Microsoft's Entra moves into Security Service Edge

Microsoft has expanded its Entra family into Security Service Edge (SSE), with two new products, the IT giant announced.

A new secure web gateway, the Entra Internet Access is currently available as a preview, and will be available later this year, Microsoft said.

EIA protects access to the Internet, software-as-a-service, Microsoft 365 apps and resources.

Microsoft's Entra Private Access meanwhile is an identity-centric Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) that secures access to private apps and resources.

EPA, also in preview, reduces operational complexity and cost by replacing virtual private networks while offering more granular security, Microsoft claims.

Industry analysts Gartner suggest SSE can be considered a subset of the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) framework, with an architecture focused on security services.

Added together, EIA, EPA and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, becomes the vendor's SSE solution.

Pricing for the SSE solution will be available when the products reach general availability.

Azure Active Directory to be renamed as Microsoft Entra ID

By the end of this year, Microsoft will rename Azure Active Directory, one of three products in the Entra family - Entra Permissions Management and Entra Verified ID being the other two.

The new naming convention will be as follows:

Microsoft said the change is due to simplifying product naming, with no changes to capabilities, licensing plans, sign-in URLs, and APIs being untouched, and existing deployments, configurations and integrations continuing to work as before.

No user action is required when the new naming comes into effect, Microsoft said.