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Microsoft Entra SSO integration with Alation Data Catalog

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In this tutorial, you'll learn how to integrate Alation Data Catalog with Microsoft Entra ID. When you integrate Alation Data Catalog with Microsoft Entra ID, you can:

  • Control in Microsoft Entra ID who has access to Alation Data Catalog.
  • Enable your users to be automatically signed-in to Alation Data Catalog with their Microsoft Entra accounts.
  • Manage your accounts in one central location.

Prerequisites

To integrate Microsoft Entra ID with Alation Data Catalog, you need:

  • A Microsoft Entra subscription. If you don't have a subscription, you can get a free account.
  • Alation Data Catalog single sign-on (SSO) enabled subscription.

Scenario description

In this tutorial, you configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO in a test environment.

  • Alation Data Catalog supports both SP and IDP initiated SSO.
  • Alation Data Catalog supports Just In Time user provisioning.

Note

Identifier of this application is a fixed string value so only one instance can be configured in one tenant.

To configure the integration of Alation Data Catalog into Microsoft Entra ID, you need to add Alation Data Catalog from the gallery to your list of managed SaaS apps.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > New application.
  3. In the Add from the gallery section, type Alation Data Catalog in the search box.
  4. Select Alation Data Catalog from results panel and then add the app. Wait a few seconds while the app is added to your tenant.

Alternatively, you can also use the Enterprise App Configuration Wizard. In this wizard, you can add an application to your tenant, add users/groups to the app, assign roles, and walk through the SSO configuration as well. Learn more about Microsoft 365 wizards.

Configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO for Alation Data Catalog

Configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with Alation Data Catalog using a test user called B.Simon. For SSO to work, you need to establish a link relationship between a Microsoft Entra user and the related user in Alation Data Catalog.

To configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with Alation Data Catalog, perform the following steps:

  1. Configure Microsoft Entra SSO - to enable your users to use this feature.
    1. Create a Microsoft Entra ID test user - to test Microsoft Entra single sign-on with B.Simon.
    2. Assign the Microsoft Entra ID test user - to enable B.Simon to use Microsoft Entra single sign-on.
  2. Configure Alation Data Catalog SSO - to configure the single sign-on settings on application side.
    1. Create Alation Data Catalog test user - to have a counterpart of B.Simon in Alation Data Catalog that is linked to the Microsoft Entra ID representation of user.
  3. Test SSO - to verify whether the configuration works.

Configure Microsoft Entra SSO

Follow these steps to enable Microsoft Entra SSO in the Microsoft Entra admin center.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.

  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > Alation Data Catalog > Single sign-on.

  3. On the Select a single sign-on method page, select SAML.

  4. On the Set up single sign-on with SAML page, click the pencil icon for Basic SAML Configuration to edit the settings.

    Screenshot shows how to edit Basic SAML Configuration.

  5. On the Basic SAML Configuration section, perform the following steps:

    a. In the Identifier text box, type the URL: http://alation.com/

    b. In the Reply URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://<Customer_Name>.<Domain>.<Extension>/saml2/acs/

  6. Perform the following step, if you wish to configure the application in SP initiated mode:

    In the Sign-on URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://<Customer_Name>.<Domain>.<Extension>/

    Note

    These values are not real. Update these values with the actual Reply URL and Sign on URL. Contact Alation Data Catalog support team to get these values. You can also refer to the patterns shown in the Basic SAML Configuration section in the Microsoft Entra admin center.

  7. Alation Data Catalog application expects the SAML assertions in a specific format, which requires you to add custom attribute mappings to your SAML token attributes configuration. The following screenshot shows the list of default attributes.

    Screenshot shows the image of attributes configuration.

    Note

    In the Attributes & Claims section, click Edit button in the right corner of Step 2 and click on Unique User Identifier (Name ID) claim and choose Name identifier format as Persistent from the drop-down menu under Manage claim section and click Save.

  8. In addition to above, Alation Data Catalog application expects few more attributes to be passed back in SAML response which are shown below. These attributes are also pre populated but you can review them as per your requirements.

    Name Source Attribute
    urn:oid:2.5.4.42 user.givenname
    urn:oid:2.5.4.4 user.surname
    urn:oid:0.9.2342.19200300.100.1.3 user.mail
    urn:oid:0.9.2342.19200300.100.1.1 user.userprincipalname
    urn:oid:2.5.4.12 user.jobtitle

  9. On the Set up single sign-on with SAML page, in the SAML Signing Certificate section, find Federation Metadata XML and select Download to download the certificate and save it on your computer.

    Screenshot shows the Certificate download link.

  10. On the Set up Alation Data Catalog section, copy the appropriate URL(s) based on your requirement.

    Screenshot shows to copy configuration URLs.

Create a Microsoft Entra ID test user

In this section, you'll create a test user in the Microsoft Entra admin center called B.Simon.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a User Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Users > All users.
  3. Select New user > Create new user, at the top of the screen.
  4. In the User properties, follow these steps:
    1. In the Display name field, enter B.Simon.
    2. In the User principal name field, enter the username@companydomain.extension. For example, B.Simon@contoso.com.
    3. Select the Show password check box, and then write down the value that's displayed in the Password box.
    4. Select Review + create.
  5. Select Create.

Assign the Microsoft Entra ID test user

In this section, you'll enable B.Simon to use Microsoft Entra single sign-on by granting access to Alation Data Catalog.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > Alation Data Catalog.
  3. In the app's overview page, select Users and groups.
  4. Select Add user/group, then select Users and groups in the Add Assignment dialog.
    1. In the Users and groups dialog, select B.Simon from the Users list, then click the Select button at the bottom of the screen.
    2. If you are expecting a role to be assigned to the users, you can select it from the Select a role dropdown. If no role has been set up for this app, you see "Default Access" role selected.
    3. In the Add Assignment dialog, click the Assign button.

Configure Alation Data Catalog SSO

To configure single sign-on on Alation Data Catalog side, you need to send the downloaded Federation Metadata XML and appropriate copied URLs from Microsoft Entra admin center to Alation Data Catalog support team. They set this setting to have the SAML SSO connection set properly on both sides.

Create Alation Data Catalog test user

In this section, a user called Britta Simon is created in Alation Data Catalog. Alation Data Catalog supports just-in-time user provisioning, which is enabled by default. There is no action item for you in this section. If a user doesn't already exist in Alation Data Catalog, a new one is created after authentication.

Test SSO

In this section, you test your Microsoft Entra single sign-on configuration with following options.

SP initiated:

  • Click on Test this application in Microsoft Entra admin center. This will redirect to Alation Data Catalog Sign on URL where you can initiate the login flow.

  • Go to Alation Data Catalog Sign-on URL directly and initiate the login flow from there.

IDP initiated:

  • Click on Test this application in Microsoft Entra admin center and you should be automatically signed in to the Alation Data Catalog for which you set up the SSO.

You can also use Microsoft My Apps to test the application in any mode. When you click the Alation Data Catalog tile in the My Apps, if configured in SP mode you would be redirected to the application sign-on page for initiating the login flow and if configured in IDP mode, you should be automatically signed in to the Alation Data Catalog for which you set up the SSO. For more information about the My Apps, see Introduction to the My Apps.

Next steps

Once you configure Alation Data Catalog you can enforce session control, which protects exfiltration and infiltration of your organization's sensitive data in real time. Session control extends from Conditional Access. Learn how to enforce session control with Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps.