Failures can be extremely disruptive to business operations, which is why Microsoft has announced that it will expand its "failure mode" on Azure to cover desktop and web applications.
Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) is the cloud directory of the software giant responsible for managing authentication for Office 365, although it can also be linked to on-premises Active Directory. However, when it goes down, Microsoft customers cannot access the Azure portal to manage their cloud services.
Last year, the software giant upgraded the SLA for Azure AD to 99,9% from 99,9%, and one way to do that is through a fallback authentication service that replicates data authentication during normal operations. If Azure AD fails due to a network outage or some other issue, the service goes into "outage mode" where it can verify requests and provide tokens to clients so they can continue to function.
This backup authentication service has been available in Microsoft Outlook and SharePoint Online since 2019 and the company will now extend it to all native Microsoft applications, including Office 365 and Microsoft Teams, as well as third-party and customer-owned applications. the devices of an organization. .
Improved resistance to failure
According to a new Microsoft blog post, when a failure is detected in the Azure AD back-end service, the backup authentication service is automatically activated, allowing a user's applications to continue running. However, as the core service recovers, authentication requests are redirected to the core Azure AD service.
In normal mode, the backup service stores critical authentication data, and the correct Azure AD authentication responses to dependent applications generate session-specific data. The backup service stores this data securely for up to three days.
However, in breakdown mode, whenever an authentication request fails unexpectedly, the Azure AD gateway automatically routes it to the backup service. The requests are then authenticated, artifacts like refresh tokens and session cookies are verified as valid, and Azure AD looks for a strict session match on previously stored data.
Although Azure AD is now more fault-resistant, please note that you will not be able to log into your work applications after purchasing a new laptop or workstation because the mode interruption will only work on your existing devices.
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