Main Concepts and Features of Azure DaaS (Windows Virtual Desktop)
Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) has continued to play an important role in remote access. Yet, it has never replaced traditional PCs in most organizations. And now, with the increasing pervasiveness of cloud-first technologies, desktop as a service (DaaS) is quickly becoming the dominant go-to technology for remote access.
As a cloud-based VDI solution separating virtual applications and desktops from on-premises servers, DaaS is agile and cost-efficient. Azure DaaS—provided under Windows Virtual Desktop—is Microsoft’s platform that delivers virtualized applications and desktops in the cloud. Discover the main concepts and prerequisites to get started with deploying desktops on Azure DaaS (Windows Virtual Desktop) in this post.
Understanding Windows Virtual Desktop Terminology
Windows Virtual Desktop terminology includes host pools, app groups, workspaces and end users. Let’s learn more about these components.
Host pool
A host pool is a set of identical Azure virtual machines (VMs) in the Windows Virtual Desktop environment. These VMs register with the Windows Virtual Desktop environment as a session host when users execute the Windows Virtual Desktop agent. Like a physical PC, each host pool contains an application group that you can start using when you log into Azure DaaS.
There are two types of host pools in the Windows Virtual Desktop environment:
- Personal desktops. With personal desktops, each session host gets assigned to an individual user. Personal desktops are also called persistent desktops since users can personalize their desktop environments and save files in them.
- Pooled desktops. A session host can grant connections to any user authorized to the application group within the pool. Pooled desktops are also called non-persistent desktops since users get assigned to whichever session is available and have limited capabilities personalizing their desktop environments.
App group
An app group is an object containing applications installed on session hosts in a host pool. You can apply similar policies to an app group to control how users access the organization’s applications. The two types of app groups in the Windows Virtual Desktop environment include:
- Desktop. Users can access their full desktops. This default app group is created automatically for the new Windows Virtual Desktop host pool.
- RemoteApp. Users can access secure remote applications that you publish to the app group from multiple endpoints.
Workspaces
A workspace is a logical set of application groups in an Azure DaaS environment that allows users to access their applications. Each application group in the Windows Virtual Desktop environment must have an associated workspace for users to access the desktops and remote applications.
End users
An end user is an authorized entity in an Azure DaaS environment assigned to the application groups. End users can connect to Windows Virtual Desktop via any of the Windows Virtual Desktop clients, including Microsoft remote desktop (RD) client, HTML5-based web client and iOS RD client.
Leveraging Azure DaaS (Windows Virtual Desktop)
You can use Azure DaaS to achieve a right-sized and flexible IT environment, manage virtual desktops, and pair and connect users to those virtual desktops.
Creating a scalable and flexible IT environment
Azure DaaS can help you to:
- Minimize costs by leveraging pooled and multi-session resources. The new Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session—exclusive only to Azure DaaS—reduces the number of VMs and OS overhead greatly while still offering the same services to end users.
- Leverage Azure subscriptions to create a full desktop virtualization environment without running extra gateway servers.
- Accommodate as many diverse workloads as possible by publishing many host pools.
- Use your own image to optimize production workloads or test from the Azure Gallery.
- Leverage persistent desktops to provide individual ownership of the VMs.
Provisioning and managing virtual desktops
With Windows Virtual Desktop, you can:
- Leverage Windows Virtual Desktop PowerShell, Azure portal, and representational state transfer (REST) protocol to create and configure host pools, generate app groups, assign end users and publish resources.
- Publish full desktops or individual remote applications from a single host-pool. You can also create individual application groups for different end users or even assign users to several application groups to minimize VMs.
- Use inbuilt delegated access to assign roles and generate diagnostics to help you understand various errors and configurations.
- Manage the VMs and images, not the IT infrastructure. With Azure DaaS, you manage only VMs in the Azure subscription and leave the hardware and remote desktop roles to Azure.
