In this article, we will introduce you to three types of synchronization services available on Microsoft Azure and explain how beneficial these services can be for your organizational environments, how simple their management is, and how they can help you maintain a high level of security for your on-premises or cloud-based identities, devices, and more. My goal is to guide you toward adopting Microsoft Azure.

Microsoft Azure Cloud technology has been around for about a decade, offering a wide range of services and continuously improving in terms of performance, management, security, and many other areas. As mentioned above, you can join your on-premises devices to Azure in three different scenarios:

1. Azure AD Registration
2. Azure AD Join
3. Azure AD Hybrid Join

Azure AD Registration

With Azure AD Registration, you can join a user's personal computer to Azure AD and grant them access to resources. This scenario is often referred to as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). Instead of using a company-provided computer or phone, users can bring their own personal devices, such as their own computer, phone, or other devices, and use them within the organization. While this registration process has its advantages, it also comes with a few disadvantages.

Since the device is personal, the IT administrator will have limited control over the user's device.

One of the advantages is that users can log in to their accounts on iOS or Android devices using their identity. (For example, logging into the Android Play Store account.)

Azure AD Join

Azure AD Join is the process of registering company-provided devices, typically running the Windows operating system, to Azure AD. The key point to note here is that while Azure AD Registration works with macOS, iOS, and Android devices, Azure AD Join is specifically designed for Windows devices.

After completing the registration process with Azure AD Join, users can only log in to their devices using their Azure AD account.

In the image below, I demonstrated how a user's computer can be registered using Azure AD Join. By following the steps Start/Settings/Accounts/Access work or school, the user can log in with their Azure AD account, completing the registration process.

In the image above, only the Email Address field is visible. Since I have already registered my device with Azure AD, the option for Azure AD Join does not appear. During the initial join process, a button labeled Join this device to Azure Active Directory will appear below the Email Address field. Clicking this button completes the registration.

To confirm the registration, you can check the Azure AD/Devices/All devices section in the Azure portal to see that your machine has been successfully registered.

Azure AD Hybrid Join

Azure AD Hybrid Join refers to the synchronization between On-Premises AD and Azure AD. This deployment can be managed using SCCM or local administration. Depending on your preferences and needs, you can synchronize on-premises identity information and AD devices to Azure AD and manage them centrally. Like Azure AD Join, this service is also compatible with Windows devices.

One of the advantages of Hybrid Join is that changes made in On-Premises AD (depending on the configured authentication service) are synchronized to Azure AD, allowing centralized management and deployment. Hybrid Join offers many features, one of which is Single Sign-On (SSO). With SSO, users can log in to multiple platforms using a single set of credentials instead of entering separate credentials for each platform. For example, a user can log in to an application they urgently need to access using their Azure AD account.

You can verify that the AzureADJoined service is enabled by running the following command in PowerShell on the machine where the Azure AD Connect service is running:

powershell

Copy

Dsregcmd /status

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