Azure Information Protection and Information Protection?

Clearing up the confusion of Information Protection?

I had a colleague ask me what the difference is between Azure Information Protection and the Information Protection that comes with Office 365 and the new Microsoft 365?  I know the changes in RMS, AIP and M365 IP can be a bit confusing and it's a bit more than Microsoft's marketing team coming up with the latest Mad Men style buzzwords.  I realised it was a good question and one which I'll hope to address.

Putting it simply Azure Information Protection is a data protection product in Azure that allows classification, labelling and protection (CLP) of documents and data in Office 365 and on-premise repositories.  You can also apply encryption to encrypt your data.  AIP also gives you greater controls over protection.  It will protect on-premise SharePoint 2013/2016 servers, Exchange and Windows (CIFS) File servers by use of the Azure Information Protection Scanner.  The scanner can be set to run periodically (nightly) to scan, identify which files to protect and then protect them.  It can protect main Microsoft files types and common file non Microsoft file types such as pdf.  For a full list of file types follow this link https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/information-protection/rms-client/client-admin-guide-file-types.

Office 365 labelling applies CLP to Exchange Online email, OneDrive accounts, SharePoint sites and Office 365 groups.  The main difference is that Office 365 cannot deal with traditional on-premise data repositories.

The diagram below shows what service protects data in the various sources:

Microsoft are working towards a unified classification and labelling system which will embody AIP, Office Information Protection and Cloud App Security into what is referred to as "Microsoft Information Protection".

Azure Information Protection, O365 Information Protection, Cloud App Security and O365 DLP make a very good toolset to securing your data and ensuring compliance with GDPR.