For three levels, we have perfected our on-premises “City Hall.” But today, the world works differently. Your citizens (users) want to access their files from home, on their phones, and via web apps like Office 365.

To do this safely, we don’t want to create brand-new identities in the cloud. We want to extend our existing, hardened identities upward. This is where we build The Bridge: Microsoft Entra Connect (formerly Azure AD Connect).

1. What is Entra ID? (The Satellite Colony)

Think of Active Directory (On-Prem) as your physical City Hall—it manages your local desks, printers, and desktop PCs.

Think of Microsoft Entra ID (Cloud) as a high-tech satellite station. It doesn’t replace City Hall; it handles modern “Space Travel”—logins to Teams, Outlook Web, and third-party apps like Salesforce or Zoom.

2. The Bridge: How Synchronization Works

Entra ID Connect is the “shuttle” that travels between City Hall and the Satellite. It takes your users, groups, and (optionally) a “fingerprint” of their passwords and copies them to the cloud.

• The Benefit: Your users keep the same username (user@company.com) and the same password for everything.
• The Security: You still manage the “Source of Truth” in your local fortress. If you disable a user in your local AD, the “Bridge” tells the Satellite to block them in the cloud, too.

3. The Choice: What travels across the Bridge?

When you build this bridge, you have to decide how the Satellite confirms who a person is:

1. Password Hash Sync (PHS): The most common. A “mathematical fingerprint” of the password is sent to the cloud. It’s highly resilient—if your local City Hall loses power, people can still log into the Satellite.
2. Pass-Through Authentication (PTA): The cloud “calls” your local server every time someone tries to log in. It’s more “real-time” but requires your local servers to be online 24/7.

The Architect’s Reflection

In our personal growth, we often reach a point where our “Internal World” (our values and home life) must meet the “External World” (our career and public presence). If these two worlds don’t talk to each other, we feel divided and exhausted.

A Mindful Architect seeks Integration.

Building a Hybrid Bridge isn’t just a technical upgrade; it’s a move toward Oneness. When your identities are synchronized, there is less friction, less confusion, and fewer passwords to remember. You are creating a seamless experience where the location of the user no longer matters—only their identity does.

True power comes from being the same person, with the same integrity, whether you are standing in the office or sitting on a mountain.

Next in the Series: Password Hash Sync vs. PTA — Choosing the right heartbeat for your hybrid world.

Are you ready to sync? Does your organization already have a foot in the cloud, or are you still 100% local? Let’s discuss the challenges of “Going Hybrid” in the comments!

#EntraID #AzureAD #HybridCloud #ActiveDirectory #Microsoft365.