Single service comparison

Entra ID is a single managed directory tenant spanning all Azure subscriptions, with Microsoft Graph as the unified API for users, groups, apps, and policy. Huawei splits identity across two services: IAM is the per-account core identity and permission engine (accounts, IAM users, groups, agencies, custom policies), while IAM Identity Center is the separate enterprise centric layer that federates a corporate IdP and centralizes SSO across multiple Huawei Cloud accounts. The boundary and API surface differ, so a one-to-one mapping of Entra objects onto IAM alone will not hold.

Entra ID's control plane runs globally from Microsoft's directory service, and conditional access is evaluated centrally before tokens are issued for any workload. Huawei IAM is scoped to individual accounts and regions with fine-grained resource-level policies and cross-account delegation via agencies; IAM Identity Center relies on SAML/OIDC federation to an external IdP rather than a built-in global conditional-access engine. Entra's deep integrations with Microsoft 365, Azure AD B2B/B2C, and application proxies have no direct Huawei analog and require substitution with partner products or custom brokering.

Operational responsibility differs: in Entra ID Microsoft operates the directory, conditional access, and MFA platform at scale, while the tenant admin only configures policies. With Huawei, IAM and IAM Identity Center are managed services but the directory store is account-local, and enterprise-wide policy is composed using IAM policies, Identity Center SSO, plus adjacent services such as CBH for bastion/session audit and CloudTrail/CTS for operation logging. Conditional-access-like behavior must be reconstructed from these pieces rather than configured as one native control.

Start with an assessment that distinguishes directory, authentication, and authorization workloads. Map Entra users, groups, and synced on-prem identities to IAM Identity Center as the SSO hub, and map Azure RBAC/custom roles plus conditional-access policies to IAM system and custom policies. Validate feature-by-feature parity across control plane, data plane, and operational behavior before cutover; do not assume a one-click or schema-identical migration exists, because no Huawei service accepts an Entra directory export directly.

For data and configuration migration, export Entra manifest of users, groups, app registrations, and federation metadata, then rebuild equivalents in Identity Center (IdP federation with SAML/OIDC and permission sets) and IAM (user groups, custom policies, agencies for cross-account access). Recreate application SSO configurations against each app's new IdP metadata; re-issue tokens and reconfigure service principals. No Huawei managed migration tool imports Entra artifacts, so plan scripted rebuilds and a parallel-run period with reversible federation.

Validation and cutover must exercise the full sign-in path per application: federated SSO to Identity Center, IAM policy evaluation, MFA, and cross-account delegation. Run audit trails through CTS and CBH sessions, confirm least-privilege behavior, and stage a rollback to the Entra IdP by keeping federation metadata switchable. Cut over identity providers application by application rather than tenant-wide, and monitor failed sign-ins, policy denials, and token issuance latency before declaring completion.

Account for gaps and cost-model shifts. Huawei IAM and IAM Identity Center are free control-plane services billed only through related consumption, unlike Entra's per-user premium P1/P2 tiers for conditional access and PIM; budget instead for CBH, CTS, and any chosen IdP. Recalculate TCO with peak sign-in volume, cross-account delegation frequency, and audit retention. Document unsupported Entra features (e.g., native B2B/B2C, application proxy, Privileged Identity Management) and their Huawei substitutes or accepted risk before production migration.