Managing Access to the Exchange Online Service

In this installment we talk a little bit about how we have built on the underlying RBAC infrastructure and PowerShell to enable zero elevated access in the service.  This is a very important part of the overall access control system that makes sure that anyone who needs to administer the service is protected from accidentally modifying the service because they need to go through a process to get privileges before they start.  It also makes sure that only the people with the skills and background checks can ever access powerful administrative functions and even then only with someone else giving final go-ahead.  That we are able to run with no elevated privileges all the time without impacting the productivity of the people needed to manage the service has given us a lot of confidence in the RBAC/PowerShell model.

If by chance haven’t seen my conversation on RBAC, it might be good to check it out here first. Also this link to the Office 365 Trust Center is great background.

- Perry