Azure AD will continue to exist under the name Microsoft Entra ID. Microsoft is thus bringing the tool into the Identity and Access suite, which it coined about a year ago. The choice makes sense from Microsoft’s point of view but is confusing from the user’s perspective.
Azure Active Directory (AD) is the familiar name of the identity and access management tool. Microsoft is now coming like a bull in the China shop, announcing the name change to Microsoft Entra ID. All features of Azure AD will also get a new Entra name. Within Entra, Azure AD will be housed along with Permissions Management, Verified ID, ID Governance, Workload ID, Internet Access and Private Access.
Entra already takes an entire portfolio of Microsoft products under its name. With Entra, the tech giant wants to bring all Identity and Access products together. Yet the collective name has only been around for one year.
Logical, but confusing
Overthrowing and replacing the familiar name cannot be done without causing confusion and disquiet among users. We can see this in the reactions under the blog.
The blog wanted to avoid such reactions by reassuring users in advance: “I want to assure you that your work protecting your organization, customers, partners, and the investments you’ve made in deploying Azure AD will continue uninterrupted. All configurations and integrations will continue to work as they do today, without any action needed from you. You’ll see the new name start appearing in Microsoft product experiences in August 2023.”
Still, it entails work for IT administrators on another front: they must implement the name change in manuals and internal documents.