Episode 395 – Getting Started with VDI in Azure with Azure Virtual Desktop

February 13, 2025

Episode Transcript

Welcome to Episode 395 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast. In this episode, we dive into Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) and how it enables organizations to deliver secure, scalable Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) in the cloud. Whether you’re looking to modernize remote work, enhance security, or optimize IT costs, AVD provides a flexible solution for accessing virtualized Windows desktops and applications from anywhere.Topics covered include:

What is Azure Virtual Desktop? A breakdown of AVD’s features, benefits, and common use cases.
Deployment essentials – Setting up host pools, session hosts, and assigning users.
Configuration best practices – Managing user profiles with FSLogix and securing AVD with Microsoft Intune.
Cost estimation – Key factors affecting pricing and how to optimize expenses.
Getting started – Steps to connect via the Remote Desktop client on multiple platforms.

Whether you’re an IT admin or just exploring VDI in Azure, this episode is packed with insights to help you get started. Tune in and take your remote desktop strategy to the next level!

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See full episode transcriptTranscript is autogenerated by AI

1 00:00:03,520 --> 00:00:05,919 Welcome to episode 395 2 00:00:05,919 --> 00:00:09,039 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro podcast recorded 3 00:00:09,039 --> 00:00:11,779 live on 02/10/2025. 4 00:00:12,080 --> 00:00:14,320 This is a show about Microsoft three sixty 5 00:00:14,320 --> 00:00:16,414 five and Azure from the perspective of IT 6 00:00:16,414 --> 00:00:18,495 pros and end users, where we discuss a 7 00:00:18,495 --> 00:00:20,574 topic or recent news and how it relates 8 00:00:20,574 --> 00:00:23,695 to you. Today, we dive into Azure Virtual 9 00:00:23,695 --> 00:00:26,595 Desktop or AVD and how it enables organizations 10 00:00:26,894 --> 00:00:29,059 to deliver secure, scalable, virtual 11 00:00:29,600 --> 00:00:33,039 desktop infrastructure, or VDI, in the cloud. We 12 00:00:33,039 --> 00:00:35,840 discussed the benefits of AVD for modern remote 13 00:00:35,840 --> 00:00:39,759 work, enhanced security, and optimizing costs for your 14 00:00:39,759 --> 00:00:40,259 organization. 15 00:00:42,640 --> 00:00:45,034 I'm back from Miami where I was Friday. 16 00:00:45,335 --> 00:00:45,835 You're 17 00:00:46,295 --> 00:00:49,015 off to your destination sitting in a dark 18 00:00:49,015 --> 00:00:51,255 room. So I'm in Seattle this week, yes, 19 00:00:51,255 --> 00:00:54,155 for, some work stuff and a conference 20 00:00:54,454 --> 00:00:56,614 that's that's here along the way. So we've 21 00:00:56,614 --> 00:00:59,174 been kinda gallivanting all over the place. We 22 00:00:59,174 --> 00:01:01,649 should address, you know, speaking of recording and 23 00:01:01,649 --> 00:01:03,490 audio and things like that, we think we 24 00:01:03,490 --> 00:01:05,349 got the audio glitches worked out. 25 00:01:05,730 --> 00:01:08,530 And whatever happened in the last episode or 26 00:01:08,530 --> 00:01:11,090 two with weird skips and things should be 27 00:01:11,090 --> 00:01:12,150 turned off for 28 00:01:12,614 --> 00:01:15,275 subsequent ones going forward. Yes. I apologize, 29 00:01:15,734 --> 00:01:18,055 anybody. We did get some feedback of people 30 00:01:18,055 --> 00:01:20,375 that noticed it as well. But, yes, there 31 00:01:20,375 --> 00:01:22,375 was some I think it was some AI, 32 00:01:22,375 --> 00:01:24,775 ironically enough, for was as we talked about 33 00:01:24,775 --> 00:01:27,015 Copilot, it was some AI processing to remove 34 00:01:27,015 --> 00:01:27,674 some silences, 35 00:01:28,569 --> 00:01:30,030 and we have since reuploaded 36 00:01:30,409 --> 00:01:30,909 a 37 00:01:31,209 --> 00:01:33,849 cleaned up version where that processing was not 38 00:01:33,849 --> 00:01:35,689 in place and future ones should not have 39 00:01:35,689 --> 00:01:37,129 that on there. Well, why don't we go 40 00:01:37,129 --> 00:01:39,129 ahead and get into our topic for today? 