Azure Windows Virtual Desktop
- Another type of virtual machine is the Azure Virtual Desktop.
- Azure Virtual Desktop is a desktop and application virtualization service that runs on the cloud.
- It enables you to use a cloud-hosted version of Windows from any location.
- Users have the freedom to connect to Azure Virtual Desktop with any device over the internet. Supports device running Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS
- Users use a Virtual Desktop client to connect to Virtual Desktop. The client could either be a native application on the device or the Azure Virtual Desktop HTML5 web client.
- You can also make sure that your virtual machines run in close proximity to apps and services that connect to your data center or the cloud.
- It has a support for modern apps like OneNote and Office 365 apps
Security
- Azure Virtual Desktop provides centralized security management for users' desktops with Azure Active Directory (Azure AD).
- You can enable multifactor authentication to secure user sign-ins.
- You can also secure access to data by assigning granular role-based access controls (RBACs) to users.
- The actual desktop and apps are running in the cloud, meaning the risk of confidential data being left on a personal device is reduced.
- With Azure Virtual Desktop, the data and apps are separated from the local hardware.
- User sessions are isolated in both single and multi-session environments.
Setup
- Setting up a desktop virtualization environment has traditionally been expensive and also complex. Users have often lacked the productivity experience of a locally provisioned desktop. And it can take weeks and sometimes months to get a successful implementation up and running.
- With Windows Virtual Desktop, all of this complexity goes away. Things like your gateway, broker, diagnostics, load balancing, and more, as a fully managed service on Azure.
- All your VMs in the Windows Virtual Desktop service communicate over a secure outbound connection.
- You benefit from unlimited capacity and you can also choose any size VM in Azure, and vary the density of users based on the workload
Multi-session Windows 10 or Windows 11
- Azure Virtual Desktop lets you use Windows 10 or Windows 11 Enterprise multi-session, the only Windows client-based operating system that enables multiple concurrent users on a single VM.
- Azure Virtual Desktop also provides a more consistent experience with broader application support compared to Windows Server-based operating systems.