Table of Contents
Can You Use Azure AD Credentials to Secure Access to HDInsight Clusters?
Discover how Azure HDInsight supports Azure AD authentication for secure service access. Learn the role of the Enterprise Security Package (ESP) and Azure RBAC for resource and data-level security, a key topic for the AZ-500 certification exam.
Question
Azure HDInsight supports Azure AD authentication for service access.
A. FALSE
B. TRUE
Answer
B. TRUE
Explanation
The statement is TRUE. Azure HDInsight provides comprehensive support for Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) authentication, which applies to both the management of the cluster and access to the services running on it.
HDInsight supports Azure AD at both the resource level and data level.
This integration is handled at two distinct levels: resource-level management and service-level data access. Understanding both is crucial for implementing proper security.
Resource-Level Authentication
This is the standard security model for all Azure resources, including HDInsight. It uses Azure Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to manage who can perform administrative actions on the HDInsight cluster itself.
- Azure AD identities (users, groups, service principals) can be assigned built-in or custom roles like “Contributor” or “HDInsight Cluster Operator.”
- These roles grant permissions to perform management operations such as creating, deleting, scaling, or monitoring the cluster through the Azure portal, Azure CLI, or PowerShell.
- This level of authentication secures the management plane of the cluster but does not control user access to the data or services within the cluster.
Service-Level Authentication
This level of authentication secures access to the actual big data services running on the cluster nodes, such as Apache Hive, Spark, or HBase. This is enabled through the Enterprise Security Package (ESP), an optional feature available for certain HDInsight cluster types.
- When an HDInsight cluster is created with ESP, it is domain-joined to an Azure Active Directory Domain Services (Azure AD DS) managed domain.
- This integration enables Kerberos authentication for users connecting to the cluster. Users can authenticate using their corporate Azure AD credentials, which are synchronized to Azure AD DS.
- With ESP enabled, you can achieve multi-user access and Single Sign-On (SSO), allowing different users to connect and run jobs using their own credentials instead of a shared cluster admin account.
- Furthermore, ESP integrates with Apache Ranger, a policy administration tool. With Ranger, you can define fine-grained authorization policies that specify which Azure AD users or groups can access specific databases, tables, and columns within services like Hive or Spark SQL.
Microsoft Certified Azure Security Engineer Associate AZ-500 certification exam assessment practice question and answer (Q&A) dump including multiple choice questions (MCQ) and objective type questions, with detail explanation and reference available free, helpful to pass the Microsoft Certified Azure Security Engineer Associate AZ-500 exam and earn Microsoft Certified Azure Security Engineer Associate AZ-500 certification.