An Updated Approach to Virtual Desktop Infrastructure: Azure Virtual Desktop on Azure Stack HCI

With the general availability of Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) on Azure Stack HCI, organisations have a powerful new platform for providing virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) services. No longer torn between complex and expensive server farms, or desktops running in the cloud – the best of both worlds is here.  

The complexities of managing an end user computing service 

Over the many years I’ve consulted with IT departments, one of the many common themes has been around the complexities of managing end user computing services. 

It used to be that their investments in standard PC builds had led to a plethora of additional management products. These days, Windows (or, more accurately, Microsoft 365) does that to such a level that the layers of added products are not needed. With a Modern Workplace solution, we can deploy a new PC from a factory image, log on with a username from a recognised domain (for example user@node4.co.uk), build that PC to meet corporate standards and get the end user up and running quickly with access to their data, all in a secure and compliant manner. 

But there have always been edge cases. The legacy application that is critical to the business but doesn’t run on a modern version of Windows. Or the application with a licensing model that doesn’t lend itself to being installed on everyone’s PC for occasional use. For these cases, virtual desktop infrastructure has been a common approach to publish an application or a desktop. 

For other organisations, the use of VDI is seen as an opportunity to abstract the desktop from the device. Either saving on device costs by buying lightweight terminal devices that connect to a farm of virtual desktops, or by using the secure desktop container as an opportunity to allow access from pretty much anywhere, because the device doesn’t directly access the organisation’s data. 

I’m not going to advocate for one approach over another. Of course, I have my own opinions but, at Node4, we start from the position of understanding the business problem we’re trying to solve, and then work out which technology will best support that outcome. 

A shift in the landscape 

Whilst Microsoft has had its own remote desktop offerings over the years, they’ve tended to partner with companies like Citrix rather than develop a full-blown solution. Meanwhile, companies like VMware had their own products – though with the Broadcom acquisition and sale of its VDI products (including Workspace One and Horizon), their future looks uncertain. 

This makes customers uneasy. But there is hope. 

Microsoft has not stood still and, for a few years it’s been maturing its VDI in the cloud service – Azure Virtual Desktop.  

AVD provides a secure, remote desktop experience from anywhere, delivering a virtualised desktop experience that’s fully optimised for Windows 11 and Windows 10 multi-session capabilities. With various licensing options including within key Microsoft 365 subscription plans, AVD is now an established service. So much so that there are even products and services to help with managing AVD environments – for example from Nerdio. But, until recently, the biggest drawback with AVD was that it only ran in the public cloud – and whilst that’s exactly what some organisations need, it’s not suitable for some others. 

A true hybrid cloud solution 

Recently, there’s been a significant development with AVD. It’s largely gone unnoticed – but AVD is now generally available on Azure Stack HCI. 

Azure Stack extends the robust capabilities of Azure’s cloud services to be run locally – either in an on-premises or an edge computing scenario. Azure Stack hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) is a hybrid product that connects on-premises systems to Azure for cloud-based services, monitoring, and management. Effectively, Azure Stack HCI provides many of the benefits of public cloud infrastructure whilst meeting the use case and regulatory requirements for specialised workloads that can’t be run in the public cloud.   

Putting this together means that AVD is not just a public cloud solution – it can run in your own data centre too (or as a hosted possibility with a partner like Node4). 

Some of the benefits of running Azure Virtual Desktop on Azure Stack HCI 

There are many advantages to running software locally. Immediate examples are to address data residency requirements, latency-sensitive workloads, or those with data proximity requirements. Looking specifically at Azure Virtual Desktop on Azure Stack HCI, we can: 

• Improve performance by placing session hosts closer to the end users 

• Keep application and user data on-premises and so local to the users

• Improve access and performance for legacy client-server applications by co-locating the application and its data sources

• Provide a full Windows 11 experience regardless of the device used for access

• Unify management with other Azure resources

• Make use of fully patched operating system images from the Azure Marketplace. 

What about my existing VDI? 

Node4 will aid you in finding the best path from your existing VDI to AVD. Our consultants are experienced in using Microsoft’s Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure to establish an AVD landing zone and to take a structured approach to assessing and migrating existing workloads, user profiles and data to AVD. 

Why Node4 is best positioned to help 

I’ve already written about how Node4’s expert Consultants can help deploy Azure Virtual Desktop to meet your organisation’s specific needs, but that’s only looking at one small part of the picture. 

Because, for those organisations who don’t want to invest in hardware solutions, we have hosted services for Azure Stack HCI. We also provide flexible and secure communications solutions. And we’re an Azure Expert Managed Services Provider (MSP).  

I may be a little biased, but I think that’s a pretty strong set of services. Put them all together and we are uniquely positioned to help you make the most of AVD on-premises, co-located in one of our datacentres, on a Node4 hosted platform, or in the public cloud. 

So, if you are looking at how to modernise your VDI, we’d love to hear from you. Feel free to get in touch using the contact details below – and let’s have a conversation.