41 00:01:39,129 --> 00:01:42,375 Alright. So topic for today. We talked about 42 00:01:42,375 --> 00:01:43,974 a few topics. Like, we had talked about 43 00:01:43,974 --> 00:01:44,474 comparing 44 00:01:45,094 --> 00:01:47,435 different VDI solutions on Azure. And 45 00:01:47,734 --> 00:01:48,394 for today, 46 00:01:48,775 --> 00:01:51,334 let's talk about instead of trying to compare 47 00:01:51,334 --> 00:01:52,715 them, that would be a long episode, 48 00:01:53,015 --> 00:01:55,594 VDI and Azure, otherwise known as 49 00:01:55,930 --> 00:01:58,409 ABD. Well, we're gonna do ABD and Azure. 50 00:01:58,409 --> 00:02:00,969 We could do VDI with Citrix. There's lots 51 00:02:00,969 --> 00:02:02,989 of options. We're gonna talk specifically 52 00:02:03,530 --> 00:02:06,890 Azure Virtual Desktop today in Azure, kinda getting 53 00:02:06,890 --> 00:02:08,909 started with it, things to think about. 54 00:02:09,425 --> 00:02:11,205 I've set this up for 55 00:02:11,664 --> 00:02:13,905 several clients now, actually. I have some other 56 00:02:13,905 --> 00:02:15,764 ones that are looking to go to it. 57 00:02:15,985 --> 00:02:17,924 So we will kinda 58 00:02:18,224 --> 00:02:19,905 dive into this and maybe even some of 59 00:02:19,905 --> 00:02:21,205 the pros, cons 60 00:02:22,050 --> 00:02:23,669 as well with the whole 61 00:02:24,129 --> 00:02:24,629 VDI 62 00:02:25,169 --> 00:02:27,330 thing in Azure. I think of this as 63 00:02:27,330 --> 00:02:30,050 getting started with VDI in Azure and then 64 00:02:30,050 --> 00:02:31,889 kind of parenthesis at the end of that, 65 00:02:31,889 --> 00:02:33,830 just Azure Virtual Desktop. 66 00:02:34,449 --> 00:02:36,914 Because if you're going to do a virtual 67 00:02:36,914 --> 00:02:38,914 desktop solution in Azure, I think it makes 68 00:02:38,914 --> 00:02:40,694 sense to look at the first party ones. 69 00:02:40,914 --> 00:02:42,594 And then you have the third party ones 70 00:02:42,594 --> 00:02:45,074 that exist out there. And sometimes there's that 71 00:02:45,074 --> 00:02:46,055 mix of also 72 00:02:46,354 --> 00:02:49,289 first party third party where you can buy 73 00:02:49,289 --> 00:02:50,750 things through the Azure Marketplace 74 00:02:51,209 --> 00:02:53,709 and say you're a customer that's out there 75 00:02:53,849 --> 00:02:55,930 on a a Mac agreement or like a 76 00:02:55,930 --> 00:02:58,169 more formal commitment to spend, then you can 77 00:02:58,169 --> 00:03:00,729 go ahead and also kind of do that 78 00:03:00,729 --> 00:03:03,469 consumption that way out of the Marketplace. So 79 00:03:03,574 --> 00:03:06,875 we'll start with Azure Virtual Desktop today, which, 80 00:03:06,935 --> 00:03:08,055 you know, I think it'd be fair to 81 00:03:08,055 --> 00:03:09,034 say is the 82 00:03:09,334 --> 00:03:09,834 solution 83 00:03:10,854 --> 00:03:13,094 that Microsoft would lead with. So it's the 84 00:03:13,094 --> 00:03:14,474 leading VDI solution 85 00:03:14,854 --> 00:03:17,650 in in Azure today. But there's lots of 86 00:03:17,650 --> 00:03:19,569 other options there. So we'll kinda talk about 87 00:03:19,569 --> 00:03:22,370 the first one, Microsoft first party. What's there? 88 00:03:22,370 --> 00:03:23,810 What you get out of the box? And 89 00:03:23,810 --> 00:03:26,610 how all that comes together? And potentially, how 90 00:03:26,610 --> 00:03:29,775 that can enable you in the world of 91 00:03:29,775 --> 00:03:33,055 100% remote, hybrid, all all that goodness. Where 92 00:03:33,055 --> 00:03:35,074 do we wanna start with Azure Virtual Desktop? 93 00:03:35,215 --> 00:03:36,814 Should we start with a little bit of 94 00:03:36,814 --> 00:03:39,215 just, like, what it is? I mean, I 95 00:03:39,215 --> 00:03:41,854 think I sometimes you can assume everybody just 96 00:03:41,854 --> 00:03:44,415 knows what Azure Virtual Desktops are, what VDI 97 00:03:44,415 --> 00:03:44,789 is. 98 00:03:45,750 --> 00:03:47,909 But maybe just starting off with, like, a 99 00:03:47,909 --> 00:03:48,409 definition 100 00:03:48,709 --> 00:03:51,269 of what is Azure Virtual Desktop. You know 101 00:03:51,269 --> 00:03:52,949 me? I always like a good definition. You 102 00:03:52,949 --> 00:03:55,189 like a good definition? I do. So it 103 00:03:55,189 --> 00:03:56,729 is a virtualization 104 00:03:57,109 --> 00:03:59,925 service. Imagine that. Right? Virtual desktop is virtualization. 