Assigning and connecting end users to virtual desktops
With Azure DaaS:
- End users can launch any Windows Virtual Desktop client from any device and connect to their published resources.
- IT administrators can secure corporate resources through reverse connections to the service, ensuring that no inbound port is open. Using Azure Active Directory (AD) as the identity and access management (IAM) provider allows organizations to leverage extra security controls such as conditional access and multi-factor authentication (MFA).
Prerequisites for Using Azure DaaS (Windows Virtual Desktops)
Before getting started with Azure DaaS, you must meet the following requirements:
Operating Systems (OSs)
Azure DaaS supports the following OSs:
OS | Licensing requirements |
Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session (versions 1809 and above) |
|
Windows 7 Enterprise |
|
Windows Server 2012 R2, 2016 and 2019 | You need a remote desktop services (RDS) Client Access License (CAL) with Software Assurance to access Azure DaaS. |
AD services
You can use the following directory services to support your infrastructure:
- Azure AD
- A domain controller (DC) hosted in Azure
- An on-premises DC hosted with a virtual private network (VPN) connection to Azure
The VMs you create in Azure can be AD-joined or hybrid AD-joined but not Azure AD-joined.
Azure subscription
You need an Azure subscription to create and run Windows Virtual Desktop session host VMs. The subscription includes Windows Virtual Desktop Management Service, VMs and the entire IT infrastructure.
Network performance
Just like any cloud-based solution, Azure DaaS requires high bandwidth for users to access virtual desktops and applications on demand. Therefore, before you implement it, you must assess if your network connections are robust enough to meet Windows Virtual Desktop’s demands. Here are some requirements the network must meet for optimal performance:
- Ensure the round-trip time (RTT) is less than 150 milliseconds.
- Confirm the session host’s virtual machines are collocated in the same Azure region as the Windows Virtual Desktop management service.
Load Balancing in Azure DaaS (Windows Virtual Desktops)
Azure DaaS supports two types of load balancing algorithms for non-persistent desktops:
- Breadth-first (horizontal) load balancing. This is the default load balancing algorithm for Windows Virtual Desktop. It distributes user sessions evenly across the session hosts within the pool. When a user logs into Windows Virtual Desktop, the broker assigns a host with the least number of users to connect. In case there are multiple hosts with that number of users, the connection broker assigns the first host in the query list.
- Depth-first (vertical) load balancing. This algorithm first saturates a session host within a host pool with user sessions. When the first session reaches its maximum connection limit specified against the host pool, the algorithm directs any new user-sessions to the next available host within the pool, and so on. This algorithm is appropriate for organizations that want to minimize costs by maximizing VMs per session host.
Managing Windows Virtual Desktop Workloads through Parallels RAS
Windows desktop and Microsoft productivity applications—including legacy software—are the technology lifeblood of many businesses. They help organizations run their businesses and ensure employees get the work done. From processing orders to communicating with customers to managing finances, Windows desktops and Microsoft applications are front and center in most organizations.
Yet, getting work done can plunge when you step away from your office setup in an increasingly mobile and remote working world. Parallels® Remote Application Server (RAS) supports and integrates seamlessly with Azure DaaS. This allows organizations to securely deliver both on-premises and cloud-hosted virtual applications and desktops to any device from any location.
The integration of Parallels RAS and Windows Virtual Desktop allows IT administrators to streamline, deploy and manage Azure DaaS workloads. You can provision host pools, application groups, workspaces and end users quickly in Windows Virtual Desktop from a single pane of glass with Parallels RAS.
Parallels RAS also offers extended management tools such as session management with advanced metrics, along with automated image optimizations that provide more efficient and streamlined delivery for virtual apps and desktops. IT administrators can leverage these tools to minimize day-to-day administration overhead. And with inbuilt FSLogix profile containers, Parallels RAS simplifies user-profile configuration and deployment for IT administrators.
Download the Parallels RAS trial today, and experience how simply it integrates with Azure DaaS!