Azure Virtual Desktop: 

Among the suite of services from Azure that we have been discussing in our previous articles beginning with signal R and more recently with internal facing, but very critical Azure Pipeline, we now review Azure Virtual Desktop service. This service was formerly known as Windows Virtual Desktop, and it enables secure remote work and provides the familiarity and compatibility of Windows 11. Having a computer in the cloud supports a hybrid workforce and it enables the virtual desktop deployments to work side by side with Azure services within the Azure portal. Since the virtual desktop is a resource just like any other Azure resource and since it is a cloud service, it can provide a level of availability and scalability that Azure is known for. 

We describe the usages of the Azure Virtual Desktop resource object in this article after an introduction in the previous article.

This service can be quite popular for the IT of an organization to provision a host pool for all the employees. In such case, they will limit the ability for the employees to create their own host pools as shown by this example: {"details":[{"code":"InvalidTemplateDeployment","message":"{\"deploymentStatusCode\":-1,\"stage\":6,\"expected\":true,\"error\":{\"code\":\"InvalidTemplateDeployment\",\"details\":[{\"code\":\"RequestDisallowedByPolicy\",\"target\":\"ags-hostpool-1\",\"message\":\"Resource 'test-hostpool-1' was disallowed by policy. Policy identifiers: '[{\\\"policyAssignment\\\":{\\\"name\\\":\\\"CSEO Block WVD resource creation\\\",\\\"id\\\":\\\"/providers/Microsoft.Management/managementGroups/<tenantId>/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/policyAssignments/Block WVD creation\\\"},\\\"policyDefinition\\\":{\\\"name\\\":\\\"Deny WVD resource creation\\\",\\\"id\\\":\\\"/providers/Microsoft.Management/managementGroups/<tenantId>/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/policyDefinitions/Deny WVD creation\\\"}}]'.

As with all Azure services, the resource can be provisioned with an Azure Resource Management manifest. Zone specifications can be included in the ARM templates.  Access to the service can be made from a variety of programming languages via REST APIs and SDKs. There is also scope for command-line automations and web portal usages. Role based access control can determine who has access to what at a service level as well as at the resource level. A virtual desktop can be shared or personal. The shared mode allows different users to use the same machine. Automatic assignment is the default type for new personal desktop host pools created in the Azure Virtual Desktop Environment. When users are assigned to the personal desktop host pool so that they can see the desktop in their feed.

Remote app streaming provided by this service lets us run our app in Azure and stream it to a remote device. Azure Virtual Desktop can be used for this experience by creating low literacy performance streaming to work from virtually anywhere on any device. Another key benefit of using this service is the ability to join virtual desktop to Active Directory and create a host pool which is a collection of one or more identical virtual machines also known as “session host”. Each host pool can contain an app group that users can interact with as they could on their local desktop. Users can be automatically assigned by first assigning them to the host pool so that they may see the desktop in their feed and claim the session host. Direct assignment, on the other hand, assigns the user to both the personal desktop host pool and a specific session host. The assignment groups and the assignments are available to view against the host pool in the Windows Azure portal. 

Session hosts can be scaled automatically using the scaling tool. The SessionThresholdPerCPU parameter determines the new VMs that need be started to load-balance the connections. The number of sessions can be restricted with the MaxSessionLimit Parameter.  The pool and the group are way to efficiently manage the resources. Assignment to the group can be controlled with direct or automatic assignments. The pool can be governed by polices and settings that determine the service level for the users. During off-peak usage, cost can be saved by shutting down unused vms and this is controlled by the MinimumNumberOfRDSH parameter. Applications can be published into the Azure Virtual Desktop environment for the convenience of the user.