Azure Lighthouse is a cloud-native solution developed to simplify and secure the management of multiple Azure tenants from a single, centralized environment. Its primary goal is to empower managed service providers, enterprise IT teams, and independent software vendors with the ability to efficiently manage Azure resources across many tenants while maintaining security, visibility, and control.
The complexities involved in managing services across different tenants typically require multiple credentials, access tokens, and a manual switch between environments. Azure Lighthouse eliminates this inefficiency by enabling cross-tenant management capabilities through a concept known as delegated resource management. It supports scalable operations and centralized monitoring across tenants without requiring repeated sign-ins or direct access to client subscriptions.
What makes Azure Lighthouse particularly valuable is that it offers a secure, role-based model for managing customer resources. It gives customers the power to decide exactly who can access their environment, what they are allowed to do, and for how long. This provides greater control while maintaining operational efficiency for service providers.
Azure Lighthouse is equally useful for internal enterprise use cases. For example, after mergers or acquisitions, an organization may end up managing multiple Azure tenants. Instead of migrating resources or consolidating tenants, Azure Lighthouse allows the central IT team to manage all environments seamlessly and securely from one control plane.
The Need for Cross-Tenant Management
In traditional cloud management setups, each Azure tenant functions as an isolated unit. A user, group, or service must be granted access explicitly within each tenant where it needs to operate. When dealing with multiple tenants or customers, this results in duplicated efforts, inconsistent configurations, and increased risk of human error.
Azure Lighthouse addresses this challenge by creating a logical bridge between the managing tenant and the customer tenants. This bridge allows authorized users in the managing tenant to view and operate on resources in customer environments as if they were part of their own subscription list. The access is not implicit or all-encompassing but follows precise and auditable role-based permissions.
One key advantage of cross-tenant management is operational simplicity. Service providers can use the same tools and scripts to manage different customer environments. Whether deploying virtual machines, applying policies, or monitoring health, administrators can work from a single dashboard without switching accounts or maintaining separate credentials.
Another benefit is compliance. Many industries require clear boundaries and controls for administrative access. With Azure Lighthouse, every action is traceable. Customers can view who accessed their resources, what changes were made, and when the activity occurred. This level of visibility supports audit requirements and builds trust between service providers and customers.
Cross-tenant access also opens the door for more advanced service models. For example, a centralized security operations team can monitor alerts and apply recommendations across many tenants. A DevOps team can automate deployment pipelines that push updates to dozens of environments in parallel. Azure Lighthouse enables these capabilities natively, using existing Azure constructs.
Understanding Azure Delegated Resource Management
Delegated resource management is the foundation of Azure Lighthouse. It allows a managing tenant to gain access to resources in another tenant without needing to become a full member of that tenant’s directory. This logical access is controlled through specific roles, scopes, and agreements between the parties involved.
At the heart of delegated resource management are two key artifacts created in the customer tenant:
Registration Definition: This is a template that specifies the roles to be assigned, the identities from the managing tenant who will receive those roles, and the scope of access. It defines the parameters of the delegation agreement.
Registration Assignment: This is the actual instantiation of the registration definition. It applies the roles to the defined identities and makes the delegation effective.
These artifacts are created using Azure Resource Manager templates or through the Azure Marketplace via a managed services offer. Once these objects exist, users in the managing tenant can interact with customer resources according to the roles granted.
Delegated access is flexible. Customers can assign different scopes, such as an entire subscription or specific resource groups. They can also grant different roles to different teams. For example, a monitoring team might receive reader access, while a support team receives contributor access.
Importantly, delegated resource management does not transfer ownership of the resources. Customers retain full control and visibility. They can view all access assignments, monitor activity logs, and revoke permissions at any time. This model ensures that customers are not only protected but also empowered.
Azure Lighthouse leverages Azure Role-Based Access Control to ensure least-privilege access. It avoids the common pitfalls of over-permissioning and hard-to-trace admin rights. Instead, it offers a clean, predictable model where access is defined clearly and enforced consistently.
Setting Up Azure Lighthouse
Setting up Azure Lighthouse involves onboarding customers using one of two main methods: publishing a managed services offer or deploying an Azure Resource Manager template.
The first method involves creating a managed services offer in the Azure Marketplace. This offer can be made publicly available or shared privately with selected customers. When a customer accepts the offer, the registration definition and assignment are created automatically in their tenant, completing the onboarding process.
