What is Azure managed identity vs Service principal?

A Service Principal could be looked at as similar to a service account-alike in a more traditional on-premises application or service scenario. Managed Identities are used for “linking” a Service Principal security object to an Azure Resource like a Virtual Machine, Web App, Logic App or similar.

What are service principals?

Service Principals are identities used by created applications, services, and automation tools to access specific resources. It will automatically create an application object, and a service principal in a tenant. An service principal can authenticate via two different options.

What is service principal identity?

When you have applications, hosted services, or automated tools that needs to access or modify resources, you can create an identity for the app. This identity is known as a service principal. It focuses on a single-tenant application where the application is intended to run within only one organization.

What is a service principal in Azure AD?

An Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) service principal is the local representation of an application object in a single tenant or directory. ‎It functions as the identity of the application instance. Service principals define who can access the application, and what resources the application can access.

How do I find MSI endpoints?

In this case, an OAuth access token. The managed identities for Azure resources endpoint for the Instance Metadata Service. A query string parameter, indicating the API version for the IMDS endpoint. Please use API version 2018-02-01 or greater.

How do I find my service principal name in Azure?

View the service principal

1. Click Azure Active Directory and then click Enterprise applications.
2. Under Application Type, choose All Applications and then click Apply.
3. In the search filter box, type the name of the Azure resource that has managed identity enabled or choose it from the list presented.

Where do I find service principal ID?

How to find your service principal object ID on the Azure portal

• Log in to the Azure portal.
• Type in ‘Azure Active Directory’ in the search bar.
• Select ‘Enterprise applications’ under Manage on the left navigation bar.
• Select the enterprise application.
• Under ‘Properties’ you’ll find the object ID.

What is assigned managed identity?

A system-assigned managed identity enables Azure VMs to authenticate to other cloud services without storing credentials in code. Once enabled, all the necessary permissions can be granted via the Azure Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) access management system.

What is managed identity endpoint?

Managed Identity is an awesome feature in Azure which allows your Azure applications and services to communicate securely without handling or maintaining any credentials to do so. It is a very simple service to use and work with.

What is Azure MSI?

Managed services identity-based authentication for Microsoft Azure provides an automatically managed identity in Azure AD. You can use the identity to authenticate to any service that supports Azure AD authentication, including Key Vault, without any credentials in your code.