Azure Global Administrator: Roles, Privileges, and Best Practices

As an Azure Global Administrator, you have a wide range of privileges and responsibilities. You are the ultimate authority in your Azure environment, with the power to create and manage users, groups, and subscriptions.

Your role is critical to the security and management of your Azure resources. You can assign roles to users, such as the Azure Active Directory (AAD) Global Administrator role, which grants them access to manage Azure subscriptions and resources.

As a Global Administrator, you can also configure Azure policies to enforce compliance and security standards across your organization. This includes setting up Azure Active Directory (AAD) Conditional Access policies to restrict access to sensitive resources.

You have the ability to create and manage Azure subscriptions, including setting up billing and resource limits. This is essential for controlling costs and ensuring that your organization's resources are used efficiently.

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To set up admin sync, review the prerequisites information first. This is crucial to ensure a smooth setup process.

Before you begin, log in to the Duo Admin Panel and navigate to Users in the left side bar. Click Administrators and then Admin Directory Sync on the submenu.

To create or choose a connection for admin sync, click the Add External Directory button and select Microsoft Entra ID from the list. If this is your first Entra ID sync, you must create a new connection to use for this sync.

You can either create a new connection or reuse an existing connection to the same source directory. If you want to reuse an existing connection, choose Reuse existing connection and select one from the list.

If you're creating a new connection, you'll be redirected to the Entra ID portal to authorize use of Duo Entra ID Sync in your tenant. Sign in with the designated Entra ID service administrator account that has the global administrator role for this Entra ID.

Once you've signed in to Entra ID, you must click Accept to grant Duo the read rights needed to import admin users from your Entra ID domain.

Here's a step-by-step guide to creating a new connection:

After authorizing the Entra ID application, you'll be redirected back to the details page for your new Entra ID admin directory sync in the Duo Admin Panel. The new directory's name defaults to your Entra ID's organization name.

There are several Azure AD roles, including Global administrator, which is the highest level of access and authority in Azure AD. This role can manage all aspects of Azure AD, including user management, access control, and subscription management.

You can check your global admin status in the Azure portal to ensure you have the necessary access to perform certain actions. To do this, navigate to the "Roles and administrators" page, where you'll find a list of all the roles and their assigned members.

You don't need to be a Global administrator to manage Azure resources, but you do need to have the necessary permissions. Azure AD roles include User administrator, Application administrator, and Security administrator, among others, each with specific permissions and responsibilities.

In total, there are at least 20 Azure AD roles, and Microsoft continues to add more. Not all roles exist in every Microsoft 365 tenant, but you can expect to find a variety of roles, including Global administrator, Exchange administrator, and Teams administrator.

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Limiting service account privileges is a crucial step in securing your Azure AD setup. You can edit the Duo service account in Entra ID to drop its role privileges to any role with lesser privileges after setup is complete.

It's a good practice to regularly review and adjust service account privileges to ensure they only have the necessary access. The Global Administrator role is not required once the sync is authorized.

To check that the correct account was added to the Azure AD role, you can fetch the set of updated role members and loop through the set to retrieve the display name of each role holder.

Removing a role assignment can be a bit tricky, but you can use the Azure AD cmdlet or a graph API query to do so until a comparable cmdlet is available.

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Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) has a multitude of roles to manage resources. There are at least twenty built-in Azure AD roles, including the Global administrator, Exchange administrator, SharePoint administrator, and Teams administrator.

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These roles are designed to provide specific permissions and responsibilities, such as user management, access control, and subscription management. The Global administrator role, for instance, has the highest level of access and authority in Azure AD.

Some of the other Azure AD roles include User administrator, Application administrator, and Security administrator. These roles are used to manage various aspects of Azure AD, such as user management, application access, and security.

Here's a list of some of the Azure AD roles mentioned in the article:

These roles are used to manage various aspects of Azure AD, and they provide specific permissions and responsibilities.

Checking your admin status in Azure is a crucial step in managing your Azure subscriptions and management groups effectively. You can determine if you have the necessary access to perform certain actions.

There are several reasons why you might need to check your global admin status, including needing to elevate access, granting access to others, viewing all subscriptions and management groups, and enabling automation apps.

Checking your global admin status allows you to confirm if you have the authority to grant elevated access to yourself or another user, which is particularly useful when someone has lost access to an Azure subscription or management group and needs it reinstated.

To check your global admin status, you can follow these steps:

If you don’t see the “Global administrator” role or your account is not listed, it indicates that you do not have the necessary access. In this case, you should reach out to your Azure AD administrator to elevate your permissions.

As an Azure Global Administrator, managing identities in Azure Active Directory (AD) is a crucial task. You'll need to create and manage different types of accounts, including guest users and service principals.

To manage these types of accounts, you'll require a user administrator role in Azure AD. This role will allow you to create and manage user accounts, as well as assign roles to users.

Azure AD Administrative Units (AUs) are also a key feature to understand. You can create AUs using PowerShell, starting by going to your default tenant of Azure AD.

When creating an AU, you'll need to assign a role to a user, which can be done by selecting the role in the previous step and then clicking "Next". Note that it may take some time for the AU to be created, and then you can add users and groups to it.

To manage your Azure AD effectively, it's also essential to understand the related concepts, such as external directory sync and Azure AD sync instructions. These can be found in the admin panel link below:

As an Azure Global Administrator, managing devices is a crucial part of your role. You can enable and disable devices in Azure AD using one of three roles: Cloud device administrator, Global administrator, or Intune administrator.

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Azure AD join offers two types of join: Azure AD Registered and Azure AD Join. Azure AD Registered is suitable for personal devices, such as iOS and Android devices, which can be registered using the Microsoft Authenticator app. Personal computer systems can also be registered using a Microsoft Account (MSA) or local Azure AD account.

Azure AD Join, on the other hand, is designed for organization-owned devices. This can be enabled during Windows Virtual Machine creation using the Azure VM extension. Users who want to log in to these virtual machines must have either the 'Virtual Machine Administrator Login' or 'Virtual Machine User Login' role assigned in Azure AD.

To manage devices effectively, you need to understand the different types of join. Here's a quick rundown of the roles required for each type of join:

Remember, having the right role is crucial to manage devices in Azure AD. By following these steps, you can ensure that your devices are properly managed and secured.

As an Azure Global Administrator, you'll need to understand the key concepts and tools that come with this role.

Azure Active Directory (AAD) is a crucial component of Azure, providing identity and access management capabilities.

Azure Global Administrators have full access to all Azure resources, including subscriptions, users, groups, and applications.

Azure subscriptions are the primary resource in Azure, and Global Administrators can manage them, including adding or removing subscriptions.

Azure role-based access control (RBAC) allows administrators to assign specific permissions to users and groups, ensuring that they only have access to the resources they need.

Azure Policy is a tool that allows administrators to enforce compliance and governance across their Azure resources.

Azure Cost Estimator is a tool that helps administrators estimate the costs of their Azure resources, ensuring they stay within budget.

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