This method is especially useful for service providers with a broad customer base. It allows for a consistent onboarding experience and can be integrated with other automation and billing tools.
The second method involves using an Azure Resource Manager template to onboard a customer directly. The managing tenant provides a preconfigured JSON template that the customer deploys in their environment. This creates the required delegation artifacts and sets up the necessary roles and scopes.
This method is more direct and flexible. It is commonly used for enterprise or internal scenarios where marketplace publication is not needed. It also gives more control over the exact configuration and can be integrated into larger deployment pipelines.
After onboarding, the delegated subscriptions or resource groups become visible in the managing tenant’s Azure portal. Users can interact with these resources using their assigned roles. Operations such as viewing metrics, deploying resources, applying policies, and managing updates can all be done without switching context or logging into a different tenant.
The managing tenant can also integrate delegated resources with their own automation and monitoring tools. For example, they can use Azure Monitor to track performance across all delegated resources or deploy Azure Policy to enforce compliance across tenants.
Azure Lighthouse supports all major license types, including Enterprise Agreements, Cloud Solution Provider programs, and pay-as-you-go models. It also integrates with Azure Lighthouse APIs, allowing developers to build custom interfaces and solutions on top of the delegation framework.
Benefits of Azure Lighthouse for Service Providers and Enterprises
Azure Lighthouse provides a wide range of benefits for both service providers and enterprises. These advantages include improvements in operational efficiency, security, scalability, and customer satisfaction.
One of the most significant benefits is centralized management. Azure Lighthouse allows teams to manage multiple tenants from a single location using consistent tools and interfaces. This reduces the complexity and overhead associated with multi-tenant operations.
Scalability is another major advantage. With Azure Lighthouse, managing hundreds or even thousands of customer environments becomes feasible. Tasks such as patching, auditing, monitoring, and policy enforcement can be automated across tenants using standard DevOps practices.
Security is improved through role-based delegation and activity logging. Customers can grant access without exposing sensitive credentials. They retain full control and visibility, ensuring that all operations are transparent and traceable.
Just-in-time access can be implemented using Azure AD Privileged Identity Management. This allows for temporary elevation of roles, reducing the risk associated with permanent admin rights. Time-bound and approval-based role assignments help minimize exposure while enabling flexibility.
Service quality is also enhanced. Customers benefit from faster response times, consistent service levels, and better integration with support workflows. Providers can offer higher-value services such as proactive monitoring, compliance enforcement, and automated recovery.
In enterprise environments, Azure Lighthouse supports centralized governance. This is especially valuable in organizations that operate across departments, regions, or subsidiaries. It enables standardization of configurations, faster incident response, and better alignment with corporate policies.
Azure Lighthouse also provides cost transparency and optimization. Service providers can associate their Partner ID with delegated operations, enabling impact tracking and performance reporting. This data can be used to measure effectiveness and drive business decisions.
From a strategic perspective, Azure Lighthouse helps organizations modernize their service delivery models. It supports cloud-native operations, integrates with modern DevOps pipelines, and provides a platform for building scalable, secure, and customer-centric cloud solutions.
Exploring Cross-Tenant Operations with Azure Lighthouse
One of the most impactful capabilities Azure Lighthouse provides is seamless cross-tenant operations. This feature enables service providers or centralized enterprise teams to manage Azure resources from multiple tenants through a unified control plane without logging in to each tenant individually.
In traditional cloud management, each tenant represents a security and identity boundary. Switching contexts between tenants is operationally expensive and often requires managing separate identities or delegating credentials. Azure Lighthouse overcomes this by logically projecting resources into the managing tenant, allowing users to view and control them through the same Azure portal they use for their internal resources.
Operations performed across tenants can include viewing metrics, monitoring performance, setting up alerts, deploying or managing infrastructure, and applying compliance policies. All of these can be done using tools such as Azure Monitor, Azure Policy, and Azure Resource Manager templates, without requiring direct administrative presence in the customer tenant.
This is especially useful in scenarios where a single IT operations team manages environments for multiple subsidiaries, departments, or client organizations. Instead of using manual workarounds or elevated roles across boundaries, the team can operate under least-privilege principles and clearly defined scopes, all within their own tenant.
