Howdy folks!
Back in August I blogged about some new capabilities that we turned on in preview that will simplify managing access to many popular SaaS applications.
Today I want to give you an update on our plans and also share some data demonstrating the tremendous customer growth we are seeing!
Since July we've made major progress in delivering our Application Access Enhancements for Azure AD. We've turned on preview of our single-sign on capabilities using our SAML federation capabilities and our new password vaulting system. We've turned on our outbound identity provisioning system and have it working with a wide selection of SAAS Applications. And as of last Friday, we have completed integrating with 227 SAAS Application!
Now that we are this far along, it is a good time to share some more news with you:
- First, we are on track to GA these enhancements before the end of 2013.
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Second, we have decided that these enhancements will be free! Yes, that's right, we are going to make them available at no cost.
These free enhancements for Windows Azure AD include:
- SSO to every SaaS app we integrate with – Users can Single Sign On to any app we are integrated with at no charge. This includes all the top SAAS Apps and every app in our application gallery whether they use federation or password vaulting. Unlike some of our competitors, we aren't going to charge you per user or per app fees for SSO. And with 227 apps in the gallery and growing, you'll have a wide variety of applications to choose from.
- Application access assignment and removal – IT Admins can assign access privileges to web applications to the users in their directory assuring that every employee has access to the SAAS Apps they need. And when a user leaves the company or changes jobs, the admin can just as easily remove their access privileges assuring data security and minimizing IP loss
- User provisioning (and de-provisioning) –IT admins will be able to automatically provision users in 3 rd party SaaS applications like Box, Salesforce.com, GoToMeeting. DropBox and others. We are working with key partners in the ecosystem to establish these connections, meaning you no longer have to continually update user records in multiple systems.
- Security and auditing reports – Security is always a priority for us. With the free version of these enhancements you'll get access to our standard set of access reports giving you visibility into which users are using which applications, when they were using and where they are using them from. In addition, we'll alert you to un-usual usage patterns for instance when a user logs in from multiple locations at the same time. We are doing this because we know security is top of mind for you as well.
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Our Application Access Panel – Users are logging in from every type of devices including Windows, iOS, & Android. Not all of these devices handle authentication in the same manner but the user doesn't care. They need to access their apps from the devices they love. Our Application Access Panel is a single location where each user can easily access and launch their apps.
We will also start a Preview of a premium set of enterprise features in the near future so keep an eye out for that!
In addition to this news, I thought it would be fun to share some of the data we're collecting on the rapidly growing adoption of Windows Azure AD.
As of yesterday, we have processed over 430 Billion user authentications in Azure AD, up 43% from June. And last week was the first time that we processed more than 10 Billion authentications in a seven day period. This is a real testament to the level of scale we can handle! You might also be interested to learn that more than 1.4 million business, schools, government agencies and non-profits are now using Azure AD in conjunction with their Microsoft cloud service subscriptions, an increase of 100% since July.
And maybe even more amazing is that we now have over 240 million user accounts in Azure AD from companies and organizations in 127 countries around the world. It is a good thing we're up to 14 different data centers – it looks like we're going to need it.
So as you can see, Azure AD is getting a world-wide workout and we're proud of how it's shaping up!
Feedback always welcome, drop me a comment below and if you found this useful share it with your friends on Twitter.
Regards,
Alex Simons (twitter: Alex_A_Simons)
Director of Program Management
Active Directory Team
Microsoft
