How does a user authenticate to the cloud?
According toJaap Wesselius),
In Office 365 there are multiple ways for users to authenticate, and this is related to the type of identity being used:
Cloud Identity – is created in the cloud, password lives in the cloud and user authenticates in the cloud.
Synced Identity – is create in on-premises Active Directory and is synchronized to the cloud, including its password (most of the times). User authenticates in the cloud with on-premises password.
Federated Identity – is created in on-premises Active Directory and is synchronized to the cloud, sometimes including its password (recommended for disaster recovery). User authenticates against on-premises Domain Controllers using federation infrastructure (ADFS).
I am visual guy so here is the Mermaid graph.
graph TD
subgraph Cloud Identity
CI_User[User with Cloud Identity]
CI_PW[Password in Cloud]
CI_Auth[Authentication in Cloud]
CI_User --> CI_PW
CI_PW --> CI_Auth
end
subgraph Synced Identity
SI_User[User with Synced Identity]
SI_OnPrem[On-Premises AD]
SI_Sync[Password Sync to Cloud]
SI_Auth[Authentication in Cloud with On-Premises Password]
SI_User --> SI_OnPrem
SI_OnPrem --> SI_Sync
SI_Sync --> SI_Auth
end
subgraph Federated Identity
FI_User[User with Federated Identity]
FI_OnPrem[On-Premises AD]
FI_Federation[Authentication via ADFS Federation Infrastructure]
FI_DC[On-Premises Domain Controller]
FI_User --> FI_OnPrem
FI_OnPrem --> FI_Federation
FI_Federation --> FI_DC
end