Microsoft Entra update

At the end of May 2022 Microsoft introduced us to Microsoft Entra – a new product family encompassing all of Microsoft’s identity and access capabilities (https://bit.ly/3SEMXDA). There are three members of the family with Azure AD remaining the hero identity and access management product, alongside two new product categories: Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) and decentralized identity.

With the acquisition of CloudKnox Security in 2021, Microsoft now offers a CIEM solution as part of Entra called Microsoft Entra Permissions Management. This was made generally available in July 2022 (https://bit.ly/3PdAF2f) and is licensed as a standalone solution costing $125 per resource per year, where supported resources are compute resources, container clusters, serverless functions, and databases across AWS, Azure, and GCP.

The decentralized identity solution, Microsoft Entra Verified ID, was made generally available in August 2022 (https://bit.ly/3SQSyae) and is included with any Azure AD subscription, including Azure AD Free. If you’re new to this notion, then there’s a nice video explaining decentralized identity here: https://bit.ly/3paTuso.

In terms of learning more, if you’re a partner, then this Inspire session (https://bit.ly/3BfNea3) is a good introduction to Entra, and of course there’s the main product page here: https://bit.ly/3P7VGLK, with links to lots more product information.

External user licensing requirements for Teams

Microsoft update the Product Terms site for May 1, 2021 by confirming that User SLs are not required for any user to join a Teams meeting or a Teams Live event. User SLs are also not required for external users to participate in Teams channels as a Guest with an Azure AD External Identity: https://bit.ly/3eGET3e.

AAD Premium Plan 1 added to Microsoft 365 Business

Microsoft announce that the full set of Azure Active Directory Premium Plan 1 capabilities are being added to Microsoft 365 Business. Previously, Microsoft 365 Business just had a subset of the capabilities but now customers will also get the benefits of Cloud App Discovery, Application Proxy, Dynamics Groups, and Passwordless Authentication.

The new capabilities are already rolling out to new Microsoft 365 Business customers and are scheduled for existing customers throughout the rest of April 2020.

Find the announcement article here: https://bit.ly/2xsDeeR.

Home Use Program Guide

There’s a new guide on the Home Use Program, aimed at those people who manage HUP benefits within a business. These days the benefits are managed through the Microsoft Store for Business, and the guide takes administrators through the steps needed to get set up for this, including using the Azure AD authentication and identity service. There are also instructions for inviting employees to use the Home Use Program, an overview of what employees will need to do on receiving the invitation, and a summary FAQ.

Find this guide in the Volume Licensing Guides section at http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.