Azure Active Directory (AAD)

Overview

Azure AD is Microsoft’s cloud-based identity and access management service. It enables secure access to resources and supports SSO, MFA, and conditional access.

Real-life Use Cases

• Cloud Architect: Design secure, multi-tenant authentication for SaaS apps.

• DevOps Engineer: Automate user and group provisioning for CI/CD pipelines.

Terraform Example

resource "azuread_group" "devops" {
  display_name = "DevOps Team"
}

Bicep Example

resource aadGroup 'Microsoft.Authorization/roleAssignments@2020-04-01-preview' = {
  name: guid(resourceGroup().id, 'DevOps Team')
  properties: {
    roleDefinitionId: 'role-guid'
    principalId: 'user-guid'
  }
}

Azure CLI Example

az ad group create --display-name "DevOps Team" --mail-nickname devops

Best Practices

• Use conditional access policies.

• Enable MFA for all users.

Common Pitfalls

• Over-permissioned service principals.

• Not monitoring sign-in logs.

Joke: Why did the Azure AD user get locked out? Too many conditional relationships!