As described above, Microsoft Entra built-in and custom roles are a form of RBAC in that they control access to Microsoft Entra resources. This is referred to as Microsoft Entra RBAC. In the same way that Microsoft Entra roles can control access to Microsoft Entra resources, so too can Azure roles control access to Azure resources. This is referred to as Azure RBAC. Although the concept of RBAC applies to both Microsoft Entra RBAC and Azure RBAC, what they control are different.

• Microsoft Entra RBAC – Microsoft Entra roles control access to Microsoft Entra resources such as users, groups, and applications.
• Azure RBAC – Azure roles control access to Azure resources such as virtual machines or storage using Azure Resource Management.

There are different data stores where role definitions and role assignments are stored. Similarly, there are different policy decision points where access checks happen.