Azure Virtual Desktop: A desktop virtualization solution for the future

Azure Virtual Desktop's flexibility and security make it an excellent desktop virtualization solution for businesses with remote and mobile workforces.

---

As the digital landscape evolves and remote, hybrid and on-the-go productivity becomes more common in workplaces everywhere, businesses must ensure employees have seamless and secure access to the systems and applications they need to do their jobs.

Azure Virtual Desktop by Microsoft is a cloud-based virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) platform that enables organisations to deliver Windows 10 and Windows 11 desktops and apps to staff members, regardless of their location.

Recognised as a Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Desktop as a Service, Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) has centralised management, security and scalability built in – making it an attractive VDI solution for companies that want control and flexibility now and in the future. Let’s take a closer look at the use cases and business scenarios for AVD by analysing the four major drivers of VDI adoption: specialised workloads, an elastic workforce, data security and regulatory compliance.

Organisations running specialised workloads (such as legacy systems) or process-heavy programs (like design and engineering apps that require expensive, high-performance hardware for each user) can benefit substantially from AVD’s resource-management capabilities and scalability.

AVD allows you to create dedicated virtual machines (VMs) to handle specialised workloads – and you can scale these VMs in line with the demands of your people and your business. If you need more memory or processing power, you can provision additional VMs and pay only for the computing resources you use.

Similarly, applications typically involving computationally intensive operations (like a designer’s graphics program or an engineer’s 3D-rendering software) can be set up on a multi-session AVD host to enable users to access these resources remotely. By eliminating the need for costly supporting hardware, such as high-end graphics cards, and leveraging AVD’s centralised management tools, you can easily update, patch and maintain business-critical apps.

AVD can be a great asset for organisations with elastic workforces. If you have short-term employees or contractors or are going through a merger or acquisition, you can leverage AVD to respond to the changing staffing requirements.

In these scenarios, a flexible desktop and application virtualization solution like AVD can streamline the process of adding and removing temporary workers, making onboarding and offboarding quicker, simpler and more cost-effective without a significant hardware investment.

Many modern workplaces have embraced the bring-your-own-device approach to productivity, with employees using a mix of corporate (company-owned) and non-corporate (personal) computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones to work remotely and on the go.

By using AVD to virtualize desktops and applications, you can ensure that sensitive business data is securely accessed from any device and location, encrypted in transit and at rest, and safeguarded against unauthorised access.

Maintaining stringent security measures and ensuring legal and regulatory compliance is paramount in heavily regulated industries such as healthcare, government and financial services. AVD allows for data and applications to be controlled centrally, helping organisations adhere to laws and standards such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, General Data Protection Regulation, and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard while reducing the risk of compromise.

AVD is a sophisticated VDI solution that can transform how businesses work. It has support for personal desktops (where a dedicated virtual machine is required for each user) and pooled desktops (where a shared virtual machine is accessed by multiple users), and can deliver seamless user experiences (persistent user settings and data) with profile-roaming solutions like FSLogix.

AVD also simplifies the management of VDI components like connection brokers, remote desktop gateways and load balancers by offloading them to Microsoft. This not only reduces the complexity of setting up and managing the virtual desktop infrastructure, but also allows for the administration of individual hosts using popular endpoint management solutions like Microsoft Intune.

For business organisations, the four biggest advantages of AVD are its flexibility, security, scalability and cost efficiency.

With native support for Windows 10 and Windows 11 enterprise, personal and multi-session functionality, users can consistently access their desktops and required applications from anywhere and on any device, whether corporate or non-corporate. The multi-session capability can also reduce the number of VMs required and the operating system overheads while providing the same experience to users.

AVD natively supports the intelligent security features provided by Azure. These include multi-factor authentication, role-based access control, conditional access policies and advanced Microsoft Entra ID capabilities such as identity protection and privileged identity management. The flexibility in the AVD settings also allows for controls to prevent data being moved out of the virtual desktop environment, thereby reducing the risk of data loss. Azure’s comprehensive privacy and security controls can also be used to assess and enforce compliance standards in the AVD environment.

AVD can be set up quickly through the intuitive Azure portal interface or by using automation options like Azure PowerShell and Azure Bicep – and it can be ready for access in minutes. Existing environments can also be scaled easily, whether to accommodate the onboarding of new employees and users or to adapt to particular seasonal workloads. AVD also offers some automation capabilities, such as scaling plans where the hosts can be powered on and off in line with the demand or usage patterns to limit unnecessary expenditure.

AVD allows organisations with existing Windows Enterprise and Education licences and Microsoft 365 subscriptions to use them without any additional investment. Many organisations already have eligible licences for AVD and could set up virtual desktops and applications instantly.

Eligible AVD licensing methods for various scenarios.

---

Screenshot: Microsoft Learn

In this era of remote and mobile work, AVD stands out as a robust and versatile digital infrastructure option for businesses of all sizes. Whether you’re looking to support your specialised workloads, manage your dynamic workforce, enhance your data security or meet your compliance obligations, AVD offers you the flexibility and scalability to remain agile, responsive, and competitive. It’s well worth exploring as a desktop virtualization solution to empower your people today and prepare your organisation for the opportunities of tomorrow.

BUI Technical Consultant Samson Barasa has a diverse background in cloud computing and networking, and specialises in the design, deployment and management of Azure infrastructure.

• As a Microsoft Azure Expert MSP and a Microsoft Solutions Partner for Infrastructure specialising in Azure Virtual Desktop, BUI offers advisory services, technical consulting, project management and ongoing support to ensure your AVD journey is smooth and successful. Our experts are here to help you make the most of AVD and achieve your strategic IT goals. Contact us today to get started.