Directory integration provides several benefits to streamline identity management such as syncing user data between your local directory and Windows Azure AD.

One of the primary benefits of setting up directory integration capabilities such as directory sync or single sign-on, is that once you’ve configured it, all of the cloud services you have subscribed to in your Windows Azure AD tenant can utilize the data that is now provisioned and updated in your cloud store. In other words, you only need to set up your Directory Integration components once, and every service can use it.

For example, after you have set up directory sync initially to continuously sync users and contacts for use with Exchange Online, that same directory integration configuration and infrastructure will also be available to all current and future services that you subscribed to with your tenant. This means that you will not need to configure a different instance of directory sync in order to use another service, like the Windows InTune service.

Or, in another example, let’s say you set up Directory Sync with Password Sync for use with SharePoint Online, in this case you wouldn’t need to setup Directory Sync or Password Sync again when you start subscribing to Lync Online. For more information, see Directory integration.

The Windows Azure Management Portal is typically used to manage the services associated with your Windows Azure subscription. One of the newer Windows Azure services that you can use for identity management and directory tenant capabilities is the Active Directory service. If you are an administrator, you can manage these capabilities by clicking on Active Directory in the left-nav of the Management Portal.

If you have an existing Windows Azure subscription using your Microsoft account, you can also use the Management Portal to create, and later manage your new directory tenant. To create a new directory tenant associated with your Microsoft account by using the Management Portal, click Active Directory, click Create, and then specify your Domain Name, Country, and Organization Name that you want to use.

If you don’t have an existing Windows Azure subscription, you can Sign up for Windows Azure as an organization, so that you can begin using the Windows Azure Management Portal to create, distribute and manage user accounts and other identity management capabilities for use by your organization. When you sign up for Windows Azure as an organization, a directory tenant is created for you automatically based on the value of the Organization Name field used during sign up.

You can use the Windows Azure AD portal to do most of the functions you can do using other portals, with the added benefit of having a single place to see all of the users, groups, domains, licenses associated with all of the cloud services that your organization subscribes to in your Windows Azure AD tenant.

You can use an account portal to manage your Office 365 or Windows Intune subscription and specify the users who can access its various services. From the account portal, you can perform tasks such as manually adding user accounts and security groups, setting up and managing service settings, checking service status, and accessing online Help.

Windows Azure AD currently supports front-end access to your organizations subscription data using one or more of the following account portals, depending on whether you are subscribed to their corresponding service:

• Office 365 account portal
• Windows Intune account portal

Users can also access these account portals but only to change their password or to access the various services for which they have been assigned licenses.

You can use the Windows Azure Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell cmdlets to accomplish many Windows Azure AD tenant-based administrative tasks. For more information, see Manage Windows Azure AD using Windows PowerShell.