Cross-tenant operations also help eliminate errors. Administrators no longer need to remember which credentials are tied to which tenant, or accidentally apply changes to the wrong environment. The clarity provided by Azure Lighthouse reduces cognitive load and minimizes the chance of misconfiguration or access violations.
Because each action is auditable and tied to the identity in the managing tenant, accountability is preserved. The customer tenant maintains full insight into what the managing tenant is doing, which roles have been assigned, and whether any suspicious behavior is occurring.
Azure Portal Experiences for Delegated Management
Azure Lighthouse integrates directly with the Azure Portal, enhancing the user experience for both managing and customer tenants. The design is focused on clarity, usability, and accessibility of cross-tenant resources.
For users in the managing tenant, Azure introduces the My Customers view. This view lists all customer tenants and subscriptions to which access has been delegated. Users can navigate these subscriptions just as they would their own, performing permitted actions such as deploying resources, assigning policies, or managing configurations. The view filters delegated resources from owned ones but maintains full access within the permitted scope.
In the customer tenant, there is a corresponding Service Providers view. This view shows all active delegations, what scopes are shared, and which roles are granted to which identities in the managing tenant. Customers can use this interface to monitor access, view audit logs, and revoke delegation at any time.
Both views help create a transparent relationship between the managing and customer parties. Customers gain assurance that their environments are not being modified without visibility, and service providers can operate confidently without unnecessary access escalations.
The portal also supports features like colored subscription tags and labels to distinguish between internal and delegated environments. This helps reduce confusion and supports better navigation when managing a large number of subscriptions.
Azure Lighthouse also supports integration with tools like Azure CLI, PowerShell, and REST APIs. Delegated subscriptions can be managed through scripts and automation tools, just like any other subscription, providing parity between UI and command-line experiences.
Onboarding Customers to Azure Lighthouse
Azure Lighthouse supports two primary methods of onboarding customers: Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates and Azure Marketplace managed service offers. Each method offers flexibility depending on the organization’s needs, security policies, and operational model.
ARM templates are JSON-based configuration files that define Azure resources and their relationships. To onboard a customer using an ARM template, the managing tenant prepares a preconfigured template that specifies the delegation scope (such as subscription or resource group), the roles to be assigned, and the identities from the managing tenant.
The customer then deploys this template in their own environment, typically through the Azure portal or using automation tools. This deployment creates a registration definition and registration assignment, enabling the delegation of access. This method is particularly effective for internal teams or service providers who have a close working relationship with the customer and prefer direct onboarding.
ARM template onboarding is also suitable for automating bulk onboarding across many tenants. Service providers who manage hundreds of customers can build a pipeline that distributes templates, gathers approvals, and logs success or failure across deployments.
The second onboarding method involves publishing a Managed Service Offer to the Azure Marketplace. This is a public or private offer created by the managing tenant. Customers can browse and accept this offer, triggering the creation of the required delegation resources.
Marketplace onboarding is especially useful for commercial managed service providers who want to streamline customer acquisition and onboarding. It allows for greater reach and discoverability while automating access setup in a consistent and scalable way.
Whether onboarding through templates or offers, the delegation created is specific and secure. It defines exactly what access is granted, to whom, and within what scope. Customers retain the power to review, monitor, and revoke access at any time, ensuring control never shifts away from them.
Implementing Just-in-Time Access with Azure Lighthouse
Security and minimal privilege are foundational principles in Azure Lighthouse. While role-based access provides controlled delegation, Azure Lighthouse enhances this model by integrating with Privileged Identity Management (PIM) for just-in-time (JIT) access.
PIM allows users to activate roles for a limited time, subject to approval or justification. This means that even if a user has been assigned a high-privilege role such as Contributor or Owner, they do not operate with that role at all times. Instead, they request access only when needed, and the access expires automatically after the defined duration.
In the context of Azure Lighthouse, PIM can be applied to users in the managing tenant. This means that even if a customer grants Contributor access to a delegated resource, users in the managing tenant must activate that access before they can use it. Activation may require multi-factor authentication, approval from a designated authority, or explanation of the intended action.
This provides an additional layer of security and governance. It ensures that high-privilege actions are not taken lightly, and it creates a record of every role activation event. Combined with Azure Activity Logs, this model provides full visibility into who did what and why.
The requirement for licenses is also minimized. Only the managing tenant needs to have the appropriate Azure AD Premium P2 licenses for users to use PIM. The customer tenant does not need any additional licensing, which reduces cost and simplifies deployment.
