Azure provides authentication using Azure AD for its resources. Once authenticated, it needs to be evaluated and decided when the identity should be allowed to access any resource, all resources, or just the selected resource intended for that user. This activity has traditionally been known as authorization. Authorization evaluates whether the given identity has the necessary permissions to access the resource and if it can perform the intended operation. Anybody having access to an Azure subscription should be given just enough permissions so that the job can be performed. There should not be more than the required permissions assigned to identities to ensure that the attach surface remains minimum.
Authorization is popularly also known as Role-based Access Control. RBAC in Azure refers to the assigning of permissions to identities (users/groups/applications) at a...