Frequently Asked Questions About Azure Virtual Desktop
In this blog, we answer the frequently asked questions about Azure Virtual Desktop.
Our customers ask similar questions when we propose they might benefit from deploying Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD). If you're looking for Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD). AVD is the new name!
The frequently asked questions about Azure Virtual Desktop we will answer in this blog are:
- How will Azure Virtual Desktop help my employees to work remotely?
- Why should we trust Azure Virtual Desktop?
- Is my sensitive company data safe with AVD?
- Do I need Azure Virtual Desktop if I already use a Remote Desktop Services (or VDI) solution?
- Will Azure Virtual Desktop increase our IT Spend?
- Will AVD require additional end-user training or burden our IT staff with yet another system to support?
- Is Azure Virtual Desktop going to cause massive disruption and upset?
- We have just invested in new laptop hardware across the organisation, why would we use AVD?
- What if my staff don’t want to have to log in to another machine?
- We do a lot of Video-Conferencing and use Teams for Telephony – will Azure Virtual Desktop work?
How will Azure Virtual Desktop help my employees to work remotely?
Whether in the field, working remote, or travelling, employees will be able to access their desktop environment with AVD. It works across devices, and from any location with an internet connection.
AVD provides users with a full Windows 10 experience and the productivity and business intelligent tools that they know and feel confident using.
Moving to AVD might also enable you to drop usage of that slow, legacy VPN which would make users happier.
Why should we trust Azure Virtual Desktop?
We recommend AVD because Microsoft invest more than $1 billion annually on cybersecurity research and development. In addition;
- Microsoft employs more than 3,500 security experts completed dedicated to its customers’ data security and privacy
- Azure has more compliance certifications than any other cloud provider
- 5 million threat signals are detected and analysed daily, feeding back into an increasingly self-learning, secure platform
- Access to the Virtual Desktop can be conditionally restricted to specific users, devices, locations, days of the week and times of the day
Is my sensitive company data safe with AVD?
AVD is built in Azure, so it is secure by design. Users log in to access their desktop environment. This means you can easily protect sensitive company and customer information with Multi-Factor Authentication. AVD was also designed to keep confidential customer information secure. Role-based access control in AVD allows you to easily manage user groups and assign permissions to protect sensitive information.
Do I need Azure Virtual Desktop if I already use a Remote Desktop Services (or VDI) solution?
AVD is the next generation of Virtual Desktop technology. It combines the great user experience of previous desktop virtualization technology, with the affordable price of traditional RDS solutions.
Your users will love the full Windows 10 experience, and you can use AVD’s built-in management plane. Or, keep using your existing Citrix or VMWare service.
Will Azure Virtual Desktop increase our IT Spend?
AVD is unique, because it provides a better user experience, at a lower overall cost than other desktop virtualization solutions. With AVD, you can utilise your Microsoft 365 subscriptions (most SKUs) to cover licensing costs and pay only for Azure infrastructure.
In addition, AVD has the unique benefit of being the only solution that provides a Windows 10 desktop experience at multi-session cost. It’s the best of traditional Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, at the cost of a Remote Desktop Solution.
Will AVD require additional end-user training or burden our IT staff with yet another system to support?
AVD is intuitive, once installed, users won’t be able to tell the difference between their AVD environment and traditional desktop. As far as management goes, the team here at Fuse is ready to answer all your questions and make sure the deployment goes smoothly.
AVD is designed to provide familiar management through the Azure portal, and sync easily with your Active Directory. So once AVD is set up, Fuse will be able to provide management support remotely. This will actually give back more time to your IT staff.
Is Azure Virtual Desktop going to cause massive disruption and upset?
Most changes in technology can be disruptive. However, we think this is another reason to consider upgrading to AVD. Because AVD is hosted in Azure, you won’t have to worry about disruption or hardware upgrades. You can take advantage of the backup and disaster recovery features in Azure. In Azure your desktop will be highly scalable, easy to manage, and secure by design.
The end goal is a system that is very familiar to staff, as though they are still in the office. It gives them easy access from wherever they are and whatever device they have (if that’s what you want!).
We have just invested in new laptop hardware across the organisation, why would we use AVD?
Fair enough, maybe you don’t want to move everyone to AVD right now. You still might see benefits in some use-cases. Consider these scenarios…
- Do you have a specific resource-heavy piece of software that only needs to be run every so often?
- Or do you have a certain department that needs to leverage a piece of software that you host and needs to be run close (on the same network) to its underlying database?
- Do you want to restrict some of your data from being downloaded on to your employees’ devices?
- Does any of your software still need to run in a supported Windows 7 environment?
These are just some scenarios where running a targeted AVD environment might benefit your business. For instance, running a monthly, resource-intensive, processing task? In a beefy Azure machine, that can run it in a quarter of the time. We can review any very specific situations and talk you through the benefits without any jargon.
What if my staff don’t want to have to log in to another machine?
There is a solution for this; look at Remote App Streaming:
- Remote app streaming allows you to run your app in Azure and stream it to a remote device.
- Use Azure Virtual Desktop for app streaming to create a low-latency, high-performance user experience from virtually anywhere on any device.
We do a lot of Video-Conferencing and use Teams for Telephony – will Azure Virtual Desktop work?
Yes – Microsoft has created an enhanced version of Teams targeted at AVD usage. This gives you the best conferencing and media experience of any remote desktop solution.
Using Multimedia Redirection, you will get high-performance, low-latency audio and video calling.
We hope you found our frequently asked questions about Azure Virtual helpful. You can find more information about our Azure Virtual Desktop services here, and there's more info elsewhere in this blog. If you have any further questions please get in touch, we'd love to discuss your situation and find the best-fit solution.
About the author
Fuse is a Microsoft Partner, based in Northampton. We help organisations of all sizes to maximise IT efficiencies through the use of Microsoft cloud computing solutions.