JIT access is useful in many real-world scenarios. For example, a support engineer may need temporary Contributor rights to troubleshoot a customer issue. With PIM, they can request this access, perform the necessary actions, and automatically return to a lower-privilege state without manual intervention.
By enforcing the principle of least privilege and supporting time-bound access, Azure Lighthouse and PIM together create a more secure and accountable model for cross-tenant operations. They reduce the attack surface, help prevent insider threats, and align with best practices in security and compliance.
Security, Auditability, and Customer Trust
A key concern in any multi-tenant or service provider model is security. Customers need assurance that granting access to a third party will not compromise their resources or data. Azure Lighthouse is designed to provide that assurance through a transparent, auditable, and secure framework.
Every action taken by the managing tenant is logged in the customer’s Azure Activity Log. This includes resource deployments, updates, deletions, policy changes, and role assignments. The customer can review these logs at any time and use them to investigate incidents, enforce policy, or generate compliance reports.
Access assignments are clearly defined and visible through the Azure portal. Customers can see exactly which identities in the managing tenant have access, what roles they are assigned, and at which scopes. They can remove or modify these assignments without contacting the service provider, preserving control at all times.
Azure Lighthouse also supports custom roles, allowing customers to define very specific permissions. Instead of granting broad roles such as Owner or Contributor, a customer can define a role that only permits monitoring access or read-only visibility into storage accounts. This supports fine-grained access control and tailored operational models.
From a compliance perspective, Azure Lighthouse aligns with standards such as ISO 27001, SOC 2, and GDPR. It provides technical controls for access management, auditability, and least-privilege operation. These controls help organizations meet internal and regulatory requirements while leveraging external expertise.
Customer trust is built through visibility and control. Azure Lighthouse is not a hidden or backdoor method of gaining access. It is a cooperative and consensual model that enables service providers to operate transparently within boundaries set by the customer.
This trust model is what enables Lighthouse to be adopted across industries, from finance and healthcare to manufacturing and government. It creates a secure ecosystem where expertise and control can be combined without conflict or compromise.
Enterprise Use Cases for Azure Lighthouse
While Azure Lighthouse is commonly associated with external managed service providers, it is also a powerful tool for large enterprises operating multiple internal tenants. Many organizations manage several Azure Active Directory tenants as a result of mergers, acquisitions, regional separation, or regulatory requirements. This can lead to fragmented management and complex governance challenges.
Azure Lighthouse helps these organizations consolidate control while preserving tenant boundaries. It enables a central IT team or cloud operations group to manage resources across multiple tenants without needing to switch contexts or perform complex role assignments in each tenant.
For instance, a multinational corporation may have separate Azure tenants for each regional division. With Azure Lighthouse, the global IT operations team can manage security, policy, and compliance centrally, ensuring consistency while allowing local teams to retain autonomy over their data and workloads.
Another enterprise use case involves internal support and operations teams. Rather than granting those teams access to every tenant individually, Lighthouse enables secure, auditable access that respects the principle of least privilege. Central teams can be delegated specific roles across internal tenants and manage resources from their own environment.
Furthermore, enterprises that have recently undergone a merger or acquisition can use Azure Lighthouse to establish management access across the inherited tenants. This avoids the need for time-consuming tenant consolidation or re-platforming, allowing integration efforts to proceed smoothly while maintaining operational continuity.
Azure Lighthouse also supports internal centers of excellence that oversee governance, cost optimization, or architecture standards. These teams can operate across the enterprise’s tenants and apply company-wide policies using Azure Policy, monitor security risks using Azure Security Center, or analyze usage patterns using Azure Monitor and Log Analytics—all without having to recreate permissions manually in each tenant.
In short, Azure Lighthouse offers a flexible, secure, and efficient model for internal enterprise cloud management across organizational boundaries, supporting both technical operations and business transformation goals.
Managing Internal Tenants Across Business Units
Managing internal Azure tenants across business units can be particularly challenging when the units have different operational needs or compliance requirements. Azure Lighthouse simplifies this by offering a unified management layer that preserves independence while enabling centralized control where needed.
Each Azure Active Directory tenant represents a fully isolated identity and resource environment. This isolation is useful for limiting scope and maintaining data sovereignty, but it also creates complexity for central IT teams responsible for governance, compliance, and operational health.
