Migration of on-premises Active Directory to Entra ID

Abstract

As more organizations start relying on cloud-based services and applications, the need for identity and access management solutions that can integrate with on-premises infrastructure with cloud environments rises. This thesis explains the basics of cloud services, service providers and different cloud models, as well as how to implement a migration of a local on-premises Active Directory environment to a hybrid identity model using Microsoft Entra ID service.

The objective of this implementation was to design and implement a functional test environment that simulated a small company that wanted to move from a purely on-premises environment to a hybrid identity. The test environment was created with virtual machines hosted by Microsoft Azure and the migration was done with Microsoft’s Entra Connect-services. The thesis also includes a thorough analysis and explanation of Entra Connect-wizards many options and configurations.

The implementation demonstrated how accounts, attributes and security group memberships were synchronized between both environments. Testing proved that users were able to access both on-premises and cloud-based services using same credentials, and users created withing the cloud were synchronized correctly within the on-premises environment. The study concluded that hybrid identity provides a practical approach for organizations that are seeking to modernize identity and access management, and how companies can continue to develop their cloud identity with full cloud model.