Active directory is dying along with local computer networks. Microsoft is pushing customers to Entra (formerly Azure Active directory).
Modern, hybrid AD is not easy to use and difficult to manage.
But, I wonder if Microsoft might reverse their stance on EntraID being SaaS; with the handwringing about sovreignty from Europe.
Back when "the deal" was made with Microsoft to basically embed itself into the digital ecosystem of every government, major institution and company in Europe: it was not the case that a member of the european parliament could have their mail disabled arbitrarily by Microsoft- such a thing was technically possible through a lot of hoops but it was significantly less feasible.
If Microsoft was to reverse course then I'm sure it would stop all the handwringing, even if people would continue to use the EntraID product in reality.
Of course, you can still run local AD which synchronizes with Entra, but that means you get the worst of both worlds: you are paying for the cloud software but still have to manage your own servers.
I have seen the exact opposite, with people moving to things like jumpcloud, keycloak, authentik, etc.
Authentik and others can be deployed as docker containers that can be deployed any way you wish.
> I meant the classic Windows AD company LAN like solutions where the clients, server and network are tightly coupled.
In any mixed environment these days of Windows PCs, MacOS, and Linux, yeah, you can use a SaaS like jumpcloud with support for all of them, or you can integrate them into the ldap/kerb backend of your choice. Bonus points if your network devices are using RADIUS auth to the same identity source.