Beta: Unify Identity Management with Microsoft Entra ID Synchronization

In today’s cloud-centric IT landscape, identity is the new perimeter. For most organizations, Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) has become the center of gravity for identity - the authoritative source for who your users are, what groups they belong to, and what they can access.

The challenge, however, is ensuring this source of truth is consistently reflected across your entire security stack, from the cloud applications users access to the network resources they connect to. Manually creating users and mirroring group structures across different platforms is time-consuming, error-prone, and creates security gaps.

At WatchGuard, we believe in a unified approach. That’s why we are excited to announce the public beta for our new Directories and Domain Services (DDS) with Microsoft Entra ID synchronization! This is a foundational step in making identity management across the WatchGuard ecosystem seamless, automated, and more secure.

The Challenge: Breaking Down Identity Silos

As you deploy more services within the WatchGuard Unified Security Platform, from network security with your FireCloud users to advanced protection of your endpoints, managing user identities separately for each service is  a major administrative burden. MSPs need a way to ensure that when a new employee joins an organization or a team structure changes in Entra ID, those changes are automatically applied everywhere your security policies and services depend on them.

The Solution: A Centralized Hub for Your Cloud Identity

The Directories and Domain Service (DDS) is the new identity cornerstone of the WatchGuard Cloud platform. It’s designed to be the central repository of users, groups, and devices for all WatchGuard products.

With this beta, we are introducing our first and most critical connector: Microsoft Entra ID. By linking your Entra ID tenant to DDS, you can:

• Synchronize users, groups, and their memberships directly from the cloud.
• Automate the user lifecycle, so additions, deletions, and changes in Entra ID are automatically reflected in WatchGuard Cloud.

What’s in it for You? A Single Source of Truth for Security

By centralizing identity management with DDS, you can transform your administrative workflow and strengthen your security posture.

• Establish a Single Source of Truth: Eliminate identity silos and make Entra ID the definitive source for user and group information. This ensures consistency across every layer of your security.
• Power Zero Trust Access with FireCloud: The benefits of DDS extend immediately beyond authentication. FireCloud customers can leverage the same synchronized users and groups from Entra ID to build and apply granular Zero Trust policies. This means you can define network access rules based on the Entra ID groups your users already belong to, ensuring that access rights are consistent from the cloud right down to the network level.
• A True Foundation for the Unified Security Platform: This isn't a future promise; it's a present-day reality. With this beta, two major services immediately leverage DDS:
  • AuthPoint MFA: Easily apply strong, multi-factor authentication policies to your synchronized Entra ID groups. For the ultimate level of integration, this synchronization makes AuthPoint a perfect fit for Microsoft's External Authentication Method (EAM). While not mandatory, this powerful capability allows you to configure AuthPoint as a recognized MFA provider directly within Entra ID's Conditional Access policies, securing the primary login to Microsoft 365 and Entra itself.
  • FireCloud: Build granular Zero Trust policies using the same Entra ID users and groups for network access for non-MFA authentication flows.

Who Should Join?

We invite our customers and partners to participate, especially those who:

• Use Microsoft Entra ID as their primary identity provider (IdP).
• Use FireCloud and want to implement  global Zero Trust policies
• Want to re-align  setting  AuthPoint MFA risk-based policies.
• Are Partners (MSPs) seeking to standardize zero trust access, user management, and group management across multiple customer tenants and products.

Ready to Join the Beta?

It's quick and easy to join the beta. To get started, click here to visit our beta management site. You’ll find information about all the changes and instructions to enable the beta feature.

We look forward to hearing your suggestions and feedback!

The WatchGuard Team