Businesses today are being challenged by the proliferation of handheld devices and new corporate policies for BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). Users want to be able to access their productivity applications from anywhere, from any device — a laptop, smartphone or tablet— and use only one username and password to access it all. This creates a challenge for IT. How do they give users what they want, while maintaining a secure environment?

To accomplish this, businesses need to have a robust, hybrid infrastructure that allows users to seamlessly access their applications whether they are deployed in their on-premises data center or in the cloud. This white paper focuses specifically on Microsoft’s approach, featuring Office 365 and Azure. It demonstrates how to configure and deploy Active Directory in a hybrid architecture. We’ll discuss why hybrid makes sense, common concerns, pitfalls to consider, and best practices for setting up your hybrid infrastructure leveraging Azure Active Directory Services with Office 365.