What is Azure AD connect and Azure ADFS? This is what I have understood: Azure ADFS is exposing on premises AD to Azure cloud and Azure AD connect is means to do that. Am I right?
We need to build an application which needs to authenticate users from different clients' AD. They may or may not have exposed their AD to Azure. Can someone please guide how can this problem be solved?
Azure ADFS is exposing on premises AD to Azure cloud and Azure AD connect is means to do that.
AS of now, the way Azure ADFS works, it essentially provides a way for a company to use AD and ADFS services, without having to deploy themselves. Just like how a Azure has Azure Web App will allow you to have a web server without having your own.
Unfortunately, It does not actually connect or integrate or expose your on premise AD. If you want your clients authenticate against multiple IDs, you do it the old fashioned way, by connecting to the on-premises AD directly. You cannot actually route it through Azure.
One thing which you can do (this will be a huge endeavour) is to move the on premises AD to Azure cloud, which can be done using Azure VMs. Now, that would allow your client to get rid of their on premises AD and use the Azure cloud for everything.