While Microsoft this week confirmed the Basic tier is being sent into the sunset, at the time of writing it is still available. For example, the SKU is listed on the Azure Active Directory pricing page alongside the Free, Premium P1, and Premium P2 editions. Basic version of the cloud identity management solution is available as an Open Volume License, Cloud Solution Providers program, and via Microsoft Enterprise Agreements. Earlier this week, Alex Simons, Microsoft Corporate Vice President, Identity Edition, confirmed on Twitter Azure AD Basic is being removed. “Azure AD Basic is going away. It’s in the process of being removed from docs and marketing pages. As in my previous tweet, it’s a super low volume SKU that mostly just confuses people.”
— Alex Simons (@Alex_A_Simons) August 8, 2019 Azure Active Directory Basic has been available for five years and has been the middle tier between Free and Premium Available for up to ten applications per user, the SKU was priced at $1 per month. New customers are no longer able to buy the Azure AD Basic but existing customers will be able to renew it.
Recent Azure AD Changes
Back in May, Microsoft announced it was increasing the password character limit for Azure Active Directory logins. Customers can now configure a password with much more flexibility. Microsoft has increased the Azure AD password character limit to 256 characters, a significant increase. The company says account holders will still be required to form their password from a mix of lowercase, uppercase, symbols, spaces, and numbers. “Many of you have been reminding us that we still have a 16-character password limit for accounts created in Azure AD. While our on-premises Windows AD allows longer passwords and passphrases, we previously didn’t have support for this for cloud user accounts in Azure AD.”
