workload identity per month:
- Control workload identity access with adaptive policies
- Reduce the risk exposure from lost or stolen identities or credentials
- Get a comprehensive health-check view of workload identities
More information on the announcements can be found here: Explore New Product Announcements for Microsoft Entra – Microsoft Community Hub
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