What's Azure Virtual Desktop?

A few years ago, Microsoft launched Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD). It's a cloud service that lets you virtualize desktops and applications. But it's different from the others. Azure Virtual Desktop is a solution built directly on top of Microsoft Azure, whereas traditional solutions only support the public cloud. In this blog post, we'll take a look at how Azure Virtual Desktop works and why Pandemic has been an important catalyst. Of course, you'll also discover the various possibilities of Azure Virtual Desktop for your business or organization.

What's a virtual desktop?

First things first, what exactly is a virtual desktop or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)? VDI is software that virtualizes your computer. The name says it all: what is on the desktop of your computer is 'virtual' - so it is not really on your device. You log in to a remote server, which displays your familiar desktop on your device. So all your programs, documents and also your operating system are not on your device, but on a central server in the public cloud.

The major advantage of modern desktop virtualization systems is that they offer employees the flexibility to use their applications from a device of their choice. For the IT department, in particular, centralized security and management of data and applications is easier.

Depending on the needs of the end user, there are two ways to implement desktops:

• Persistent desktop: Each user is assigned a unique desktop "image" that can be customized to their personal preferences.
• Non-persistent desktop: Users have access to a pool of unified desktop images to perform tasks. These non-persistent desktops will be reset to their original state after each use. They are not personalized for a unique user.

Why Azure Virtual Desktop?

In 2019, Microsoft launched its own virtual desktop solution through the Microsoft Azure cloud. It offers a number of specific functionalities:

• Windows 10: With Azure Virtual Desktop, you run a virtual version of Windows 10 in the cloud. Since Microsoft wants to continuously support this version, employees and administrators always have access to all new functionalities.
• Multi-session desktops: Azure Virtual Desktop allows you to make a pool of identical or non-persistent Windows 10 desktops available to a certain number of users with a single license. In the background, you need significantly fewer virtual machines, and by using existing per-user Windows licenses, you also save on costs.
• Integration: Azure Virtual Desktop integrates perfectly with other Microsoft technologies such as Windows 10 and Office 365. This gives you, among other things, the advantage that thanks to single sign-on (SSO) you can access everything with one account.
• Support for Windows 7: A lot of organizations still use applications that they developed for Windows 7 and that they can't immediately move to the cloud. With Azure Virtual Desktop you can continue to use these applications safely.

In summary, this means that Azure Virtual Desktop is the only VDI solution that offers Windows 10 multi-sessions, is optimized for Microsoft 365 apps and supports RDS environments. You can easily install and extend your Windows desktops and applications through Azure in a matter of minutes. The built-in security and compliance features get you up and running in no time.

Key benefits at a glance

Why choose a virtual desktop at all? Because it has a lot of advantages:

• On any device: You can work on any device. All you need is an internet connection.
• Always available: You always have your operating system and all your applications at your disposal from any device
• Up-to-date: The automatic updates always offer the latest version.
• Price tag: Thanks to fast up- and downscaling, you only pay for what you use.
• Perfectly secured: Your virtual desktop is more secure than a regular device, thanks to Azure's built-in security.
• 24/7 support: Do you have a question or a problem? Then we are ready for you. Based on our agreements, we will help you out quickly.

The impact of Covid-19

The popularity of Azure Virtual Desktop only increased during the Covid-19 pandemic. Its strong adaptability made it a great solution for organizations that suddenly needed to work remotely due to social distancing measures. In light of this, Microsoft has also accelerated the activation of several features:

• Even faster installation: IT administrators can now install the AVD environment even faster from the Azure portal. Microsoft has greatly simplified the installation process and taken care of the graphical interface. This makes it easy to set up the most important configurations.
• Even better security and compliance: Administrators can build in even more security and compliance guidelines to, for example, only give employees access to the applications they are allowed to work in.
• Better performance for Microsoft Teams: Teams can be used perfectly in an AVD environment, but often worked a bit sluggishly. Microsoft has made major improvements to this so that Teams will work faster from now on.
• More support for other platforms: Azure Virtual Desktop is already available for a lot of different systems. In addition to support for Windows, Mac, iOS and HTML5 browsers, the latest version also offers support for a number of Linux versions.

Customer Case

Jessa Hospital, one of the larger hospitals in Belgium with 900 beds and 3,500 employees, strongly believes in the benefits of Azure Virtual Desktop. The scalability of the cloud, the reduced licensing costs and the accessibility of applications from any device were the deciding factors for deploying the virtual desktop environment within the different campuses.

What's next?