Hybrid identity is the practice of connecting your on-premises directory — most commonly Active Directory (AD) — with a cloud identity platform like Microsoft Entra ID, so that a single, unified identity works consistently across both environments. Rather than forcing users to manage separate credentials for on-premises applications and cloud services, hybrid identity synchronizes, and in many cases authenticates, that identity across your entire hybrid environment.
For most growing organizations, hybrid identity isn’t really a choice so much as a reality. Very few companies move to the cloud all at once. Instead, they run modern cloud identity and SaaS applications alongside legacy, on-premises systems that can’t be easily retired — and hybrid identity is the bridge that keeps identity management and access consistent across both.
What Hybrid Identity Helps You Do
A well-implemented hybrid identity model delivers a handful of concrete advantages for organizations navigating this in-between state:
- Give users a single cloud identity: users who hold accounts in multiple on-premises AD environments — each with its own set of attributes — can be synchronized into one Microsoft Entra ID identity. The on-premises directories stay as they are, but users get one consistent identity for the cloud apps and services they touch every day, instead of yet another account to manage.
- Seamless application access: give users single sign-on (SSO) and easy, secure access to both cloud and on-premises applications, cutting down on password fatigue and the help-desk tickets that come with it.
- Support for legacy environments: keep legacy on-premises applications that can’t easily move to the cloud fully functional, while still making progress on a broader cloud-first strategy.
- A foundation for Zero Trust: apply conditional access, multifactor authentication, and risk intelligence consistently across your entire hybrid environment, not just the cloud half of it.
How Hybrid Identity Actually Works
At a technical level, hybrid identity starts with synchronization. A tool — most commonly Microsoft Entra Connect or Entra Cloud Sync (the successors to the original Azure AD Connect, and the even older DirSync) — reads user and group objects from your on-premises Active Directory and replicates them into Entra ID. That sync is what makes a single unified identity possible in the first place.
Synchronizing accounts is only half the picture, though — you also have to decide how authentication itself will happen, and there are a few common approaches:
- Password hash synchronization: a re-hash of each user’s on-premises password hash is synced to Entra ID, allowing authentication to happen entirely in the cloud. It’s the simplest method to stand up and maintain.
- Pass-through authentication: sign-in requests are validated directly against your on-premises Active Directory in real time, without storing any password hash in the cloud — useful for organizations that need authentication decisions to stay tied to on-premises policy.
- Federation: a more complex option, typically using Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS), that hands authentication off to an on-premises federation server entirely.
Whichever method you choose, conditional access policies sit on top of it, letting you enforce consistent authentication and access rules — like requiring MFA or blocking sign-ins from risky locations — no matter where the underlying application or resource lives.
In practice, this plays out for end users as something invisible. An employee signs in once, from a laptop or a browser, and that single authentication event carries across cloud applications like Microsoft 365 as well as SaaS applications or on-premises resources that are still tied to the local Active Directory domain. The complexity of keeping two identity stores in sync, and deciding where authentication actually happens, is handled entirely behind the scenes.
Building Hybrid Identity on Microsoft's Platform
Most growing organizations building out hybrid identity are already standardized on Microsoft’s ecosystem, which offers a purpose-built set of tools for exactly this problem:
- Microsoft Entra ID: the core cloud-based identity and access management service that anchors your hybrid identity foundation and handles authentication across your organization.
- Microsoft Entra Connect & Cloud Sync: the tools responsible for synchronizing your on-premises Active Directory with Entra ID, keeping identities consistent as they change on either side.
- Microsoft Identity Manager (MIM): a more advanced tool for automatically synchronizing and managing users and groups across multiple directories and legacy applications, often paired with Entra ID’s cloud-first capabilities for more complex hybrid environments.
Together, these tools form a comprehensive hybrid identity management system — one that can flex to support everything from a straightforward single-directory sync to a much more complex, multi-directory legacy environment.
Partnering With Ravenswood to Build Your Hybrid Identity Strategy
Partner with Microsoft experts you can trust
If it’s time to take that first step toward leveling up your organization’s security, get in touch with Ravenswood to start the conversation.
Transitioning to a cloud-first strategy while still supporting legacy on-premises environments doesn’t have to be a daunting task. Ravenswood Technology Group helps you build a roadmap to unify your complex Active Directory implementations into a single, seamless cloud identity.
Our Hybrid Identity Strategy & Implementation services are designed to help you get there, whatever stage of the journey you’re on. And if your on-premises Active Directory needs a health check before you sync it to the cloud, our Active Directory Health Check is a smart place to start.
Contact Ravenswood Technology Group today to start building a secure, automated, and seamless hybrid identity infrastructure.
Frequently Asked Questions About Hybrid Identity
Is hybrid identity the same thing as Azure AD Connect?
No. Azure AD Connect — now succeeded by Microsoft Entra Connect and Entra Cloud Sync — is one of the tools used to build hybrid identity, not hybrid identity itself. Hybrid identity is the broader strategy of unifying on-premises and cloud identities; the sync tool is simply the mechanism that makes it work.
Should I use password hash synchronization or pass-through authentication?
It depends on your security and control requirements. Pass-through authentication keeps every authentication decision tied to your on-premises Active Directory in real time, which is why organizations that are hesitant to synchronize password hashes to Microsoft Entra ID often start there. Password hash synchronization is simpler to maintain and keeps users signing in even when your on-premises environment is unavailable — and in our experience, it’s where most organizations end up once they’ve evaluated how the hashes are actually protected. Moving from PHS back to PTA is possible, but uncommon.
Is hybrid identity a permanent architecture, or a step toward full cloud identity?
It can be either, and that’s part of what makes it valuable. Some organizations treat hybrid identity as a long-term architecture because they have legacy applications that will never move to the cloud. Others treat it as a deliberate transition state on the way to a fully cloud-based identity environment. Either way, the same synchronization and authentication foundation supports both paths, so you’re not locked into a decision before you’re ready to make it.