With Azure Lighthouse, tenant-specific resource groups or subscriptions can be delegated to the corporate IT function, security teams, or operational support centers. These teams can then perform required actions such as applying policies, patching resources, or collecting diagnostics, all from within their own tenant.
This model supports a federated governance structure. Central administrators can set policies for the entire enterprise, but each business unit retains control over local operations and data. This ensures that enterprise standards are upheld while still allowing flexibility for local innovation and responsiveness.
For example, a central governance team may apply baseline compliance policies across all delegated tenants. At the same time, regional IT teams may manage their own virtual networks and applications, all within clearly defined boundaries. Azure Lighthouse makes this possible without creating overly complex identity management structures.
Internal tenant management with Lighthouse also enhances auditing and incident response. Because all activity is logged in the customer tenant, it is easy to track changes and pinpoint responsibility. If a security incident occurs, forensic teams can review actions by managing tenant users to understand what was done, when, and by whom.
Additionally, Azure Lighthouse supports integrating managed tenants with enterprise monitoring systems. This allows key performance indicators, alerts, and logs from multiple tenants to be viewed and managed in a centralized dashboard. Operational health can be maintained more effectively, and proactive remediation is possible without tenant switching.
This model of internal management is particularly effective for decentralized enterprises that still want to enforce centralized IT principles, including cost control, security hygiene, and architectural consistency.
Azure Marketplace and Managed Service Offers
The Azure Marketplace plays an important role in the deployment and adoption of Azure Lighthouse for both internal and external scenarios. It allows managing tenants—typically service providers—to publish offers that automate the onboarding of customer tenants.
These offers are known as Managed Service Offers. They define the access roles, scopes, and identities involved in the delegation process. When a customer accepts the offer, it triggers the automatic creation of delegation artifacts—specifically, registration definitions and assignments—in the customer’s tenant.
Managed Service Offers can be published publicly or made available privately to specific customers. Public offers are useful for broad adoption, enabling potential clients to discover and onboard themselves with minimal friction. Private offers, on the other hand, are useful for strategic partnerships, confidential engagements, or internal use within an organization.
Service providers can use Managed Service Offers to simplify customer onboarding at scale. Instead of manually exchanging templates or configuring roles in each customer tenant, the provider publishes an offer once, and customers activate it when they are ready. This self-service model reduces onboarding time, increases adoption, and ensures consistency.
The Marketplace also offers the ability to link Partner IDs to customer engagements. This allows managing tenants to track the scope and impact of their operations, providing data that supports business intelligence, billing, or customer relationship management.
For customers, the Marketplace provides transparency and control. They can see what permissions the service provider is requesting, what roles will be assigned, and at what scope. This ensures that no hidden permissions or unnecessary privileges are granted, enhancing trust and compliance.
From a technical perspective, Managed Service Offers in the Marketplace use standard Azure Resource Manager templates behind the scenes. This means they are highly customizable and can be integrated into larger service offerings or deployment workflows.
Overall, the Azure Marketplace and Managed Service Offers represent a scalable, secure, and transparent way to operationalize Azure Lighthouse, especially in business environments where repeatable and consistent onboarding processes are critical.
Leveraging Azure Lighthouse as a Managed Service Provider
Managed Service Providers (MSPs) are a key audience for Azure Lighthouse. It was originally designed to meet the operational and security needs of MSPs managing many different customer environments on Azure. Lighthouse provides these organizations with a scalable and secure management platform that supports multi-tenant operations.
MSPs often manage dozens or hundreds of customer environments. Without a centralized management solution, this can lead to operational inefficiencies, duplicated effort, and increased risk. Azure Lighthouse allows MSPs to manage customer subscriptions and resource groups from a single control plane using their own identities and infrastructure.
By setting up delegated resource management, MSPs can use their own Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Security Center, and Policy tools to observe and control customer environments. They do not need to request full administrator access or use customer credentials, which improves trust and reduces liability.
MSPs can also integrate Lighthouse with their own ticketing and automation systems. For example, alerts from customer environments can trigger service tickets in the MSP’s help desk system, which are then resolved using tools and scripts running in the managing tenant. This creates a seamless operational loop that maintains clear boundaries while achieving service outcomes.
Another benefit for MSPs is the ability to implement Privileged Identity Management for their own users. This allows technicians to activate roles only when needed, reducing the risk of overprivileged accounts and supporting compliance with standards such as SOC 2 and ISO 27001.
