In the post-corona era, the need for a secure, cost-effective, and efficient IT remote desktop solution has exploded. Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) offers a solution that fits organizations, without the complexity traditionally associated with such systems.
A new way of offering complete Windows desktops from the cloud can be called revolutionary. With AVD, you offer colleagues a work environment that feels like a local Windows desktop installation anywhere, anyplace & anytime, with simplified management. You no longer need to worry about things like ‘RDS gateways’, complicated ‘failover clusters’, and ‘load balancing’.
Let’s delve deeper into what AVD means for organizations in practice. What are the prerequisites? In principle, AVD works for any company. AVD is particularly interesting if your organization doesn’t provide laptops to employees and thus uses a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) concept.
AVD effortlessly supports almost any device with an internet connection, including devices using older Windows versions, MacOS, Android, iOS, and even Chromebooks – AVD delivers a consistent, professional work environment, including on a smartphone. In terms of infrastructure on the organization’s side, you only need an Azure Active Directory or a Windows Server AD connected to Azure AD via Azure AD Connect or Azure AD Domain Services.
On the user’s side, AVD requires a PC, tablet, or laptop with an internet connection. Although the minimum connection requirement for an application like Word is around 300kbps (which is amply provided by a mobile 3G connection), the maximum bandwidth used increases to about 10mbps when watching video and video calling. The vast majority of internet and 4G connections in Europe can easily handle this. Applications and data themselves don’t go over ‘the line’, only the desktop image is streamed to a device, which saves on data usage. Thanks to the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), latency is hardly noticeable, if at all.
Costs for an AVD environment are lower as the organization uses more workstations. Microsoft applies economies of scale in the prices for running an AVD environment. Although AVD eliminates the costs and necessity of an on-premises server room, infrastructure and management, patches, and maintenance, the costs per workplace are limited. AVD offers the ability to turn off machines and only ‘spin them up’ when in use. If a machine is not on, no costs are charged. AVD’s ‘pay-as-you-go’ model means you only pay for what you use, which yields savings of up to 70% compared to traditional on-premises solutions.
If your organization works with RDS or traditional VDI and is ready for an upgrade in terms of speed or operating system, it’s good to know that AVD offers advantages and future paths in this regard. And more, because you remove the dependency on the location where servers are located. The environment can be accessed from multiple places in the cloud.
RDS runs on Windows Server operating systems, which often leaves compatibility with various client applications to be desired; something you don’t have to worry about with a native desktop from the cloud. And just as you equip an RDS with firewalling or site-to-site VPN, you do the same with AVD.
With AVD, the IT professional who travels to your organization to install and maintain servers and network equipment on-site is a thing of the past. They can remotely configure a complete environment, make it available to your organization, and manage it. And if you want to switch to another service provider? No problem, you can transfer the virtual AVD environment as a whole to another management party. Without complicated or time-consuming migrations.
Now that working from home and BYOD are anchored in the daily operations of organizations, Azure Virtual Desktop offers a familiar and efficient user experience, while applying security by design and providing opportunities for cost savings. You’ll make your organization more dependent on Microsoft, but the advantages are at least as attractive. With AVD, you benefit from Microsoft’s global security expertise. Multi-factor authentication, encryption, and advanced threat protection are standard, ensuring your data always remains secure, regardless of where employees are located.
Want to know more about how Azure Virtual Desktop transforms your organization? Contact us for a free consultation!
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