Microsoft's cloud-based identity and access management service, formerly known as Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). Like a universal key card system for the digital world, Entra ID manages who can access what across cloud applications, on-premises resources, and partner organizations. It provides single sign-on (SSO) to thousands of SaaS applications, multi-factor authentication, conditional access policies that adapt to user risk, and passwordless authentication. Entra ID serves as the identity backbone for Microsoft 365, Azure, and thousands of third-party applications, handling billions of authentications daily.
A healthcare organization deploys Microsoft Entra ID to secure access across their hybrid environment. Doctors use passwordless authentication with their phones to access electronic health records, conditional access policies automatically require additional verification when accessing patient data from unfamiliar locations, and the identity protection system detects and blocks a compromised account within seconds when it spots an impossible travel pattern — a login from New York followed by one from Singapore five minutes later.