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zielonywojo's avatar
zielonywojo
Copper Contributor
Dec 29, 2020

Azure AD - ADFS accounts without synchronization

Hello guys,

Couple of simple (I hope) questions:

- is it possible to authenticate users through on-premise ADFS server in Azure without actually importing users to the Azure AD? Or the user always has to be imported because only then he gets Azure Id and can use Azure resources? 

- is there any option except Azure AD Connect to establish connection between ADFS server and Azure AD (so ADFS users can be authenticated)? The thing is that I don't have access to physical ADFS server, so I cannot install Azure AD Connect there.

Regards and thanks!

Tomasz

Azure Active Directory (AAD)
Identity Management
    • zielonywojo's avatar
      zielonywojo
      Copper Contributor
      Dec 29, 2020

      PeterRising so if I got that right - I may install and run Azure AD Connect on different machine and use it only for account synchronization, correct? This sounds promising. 

      About user synchronization - I was kind of hoping it won't be needed to import all these users (it's around 5k in this particular case) to AAD, I'm worried a bit about that (it could be a nightmare in terms of management).

      Thanks for quick answer!

      Regards

      Tomasz

       

      • PeterRising's avatar
        PeterRising
        MVP
        Dec 29, 2020

        zielonywojo 

         

        Yep, that's right.  AADC can be run on a different machine.  You'd need to run a custom installation and choose the option of Federation with AD FS as shown below.

         

         

        Question though - do you really need AD FS for O365?  Could you not go for Password Hash Sync or Pass through authentication instead?

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