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Are Azure "tenant" and "directory" different things, or different names for the same thing?

According to the documentation, a tenant is a container within Azure associated with a company or group of people, and a directory is a container; all directories are mutually exclusive, i.e. what you do in one directory does not affect any other.

So is there any difference or are they the same thing?

I look forward to some clarification.

Thanks in advance!

Jerome Smith-Uldall
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5 Answers5

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Overview:

How to create a new directory and tenant:

  1. To create a new directory in your tennant, go to "Create a resource" -> "Azure Active Directory".
  2. Next fill out the form to create the new directory and press the create button.
    This will create a new directory and a new tenant.
  3. Switch to the new directory by using the switch directory link in the directory switcher: How to switch directories

Term Clarification:

  • Multi-Tenant: A resource configuration where resources can access multiple tenants. E.g. users can exist in multiple tenants
  • Single tenant: A resource configuration where the operation is isolated to the current tenant and has no external dependencies.
  • Customer: A customer is a single entity that pays for one or more subscriptions/Enterprise Agreements. They can control more than one tenant/directory. E.G. Contoso Ltd., Fabrikam, Inc., WingDing Toys, etc.
Elliot Huffman
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This quick start says

A tenant is a representation of an organization. It's a dedicated instance of Azure AD that an organization or app developer receives when the organization or app developer creates a relationship with Microsoft-- like signing up for Azure, Microsoft Intune, or Microsoft 365.

The docs here say

An Azure subscription has a trust relationship with Azure Active Directory (Azure AD), which means that the subscription trusts Azure AD to authenticate users, services, and devices. Multiple subscriptions can trust the same Azure AD directory, but each subscription can only trust a single directory.

The terminology link in Elliot's answer explains

Azure tenant
A dedicated and trusted instance of Azure AD that's automatically created when your organization signs up for a Microsoft cloud service subscription, such as Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Intune, or Office 365. An Azure tenant represents a single organization.

and

Azure AD directory
Each Azure tenant has a dedicated and trusted Azure AD directory. The Azure AD directory includes the tenant's users, groups, and apps and is used to perform identity and access management functions for tenant resources.

Kirsten
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A tenant is a dedicated instance of an Azure AD directory that your organization receives when it signs up for a Microsoft cloud service such as Azure or Office 365. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/fundamentals/active-directory-whatis

Some people think it's the samt thing and others don't. I think that the tenant is a digital identity provided by the service Azure AD, basically your company.onmicrosoft.com .

The directory is the component which stores all you users, groups, apps and so on.

But they are either the same thing or extremely closely connected depending on how you wanna see it.

Jarnstrom
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I hope its not too late, A tenant in Microsoft Azure cloud service represents the organization created in Azure Active Directory. Azure Active Directory organizes all the users and applications into a group, and these groups are called as tenants. App developer receives the tenant as a dedicated instance of Azure Active Directory to generate a relationship with Microsoft cloud service. This tenant id can be used to sign-in credentials to Azure, Microsoft 365 or Microsoft Intune as each Azure AD tenant has a unique identity and app registration. Check this link for more information

Dennis Kabugua
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Those can be used interchangeably.

4c74356b41
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