Understanding the Microsoft identity platform

Nowadays, there are open standards such as OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect (OIDC) to help with handling user authentication and authorization, but even these have many complexities, especially when considering more than just a username and password – multi-factor authentication and conditional access, for example. The Microsoft identity platform provides several tools to help developers implement user authentication and authorization and does the heavy lifting for you.

We first made use of the Microsoft identity platform when we enabled authentication in Chapter 3, Creating Azure App Service Web Apps. At that point, we mentioned that we would discuss the details later, and here we are. As we saw in that chapter, the Microsoft identity platform helps to create applications that users can sign in to with their Microsoft work or school accounts, personal Microsoft accounts, as well as social or local accounts.

The Microsoft identity...