Azure Domain Services Managed Service for Business Efficiency

Azure Domain Services is a game-changer for businesses looking to boost efficiency. It's a managed service that allows you to connect your on-premises Active Directory to the cloud, creating a seamless experience for your users.

With Azure Domain Services, you can easily manage your users and devices from a single location. This streamlines your IT operations and reduces the administrative burden on your team.

By leveraging Azure Domain Services, you can also take advantage of advanced security features, such as multi-factor authentication and conditional access. This helps protect your business from cyber threats and ensures compliance with regulatory requirements.

By connecting your on-premises Active Directory to the cloud, Azure Domain Services also enables single sign-on (SSO) across all your cloud resources. This means your users can access all the tools and applications they need with just one set of credentials.

Azure Domain Services offers a range of pricing options to fit your needs. You can customize pricing by applying filters to get an estimate of your expected monthly costs.

Prices are estimates only and may vary depending on your agreement with Microsoft, date of purchase, and currency exchange rate. Actual pricing may be different from the estimated costs.

To get a more accurate estimate, you can sign in to the Azure pricing calculator, which takes into account your current program or offer with Microsoft. This will give you a better idea of your costs based on your specific situation.

US government entities have special pricing options, allowing them to purchase Azure Government services with no upfront financial commitment. This can be a great option for government entities looking to save costs.

Microsoft Entra Domain Services usage is charged per hour, based on the SKU selected by the tenant owner. The cost of instances, managed domains, features, replicas, extra sync options, and trusts vary depending on the SKU selected.

Here's a breakdown of the pricing for different SKU options:

Each instance consists of 2 domain controllers for high availability, spread across 2 availability zones (if available in the region). This ensures that your domain services are always available and secure.

To set up Azure Domain Services, you'll need an active Azure subscription. You'll also need a Microsoft Entra tenant associated with your subscription, either synchronized with an on-premises directory or a cloud-only directory.

To enable Domain Services, you'll need Application Administrator and Groups Administrator Microsoft Entra roles in your tenant. This is a requirement, not an option.

You'll also need Domain Services Contributor Azure role to create the required Domain Services resources. This role is necessary for the setup process.

It's recommended to configure self-service password reset (SSPR) for the Microsoft Entra tenant. This will allow users to change their password without needing to contact an administrator.

To deploy the managed domain, you'll need to select the most appropriate subscription, resource group, and region. Keep in mind that you can't move the managed domain to a different subscription, resource group, or region after you create it.

Here are the resources and privileges you'll need to complete this tutorial:

To enable user accounts for Domain Services, you need to configure password hashes in a format suitable for NT LAN Manager (NTLM) and Kerberos authentication. This process can't be automated, and users must change their passwords before they can use Domain Services.

For cloud-only user accounts, users must change their passwords before they can use Domain Services, which causes the password hashes for Kerberos and NTLM authentication to be generated and stored in Microsoft Entra ID. The account isn't synchronized from Microsoft Entra ID to Domain Services until the password is changed.

To manually change a user password, the Microsoft Entra tenant must be configured for self-service password reset. It takes a few minutes after you've changed your password for the new password to be usable in Domain Services and to successfully sign in to computers joined to the managed domain.

Configuring User Accounts

Microsoft Entra is a cloud-based identity and access management solution that offers a range of features to help organizations manage their user identities and access to resources. It provides scalable, high-performance, managed domain services such as domain-join, LDAP, Kerberos, and Windows Integrated authentication.

Microsoft Entra Domain Services allows administrators to easily migrate legacy on-premises applications to the cloud and centralize management of all applications and all identities in Microsoft Entra ID.

To enable user accounts for Domain Services, administrators need to configure password hashes in a format suitable for NT LAN Manager (NTLM) and Kerberos authentication. This requires users to change their passwords, which causes the password hashes for Kerberos and NTLM authentication to be generated and stored in Microsoft Entra ID.

Microsoft Entra Connect cloud sync is not supported with Domain Services, so on-premises users need to be synced using Microsoft Entra Connect to access domain-joined VMs. The password hash synchronization process is different for cloud-only user accounts created in Microsoft Entra ID versus user accounts that are synchronized from an on-premises directory using Microsoft Entra Connect.

To use Domain Services, users must change their passwords, which can be done by expiring the passwords for all cloud users in the tenant or by instructing cloud users to manually change their passwords. Once the password is changed, it takes a few minutes for the new password to be usable in Domain Services and to successfully sign in to computers joined to the managed domain.

Azure AD Domain Services can be enabled in an Azure Resource Manager virtual network, but classic Azure virtual networks are no longer available when you create a managed domain.

Guest users invited to your directory can't use Azure AD Domain Services to sign in or join computers to the managed domain.

Guest users invited to your Azure AD directory using the Azure AD B2B invite process are synchronized to your Azure AD Domain Services managed domain, but they can't sign in or join computers because their passwords aren't stored in your Azure AD directory.

Azure AD Domain Services can't synchronize NTLM and Kerberos hashes for guest users because their passwords aren't stored in your Azure AD directory.

Azure AD Domain Services is a managed, highly available service that ensures business continuity with guaranteed service uptime. This means you can rely on it to keep your domain running smoothly, even in the event of failures.

Each managed domain includes multiple domain controllers, which are automatically managed for you. You don't have to worry about connecting to or managing them.

Azure AD Domain Services is designed to provide high availability, with two domain controllers included in each managed domain. This setup helps ensure that your domain remains accessible and functional, even if one of the controllers goes down.

In regions that support availability zones, the domain controllers are distributed across zones for added resilience. If your region doesn't support availability zones, they're distributed across availability sets instead.

This level of redundancy helps prevent downtime and ensures that your domain remains available to users. It's a key benefit of using Azure AD Domain Services, and it can help you avoid the costs and disruptions associated with domain outages.