19. Why Azure Virtual Desktops - Azure AVD/WVD

Azure Windows Virtual Desktop

Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) is an Azure service that, combined with appropriate licenses, services, and resources, delivers a complete virtualized multi-user Windows 11,10 (or a single-user Windows 7) experience together with Office 365 ProPlus. WVD includes centralized management and monitoring; system administrators can quickly deploy and manage desktops, apps, and Windows servers in the Azure Cloud.

WVD helps businesses seamlessly scale their virtualization requirements while benefitting from the top-of-the-line security features on Azure along with the cost benefits of its subscription-based model. With WVD, users can enjoy a richer virtualization experience for accessing hosted applications when compared to the existing Windows Server-based Remote Desktop Services (RDS) platform that leverages Microsoft Partner community support for similar solutions.

    

Ideal WVD Use Scenarios

Businesses of varying sizes (10-1000+) with a significant percentage of mobile staff working from different locations would find Azure Windows Virtual Desktop an ideal solution. Here are some scenarios that benefit from WVD.

1. Security and Regulation Compliance Requirements

Financial Services, Healthcare, and Government sectors with their regulatory policies and rigorous security norms won't have to worry about data privacy, security, and compliance on WVD.

2. Standardizing Operations

When businesses undergo mergers and acquisitions or have to work with contractor businesses, employees can be provided with WVD for standardizing operations.

3. Enabling Workforce Flexibility

Employees with BYOD and mobile staff, call center workforce, and branch employees working from different locations can work with a unified solution despite the differences in the devices they might be using to access the organization's resources.

4. Specialized Workload Cases

Engineering & Designing companies, businesses using legacy applications in the IT sector for software development and testing often require unique solutions for deploying their unique workloads. Azure WVD is the perfect solution for handling such scenarios.

Windows Virtual Desktop Advantages

WVD offers serval advantages over traditional virtualization solutions.

Decreases costs

By moving their desktops and applications to Azure with WVD, businesses can efficiently manage their cost constraints for running virtual desktops with Windows OS such as Windows 10 and 7.

Windows 10 Virtual Desktop reduces costs in the cloud by allowing session-based desktops on Azure Virtual Machines (VMs) which results in improved utilization of costly resources. By simplifying licensing for the use of Windows 10 on WVD environment, and not requiring additional Client Access Licenses (CALs) for access, as a Server OS would require, the Microsoft licensing costs come down.

Companies that prefer Windows 7 on a desktop can continue getting free updates and support for Windows 7 for another three years, which expired in January 2020.

Improves flexibility

Moving Office IT infrastructure to the Cloud simplifies operations for both IT staff and the end-users.

End-users can access their desktops and applications from various devices and browsers. Office 365 applications have now been optimized to work with WVD, and the end-user experience is smoother.

After moving to the Cloud, IT staff do not spend as much time managing physical machines and local networks. All apps, data, and resources can move to the Cloud.

Desktop apps are easier to manage as WVD allows Windows 10 or Windows 7 OS. IT staff can generate persistent and personal desktops from desktop images.

In WVD, the user profiles and apps are stored in separate containers, and this can improve flexibility and scalability.

Superior Office 365 Compatibility

Other advantages of moving to Azure WVD is the availability of a virtually infinite variety of services and resources in the Cloud and better integration with Office 365 products. Office 365 products, themselves on the Microsoft Cloud, will see improved performance on WVD environments. Similarly, there would be improved performance of other applications that require minimum latency to the desktop. For graphics-intensive applications, virtual graphics processing is available.

Persistent and Non-Persistent WVD

Windows Virtual Desktop supports the complete range of experiences including full desktop virtualization and application virtualization, persistent and non-persistent states as well as dedicated and multi-session modes.

Persistent virtual desktop infrastructure (stateful VDI) is a setup in which each user owns a virtual desktop whose settings and customizations are available to the user each time they log in. The consistency of user experience and familiarity with the customizations help users get accustomed to these virtual desktops faster.

On the flipside, persistent VDIs have high storage requirements primarily because of their customizations and more complex image management. With Azure WVD, there are fewer storage constraints than regular persistent VDI solutions. It also simplifies image management with a unified portal.

In the case of non-persistent VDIs, the data and settings on a virtual desktop are erased at the end of the session. Users will have a new image when they begin a session.

The primary advantage of a non-persistent VDI is that it requires much less space and is more easily managed. The ephemeral nature of the non-persistent VDI makes it an ideal solution for tasks that require more security.

With the inclusion of FSLogix technology, working on non-persistent WVD is nearly as user-friendly as a persistent solution with the ability to dynamically attach user-profiles to computing environments.

Windows Virtual Desktop Implementation Requirements

While Azure Cloud takes away the headaches of dealing with physical machines, cabling, and network equipment; deploying Azure WVD requires at least mid-level system administration and networking skills, and familiarity with Azure services and resources.

Remember, when your resources are in the Cloud, they need to be managed in a manner that is different from on-premises resources. Unless you have such resources in-house, it is advisable to find a dependable Azure Cloud Service Provider to work with you.