Azure AD support and Microsoft 365 Branding Breakdown

By now, most experienced IT professionals and businesses should know Office 365.  However, there’s a lot of Microsoft branding confusion between Azure AD support and Microsoft 365 that I will try to clarify in this post.  Let’s start with the basics of Office 365 and what features comes with it.

• Office 365
  • Relies on Active Directory features of Azure.

IMPORTANT FACTS TO KNOW.   If your organization has a paid subscription to Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, Enterprise Mobility Suite, or other Microsoft services, you have a free subscription to Microsoft Azure Active Directory. You and other admins can use Azure AD to create and manage user and group accounts. To use Azure AD, just go to the Azure portal and sign in using your Office 365 account.

Setup Office 365 Business Premium.  Selecting this option allows you to install Business Premium AKA desktop office suite on your computer or others computer within your organization.  This is the most common setup in an office environment.

• Add New Users – Office 365 vs Azure AD
  • Is it best practice to create users through Azure AD interface over office 365 admin interface?
    • Yes, not exactly is it a case of best practice. The choice is dependent on your organization requirement, creating users through Azure AD for office 365 or Creating the users from Azure Portal directly are both possible.
  • I need both AD authentication setup and a mailbox through office 365?
    • Authentication models depend if you have or don’t have an existing Active Directory environment on-premises, you have several options to manage authentication and identity services for your users with Office 365.

Ideally, most small business should opt for Microsoft 365 suite of products that include the following if no legacy on-site server infrastructure is a part of the equation.

• A combination of Office 365 products
  • Office 365 Business Premium
  • Office 365 Business Essenials
• Enterprise Mobility + Security E3 AKA E3.  E3 comes with the following features
  • Cloud App Security Discovery
  • Azure Information Protection Plan 1
  • Microsoft Intune A direct
  • Azure Rights Management
  • Azure Active Directory Premium 1
  • Microsoft Azure Multi-Factor Authentication

A business of 10 users should be averaging around $100mo for utilizing the E3 services.   That’s a separate Microsoft 365 subscription cost from the E3 services.  You can also choose alternative Enterprise Mobility Services like E1/E3/E5. EMS Pricing

Follow the link for further details and documentations:

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/enterprise/about-office-365-identity
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/admin/setup/setup?view=o365-worldwide&tabs=BusPremium

Microsoft 365

Microsoft’s traditional solution is typically an on-site or on-premises domain controller utilizing traditional Active Directory Services.  Microsoft’s modern cloud-based solution for managing IT devices is called Microsoft 365 but most people called Azure AD

Acronyms and phrases – Azure AD support and Microsoft 365 Breakdown

• Azure AD is a feature of Microsoft umbrella solution called Microsoft 365
• EMS – Enterprise Mobility Suite
• MDM Management is done by Intune
• Traditional Active Directory vs Modern Windows 10 Management
• Microsoft Intune
  • Configuration Management in Azure AD

 More on Azure AD

Azure AD is *not* a domain.   Azure AD is fundamentally different than a domain environment.

Azure AD accounts use the user@dns-name.com naming format.  But it should not be mistaken as an email address.  A user *may* have the same email, but it isn’t necessary.  If you create an Azure AD tenant, and create an Azure AD user in the portal, that account can be used to log into a windows 10 that is joined to the same Azure AD tenant using the user@dns-name.com account format even if no email is associated with that account.

With that said, no there are no other formats (such as the old-school NetBIOS\username format of old) that works.  In Azure AD, it will always be user@tenant.tld

Windows 10 Management

This was traditionally called Group Policy Management when you managed computers in a local hosted domain controller environment.  Here are the modern Windows 10 management strategies, using Configuration Manager and Microsoft Intune

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lZskYiZsIU

Where to go from here?

Maybe you have to purchase some additional Microsoft 365 products.   Here’s a quick glance of how subscriptions look under Microsoft 365.  Basically, we have the user name, email address, and the subscription type that can include one or subscriptions for each user.  It’s highly advisable your team prunes down the licenses to save on costs.   It’s safe to say you may want a resource for not only doing that but adding users to Azure AD and or Office 365.   Don’t worry, we have more Azure AD support and Microsoft 365 answers here.

Azure AD support and Microsoft 365 Branding Breakdown Summary

Azure AD:

• How to connect and login into Windows 10 using Azure AD services
• How to Create Users in Azure AD and Office 365

Hosted O365 Resources:

• How to Create Users in Azure AD and Office 365
• Email Client Configuration Settings
• How To Add a Mailbox Account in O365
• GoDaddy Hosting Setup
• Rackspace Setup for Hosted Exchange

Exchange or Mail Locally Hosted On-Site Resources:

• Purchasing an Exchange Mail Server or Cheaper Alternative
• A Server Implementation Guide
• Exchange Server Migration Support

Hosted or Local Hosted Links:

• DNS Lookup for Email Provider
• Outlook and PST Backup Tips
• Email Organization and Email Hosting Pricing Information (bottom section of link)
• Email Backup tips for Outlook

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