I don’t really know what an active directory is, but I assume that the default type of directory is a passive one, in that it just holds files or subdirectory (it doesn’t act). An active directory sounds like a directory that is going to play tricks on me.
Entra ID sounds like a type of ID.
I’m not sure how something could legitimately have each of these names. I assume the functionality changed pretty dramatically over the lifespan of the product?
That’s kind of a nice take actually. For people like me who did Windows systems engineering at the beginning of the millennium, Active Directory is a very household name. But there’s not much actual meaning behind it. Everything Microsoft was active in that era - Active Directory, Active Desktop, ActiveX, Active Server Pages (lives on as ASP.NET) and probably some more I forgot.
I should admit that I was somewhat lying, I’ve encountered Active Directory before and know it is something vaguely identity/login related.
I was pretty confused the first time I encountered it, though. Could tell from context that it had something to do with accounts, but thought maybe it could be for syncing a user’s home directory or something!
It actually isn’t a terrible name, in isolation, since a directory (like, the non-digital version) was for keeping identities. But “directory” in tech has a pretty strong association with file systems.
The term "directory" was actually already quite common for these kinds of systems (directory services) when AD came about, which is probably why it was called Active Directory. The Active bit was some kind of "en vogue" term for Microsoft back then, as mentioned ;)
It technically builts upon (amongst other systems) LDAP, the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol and X.500
I guess you could think of it more like a telephone directory - which again is also where the file system metaphor has its roots I guess. So the two are not so different in the end.
I manage our small company’s Microsoft 365 / Azure tenant and only rarely need to use the portal.
A month or so ago my laptop was requiring a BitLocker recovery code before it would boot. I spent ages looking for Azure AD, before eventually discovering it was renamed to Entra. They should have had a transition period where it would have “ (formerly called Azure Active Directory)” on its name.
