What is Azure Virtual Desktop?

  • 5 minutes

Azure Virtual Desktop is a desktop and app virtualization service whose management components run in Azure. You can deploy session hosts in Azure and in supported on-premises environments such as Azure Local. Users connect through Windows App, a supported Remote Desktop client, or a web browser.

Provide the best user experience

Users can connect to published Windows desktops and applications over the internet from Windows, macOS, iOS or iPadOS, Android or Chrome OS, and supported web browsers. The available features vary by client and platform.

You can make sure your session host virtual machines (VMs) run near apps and services that connect to your datacenter or the cloud. So users stay productive and don't encounter long load times.

FSLogix profile containers can provide users with a consistent profile across session hosts. At sign-in, FSLogix attaches the user's profile container to the session host so that the profile behaves like a local user profile. Sign-in performance depends on profile size, storage performance, network latency, and configuration.

You can provide dedicated assignment through personal desktops. For example, you might assign persistent personal desktops to members of an engineering team whose workloads require a dedicated session host. A personal host pool doesn't grant local administrator rights; software installation still depends on the permissions and management policies you configure.

Enhance security

Azure Virtual Desktop provides centralized security management for user's desktops with Microsoft Entra ID. You can enable multifactor authentication to secure user sign-ins. You can also secure access to data by assigning granular role-based access controls to users.

With Azure Virtual Desktop, apps and data run on session hosts instead of directly on the user's device. Centralizing these resources can reduce the risk of confidential data remaining on a personal device, although administrators must still configure controls such as clipboard, drive, and device redirection.

Each user receives a separate Windows session. In a multi-session environment, users still share the underlying session host, so you must configure operating system, application, and data-access controls appropriately.

Azure Virtual Desktop carries Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) traffic over a reverse connection to the service. Session hosts establish outbound connections, so you don't need to open inbound ports for user connections.

Simplify management

Azure Virtual Desktop is an Azure service that will be familiar to Azure administrators. You use Microsoft Entra ID and role-based access controls to manage access to resources. Also with Azure, you get tools to automate VM deployments, manage VM updates, and provide disaster recovery. As with other Azure services, Azure Virtual Desktop uses Azure Monitor for monitoring and alerts. This lets admins identify issues through a single interface.

Manage performance

Azure Virtual Desktop gives you options to load balance users across session hosts in a host pool. A host pool is a collection of session hosts managed as a group. Breadth-first load balancing distributes new sessions across available session hosts for a consistent user experience. Depth-first load balancing fills one session host before assigning sessions to the next, which can reduce the number of running VMs. Azure Virtual Desktop Autoscale can start and stop session hosts according to a scaling plan. Dynamic autoscaling can also create and delete session hosts for pooled host pools that use a session host configuration.

Deploy Windows Enterprise multi-session

Azure Virtual Desktop supports Windows 11 Enterprise multi-session and Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session. These editions allow multiple concurrent users on a Windows client operating system and are exclusive to Azure Virtual Desktop. You can use pooled host pools to share session-host capacity across users.

Bring your licenses

For internal business purposes, each user needs an eligible Windows, Microsoft 365, or Remote Desktop Services license. You also pay for Azure resources such as virtual machines, storage, and networking.

  • Eligible Windows and Microsoft 365 licenses provide access rights for supported Windows Enterprise session hosts.
  • Windows Server session hosts require eligible Remote Desktop Services client access licenses or user subscription licenses.
  • For external commercial purposes, per-user access pricing is available for supported Windows Enterprise session hosts. It isn't a substitute for licensing contractors or guests who use Azure Virtual Desktop for your organization's internal business purposes.

For current license eligibility and usage scenarios, see Licensing Azure Virtual Desktop.

Save on compute costs

Buy one-year or three-year Azure Reserved Virtual Machine Instances to save you up to 72 percent versus pay-as-you-go pricing. You can pay for a reservation up front or monthly. Reservations provide a billing discount and don't affect the runtime state of your resources.