MSPs can define and assign custom roles that fit their operational model. For example, a read-only monitoring role may be assigned to a network operations center, while a more elevated role is reserved for senior engineers performing updates or architectural changes.
Because all actions are logged in the customer tenant, transparency is preserved. This builds customer confidence and supports contractual agreements around accountability, response time, and data integrity.
From a commercial standpoint, Azure Lighthouse allows MSPs to serve more customers without increasing complexity. Instead of maintaining separate access for each client, teams can operate efficiently within one environment. This enables higher service quality, faster response times, and better resource utilization.
Azure Lighthouse supports MSPs in delivering scalable, secure, and professional cloud management services. It aligns with modern cloud operational principles and provides a foundation for building differentiated, value-added offerings across the Azure ecosystem.
Empowering Independent Software Vendors with Azure Lighthouse
Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) are increasingly using Azure to build, deploy, and manage applications that serve customers in regulated, high-demand industries. Azure Lighthouse offers ISVs a unique advantage by allowing them to maintain visibility and control over customer-deployed resources while ensuring customers retain ownership and autonomy.
Traditionally, ISVs needed to establish and maintain direct administrative access in customer environments to support their applications, perform troubleshooting, apply updates, or manage configurations. This created both operational and security challenges. Azure Lighthouse removes this friction by allowing ISVs to manage their deployed solutions using delegated access, without entering the customer’s tenant directly.
An ISV can package an application or a service component—such as a database, a microservice, or a monitoring solution—and publish it to the Azure Marketplace with integrated Azure Lighthouse delegation. When a customer installs the application, they also approve the associated delegated access. This allows the ISV’s operations team to monitor and support the application securely, using their own identities and tools.
This model enables proactive support, service-level assurance, and rapid incident resolution without disrupting customer privacy or data sovereignty. It also creates a clean boundary between product functionality and operational support.
ISVs can define precise scopes and roles, ensuring their team only has the minimum necessary access. For example, an application support team might be granted monitoring access, while a deployment engineer could have Contributor access only to the resource group that hosts the ISV-managed services.
This delegation model aligns well with modern DevOps and SaaS operating patterns, where applications are continuously delivered and operated as a service. It supports consistent updates, shared observability, and joint problem-solving between customers and vendors.
In addition, ISVs can use Azure Lighthouse telemetry to track the adoption and usage of their managed services, integrate with customer success metrics, and provide custom dashboards or analytics to help clients better understand their own environments.
This collaborative, automated, and secure model enables ISVs to offer more reliable and scalable cloud solutions while strengthening customer trust.
Advanced Security Features and Risk Mitigation
Azure Lighthouse is designed with security as a core principle. Delegated access, granular role definitions, just-in-time activation, and transparent activity logging all contribute to reducing the risk of unauthorized access or data compromise in multi-tenant cloud operations.
Security begins with Role-Based Access Control (RBAC). Customers define exactly which roles are assigned to identities from the managing tenant. These roles can be built-in, such as Reader, Contributor, or Security Reader, or they can be custom roles tailored to specific business functions. RBAC ensures that delegated users cannot exceed the boundaries defined by the customer.
Azure Lighthouse supports Privileged Identity Management (PIM) for managing tenant users. With PIM, high-level roles are not active by default. Users must request access, often with justification or approval. Access is time-bound and automatically expires. This mitigates the risks of standing permissions and helps enforce least-privilege access.
Activity logs provide full visibility into actions performed by managing tenant users. Every API call, role activation, policy assignment, or deployment is logged in the customer’s Azure environment. This allows customers to audit operations, identify anomalies, and enforce compliance with internal or external standards.
Just-in-time access, combined with multi-factor authentication, adds further layers of protection. Even if a credential is compromised, time-bound role activations and identity validation reduce the chance of malicious use.
Azure Lighthouse also supports deny assignments, which prevent certain actions even if a user holds a role that would otherwise permit them. This can be useful for protecting critical resources or enforcing strict boundaries between managing and managed tenants.
Using Azure Lighthouse in conjunction with Azure Security Center or Microsoft Defender for Cloud allows managing tenants to perform security assessments across customer environments. This supports unified threat detection, compliance monitoring, and centralized incident response across all delegated resources.
