An overview of Azure AD pod-managed identities

The goal of this section is to describe Azure managed identities and Azure AD pod-managed identities.

As explained in the introduction, managed identities in Azure are a way to securely authenticate applications running inside Azure. There are two types of managed identities in Azure. The difference between them is how they are linked to resources:

• System assigned: This type of managed identity is linked 1:1 to the resource (such as a virtual machine) itself. This managed identity also shares the lifecycle of the resource, meaning that once the resource is deleted, the managed identity is also deleted.
• User assigned: User-assigned managed identities are standalone Azure resources. A user-assigned managed identity can be linked to multiple resources. When a resource is deleted, the managed identity is not deleted.

Both types of managed identities work the same way once they are created and linked to a resource. This...