A civic CIO asks whether on-premises Active Directory alone can natively authenticate users to Microsoft 365 cloud services with no cloud identity integration. What is the correct fundamentals answer?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Microsoft 365 lives in the cloud and expects Entra ID for cloud sign-in. Local AD can still matter in hybrid, but it does not natively host M365 cloud auth by itself. Integration—or cloud-only Entra ID—is required.
Full Explanation
Microsoft 365 services depend on Microsoft Entra ID as the cloud identity platform for authentication and authorization. On-premises Active Directory may participate through hybrid identity, but by itself it does not natively host Microsoft 365 cloud authentication. Stream CDNs and “no directory” claims are incorrect.