The security model is built to be auditable and transparent. Customers can revoke access at any time, adjust role definitions, or remove delegations entirely. This ability to retain full control, combined with detailed logs, ensures that no operation is hidden and no role is granted without visibility.
By integrating Azure Lighthouse with existing security governance frameworks, organizations can extend trust to external partners or internal teams while keeping systems safe, compliant, and accountable.
Comparing Azure Lighthouse and Azure Managed Applications
Azure Lighthouse and Azure Managed Applications are both tools that facilitate multi-tenant cloud management, but they serve different purposes and use different models.
Azure Lighthouse is primarily focused on managing access across tenants. It allows a managing tenant to operate on resources in a customer’s tenant, using their own identities and tools. The resources remain owned and billed by the customer, and access is limited to defined scopes and roles.
Azure Managed Applications, by contrast, are designed for packaging, deploying, and managing repeatable solutions. These are typically used by ISVs who want to deliver a full-stack cloud solution that customers can deploy with minimal effort. The management of the application remains with the publisher, and the customer often has limited access to the resources created by the application.
Azure Lighthouse is ideal for service providers offering operational support, monitoring, security, compliance, and day-to-day management. It works at the subscription or resource group level and is highly customizable in terms of access scope and role definition.
Azure Managed Applications, on the other hand, are best suited for delivering complex, self-contained solutions such as SaaS platforms, infrastructure blueprints, or integrated services. They are scoped to a specific application deployment and are typically used by ISVs that want to retain lifecycle control over their offerings.
A key difference is IP protection. With Managed Applications, the underlying resources can be hidden from the customer, protecting proprietary logic or deployment models. Azure Lighthouse does not offer this level of abstraction; it assumes transparency and shared visibility.
Managed Applications also support billing integration through the Marketplace, allowing customers to pay for the service as part of their Azure invoice. Azure Lighthouse, while integrated into the Marketplace for onboarding, does not directly manage billing or enforce pricing models.
In practice, the two tools can be used together. An ISV may deploy a Managed Application and use Azure Lighthouse to monitor, update, or troubleshoot it. Similarly, a service provider may offer advisory or operational support alongside a Managed Application deployment.
Understanding the distinctions and complementary nature of these tools helps organizations choose the right strategy for delivering and managing services in Azure.
Licensing, Costs, and Access Control
One of the strengths of Azure Lighthouse is its no-cost licensing model. Microsoft provides the Lighthouse platform to customers and partners at no additional charge. There is no license required for using delegated resource management, and access control is handled through standard Azure features.
However, some associated services may require licensing. For instance, if the managing tenant wants to use Privileged Identity Management (PIM) for role activations, they must have Azure AD Premium P2 or an EMS E5 license. This requirement applies only to the managing tenant, not the customer tenant.
Most Azure services used alongside Lighthouse, such as Azure Monitor, Azure Policy, or Azure Security Center, follow their own pricing models based on usage. These costs are incurred in the managing tenant unless otherwise configured. For example, metrics or logs collected from delegated resources and sent to a central Log Analytics workspace will be billed to the managing tenant.
Azure Lighthouse does not control billing directly but supports integration with CSP, EA, and pay-as-you-go accounts. It works equally well across these licensing types and allows providers to track engagement and performance using their Partner ID.
Customers always retain the ability to review access permissions. The Azure portal clearly displays which service providers have access, what scopes are shared, and which roles have been granted. Access can be removed at any time without contacting the service provider.
This flexible, transparent, and cost-effective model makes Azure Lighthouse attractive for organizations seeking to streamline operations, reduce complexity, and improve security posture without incurring additional costs.
Final Thoughts
Azure Lighthouse is more than a technical feature—it represents a strategic shift in how organizations manage and scale their Azure operations. By enabling secure, auditable, and role-based access across tenants, Lighthouse supports a broad range of business and
- Educating internal teams or customers on delegation models
- Using templates or managed offers for scalable onboarding
- Integrating with automation and monitoring workflows
- Applying security best practices, including PIM and audit logging
Azure Lighthouse is already a foundational component of modern Azure governance. As more organizations embrace cloud-native architectures and multi-tenant operations, its importance will only grow. It provides the trust, control, and visibility needed to thrive in a complex and interconnected cloud environment.
Whether you are a service provider scaling your business, a global enterprise standardizing operations, or an ISV delivering innovation at scale, Azure Lighthouse offers the platform and flexibility to succeed with confidence.