Hybrid AD vs Cloud-Only Identity: Choosing Your End State
Hybrid identity — on-prem Active Directory synced to Entra ID — is the right transition state and the wrong destination. Organizations that stall in hybrid carry both worlds' costs: domain controllers to patch and secure, plus the cloud stack on top. Cloud-only identity eliminates the on-prem attack surface entirely (no domain controllers means no NTLM relay, no Kerberoasting, no AD ransomware playbook). The end state question isn't "if" for most 15–250 user organizations; it's what's blocking the last step.
- Hybrid means maintaining Entra Connect, domain controllers, and two policy systems indefinitely
- On-prem AD is ransomware's favorite target — the attack playbooks assume it exists
- Legitimate hybrid persisters: specific legacy apps, some compliance architectures, larger enterprises mid-journey
- The common false blocker: "our printers/file shares need AD" — both have cloud-native answers now
- Exit criteria: when no workload authenticates against AD, the domain controllers are just risk
The full article inventories the workloads that keep organizations pinned to hybrid, the cloud-native replacement for each, and the verification process for confirming nothing still depends on AD before you power down the last DC.
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