Azure Active Directory
Contents
Azure Active Directory (Azure AD)
Azure Active Directory is Microsoft’s cloud-based identity and access management (IAM) service. It helps you control who can access your Azure resources and what they’re allowed to do.
Key Features:
- User authentication: Sign in to Azure portals, apps, and services securely.
- Role-based access control (RBAC): Assign roles (like Reader, Contributor, Owner) to users, groups, or service principals to restrict access.
- Single Sign-On (SSO): Users sign in once and access multiple apps without logging in again.
- Application registration: Needed for apps or pipelines to securely interact with Azure services via tokens (e.g., ADF accessing Key Vault).
Real-World Usage in Data Engineering:
- Grant Data Factory access to Azure Storage using managed identity via Azure AD.
- Secure your Key Vault with access policies linked to AD users or services.
- Allow Databricks notebooks to read/write from secure sources by integrating with Azure AD.