Here’s Why You Should Be Using Azure Virtual Desktop
As the business landscape shifts, employees must be able to login from anywhere and at any time. While this provides employees with unsurpassed flexibility and convenience, it can also cause businesses security headaches, increased licensing costs, and infrastructure issues.
Enter Microsoft’s Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD). AVD is a desktop and app virtualization service that runs on the cloud and can set up a multi-session Windows 11 or Windows 10 deployment with the full Windows experience for users. This means employees can work from anywhere, on any device, and in a secure environment.
This service provides a number of benefits that help businesses stay secure, flexible, and save money:
- Security & Regulation Compliance
AVD provides built-in intelligent security to help keep your applications and data secure. These security capabilities proactively detect threats and take remedial action.
AVD separates your operating systems, data, and apps from local hardware and runs them on a remote server which separates the compute environment from the user devices. Traditionally, businesses relied on persistent desktops which are assigned to a specific user and can be manipulated. This means, apps can be added or removed, local files can be saved, and more.
As AVD uses non-persistent desktops, users will log in, have access to applications, but be unable to save files locally. Once they log off, this virtual desktop simply goes away as it was only there temporarily for their access. The risk of confidential information being left on a personal device is significantly reduced.
Azure AD unlocks a secure and consistent sign on experience for users with the ability to roam from device to device and makes sure only the right people have access to apps and data. You can also configure MFA to take advantage of additional conditional access controls.
- Reduced Costs
Your business will only pay for what you use with AVD and there are no additional license costs. As you can use existing eligible Microsoft 365 or Windows per-user licenses, this reduces costs by using a modern cloud-based virtual desktop infrastructure.
Your infrastructure costs can be reduced by right-sizing virtual machines (VMs) and shutting them down while they’re not in use. In addition, you can move all your virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) to the cloud with a managed service to reduce management overhead.
For storage, OneDrive provides terabytes of files per user in an O365 service without incurring additional storage fees. The VM machine infrastructure and connection to unlimited OneDrive storage is both fast and bottomless.
- Flexibility
AVD provides your employees with the ability to access a full Windows experience with Windows 10 or Windows 11 virtually anywhere. This brings your existing Remote Desktop Services (RDS) and Windows Server desktops and apps to any device, including a Mac, iPad, iPhone, Android, or a browser.
With a unified management experience, your business can manage desktops and apps from different Windows and Windows Server operating systems.
- Deploy & Scale in Minutes
Today, flexibility is everything for a thriving business. With so much uncertainty, it can be difficult to resource plan for a year, let alone a month. With AVD your business can scale quickly based on your business’s needs at that point in time. This simplifies deployment and the management of your infrastructure overall.
With AVD’s latest autoscale feature, you can scale your session host virtual machines (VMs) in a host pool up or down to optimize deployment costs. These can be specified based on:
- Time of day
- Specific days of the week
- Session limits per session host
In order to take advantage of autoscale, you’ll need to first create a custom role-based access control (RBAC) with your Azure subscription.
Next Steps: Gain More Flexibility with AVD’s Latest Scaling Feature
Flexibility is key in staying competitive in today’s market. Businesses have quickly learned that they need to be prepared for change at the drop of a pin. With AVD, they’ll have the flexibility to scale quickly, up or down, to address the demands within their market.
In addition, employees appreciate the ability to log in from anywhere and on any device all while ensuring your business’s information is secure.
Contact an Arraya expert today to learn more about Azure Virtual Desktop.
Visit https://www.arrayasolutions.com/contact-us/ to connect with our team now.
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