Intro: The Calm Before the Access Storm
You know that quiet moment before the IT department realises a product’s gone dark?
Yeah — that’s now.
Microsoft Entra Permissions Management (the CIEM solution many of us quietly relied on to keep multicloud access sane) is going off support on 1 November 2025.
No fanfare. No extensions. Just: it’s over, folks.
So let’s strip the corporate varnish and talk plainly — what’s ending, what it means, and how not to get caught pants-down when your permissions visibility suddenly drops off a cliff.
What’s Actually Happening
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On 1 November 2025, Microsoft officially pulls the plug on Entra Permissions Management.
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No more updates, no more bug fixes, and — brace yourself — your tenant access may be automatically disabled if you’ve not applied for continuation.
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The move isn’t random. Microsoft’s refocusing its resources toward broader Entra capabilities and deeper Defender-for-Cloud integrations. Translation: the CIEM niche is being absorbed, not evolved.
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For those still needing full CIEM muscle, migration paths are being nudged toward third-party partners like Delinea.
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Some of the functionality (like discovery of high-privilege identities and multicloud visibility) will live on — just buried within Defender for Cloud’s CSPM tier.
Why You Should Care (Even If You’re “Not Technical”)
If you handle HR, compliance, or governance, this isn’t just an IT housekeeping note.
This touches the holy trinity of access, accountability, and audit.
Because here’s the unvarnished truth: once Entra Permissions Management goes dark, your ability to see “who has what rights” across clouds might evaporate overnight.
No visibility = no control.
And no control = risk, plain and simple.
For large organisations juggling Azure, AWS, and GCP, this is not a “maybe later” issue.
It’s a “sort it now before the auditors sort you” kind of moment.
Your Survival Plan (Do This Before 1 November)
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Audit your usage.
Check if Entra Permissions Management is still in your stack or quietly running in the background. If it is — wake it up and take inventory. -
Get your offboarding guide in order.
Don’t just disable and hope for the best. Properly extract, archive, and hand off permissions data. -
Choose your successor.
Defender for Cloud might cover your essentials — but if you rely on advanced CIEM features, test a partner like Delinea before the cut-off. -
Loop in IT and Security.
Don’t assume they’re “on it”. They’re usually firefighting something else. Make noise. Send the memo. -
Communicate risk up the chain.
This isn’t a small operational switch. It’s a potential blind spot in access governance. Translate that risk into business language before someone asks after the breach. -
Make a date with reality.
Put “1 Nov 2025 – End of Entra Permissions” in your calendar. Because the worst surprises are the ones we were warned about but ignored.
The Takeaway
This isn’t a tragedy. It’s an opportunity — to clean house, modernise, and finally take a serious look at how your organisation governs access in the cloud.
But make no mistake: those who sleep through this will wake up without visibility, without compliance, and without sympathy from Microsoft Support.
So take the hint. Eleven days isn’t much. Move fast, migrate clean, and let this be the moment you stopped just managing permissions — and started owning them.
Alex