105 00:04:00,625 --> 00:04:02,805 Runs on Azure where you can essentially 106 00:04:03,264 --> 00:04:04,405 publish out 107 00:04:04,784 --> 00:04:05,284 different 108 00:04:06,224 --> 00:04:07,764 different virtualized experiences, 109 00:04:08,064 --> 00:04:09,905 I would say, in end users. Whether you 110 00:04:09,905 --> 00:04:12,405 wanna push out a virtualized 111 00:04:12,960 --> 00:04:13,460 desktop 112 00:04:13,840 --> 00:04:16,079 and you can think of this as kinda 113 00:04:16,079 --> 00:04:18,819 like an RDP type of desktop where you're 114 00:04:18,879 --> 00:04:20,339 remoting into the machine, 115 00:04:20,720 --> 00:04:23,040 getting the full desktop experience where you can 116 00:04:23,040 --> 00:04:23,939 launch applications, 117 00:04:24,399 --> 00:04:25,620 you have your start menu. 118 00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:27,939 It's like a full RDP experience 119 00:04:28,935 --> 00:04:31,254 Similar to, like, the old terminal services sessions 120 00:04:31,254 --> 00:04:32,875 that used to do with on prem 121 00:04:33,175 --> 00:04:33,675 where 122 00:04:34,295 --> 00:04:35,355 you're not necessarily 123 00:04:36,455 --> 00:04:39,574 the configuration is different. Like, typical RDP, you're 124 00:04:39,574 --> 00:04:42,214 going over port thirty three eighty nine most 125 00:04:42,214 --> 00:04:43,035 of the time. 126 00:04:43,360 --> 00:04:45,520 Usually, you're limited to, like, one or two 127 00:04:45,520 --> 00:04:47,279 sessions, and if somebody else tries to log 128 00:04:47,279 --> 00:04:49,779 in, you get booted out. Virtual desktops 129 00:04:50,319 --> 00:04:51,460 give you a 130 00:04:51,840 --> 00:04:54,160 host of resources that allow you to kinda 131 00:04:54,160 --> 00:04:56,000 configure how many people you wanna log in, 132 00:04:56,000 --> 00:04:57,300 get that desktop experience. 133 00:04:58,004 --> 00:04:59,365 But kind of along with that, if you 134 00:04:59,365 --> 00:05:01,604 don't wanna do a full desktop, this also 135 00:05:01,604 --> 00:05:05,285 allows you to do individual apps. So, again, 136 00:05:05,285 --> 00:05:07,764 now you connect to this virtual desktop environment, 137 00:05:07,764 --> 00:05:08,985 and instead of launching 138 00:05:09,604 --> 00:05:12,324 that desktop experience where you're logging into a 139 00:05:12,324 --> 00:05:14,939 full machine, you're just launching an individual app. 140 00:05:14,939 --> 00:05:17,439 Maybe it's Office apps or a browser 141 00:05:18,300 --> 00:05:18,800 or 142 00:05:19,259 --> 00:05:19,759 a 143 00:05:20,379 --> 00:05:21,839 another third party application, 144 00:05:22,220 --> 00:05:24,460 one of your internal applications that you use 145 00:05:24,460 --> 00:05:25,279 for your company. 146 00:05:25,735 --> 00:05:27,814 There's lots of different ways you can kinda 147 00:05:27,814 --> 00:05:30,295 configure these apps, publish these apps out. But 148 00:05:30,295 --> 00:05:32,375 now instead of having to provide that full 149 00:05:32,375 --> 00:05:34,535 desktop, people can just go in and launch 150 00:05:34,535 --> 00:05:36,715 an app in this virtualized environment 151 00:05:37,095 --> 00:05:39,110 that can give you lots of different benefits 152 00:05:39,110 --> 00:05:41,750 when you think of that type of scenario. 153 00:05:41,750 --> 00:05:44,250 For sure. And we've talked about other solutions 154 00:05:44,550 --> 00:05:46,790 here as well. So you recently had an 155 00:05:46,790 --> 00:05:47,290 interview 156 00:05:47,750 --> 00:05:48,569 on M365 157 00:05:48,949 --> 00:05:49,449 link 158 00:05:49,764 --> 00:05:51,444 and some of the things that go on 159 00:05:51,444 --> 00:05:53,625 with Windows three sixty five desktops. 160 00:05:54,085 --> 00:05:57,365 These concepts are similar. It's just less of 161 00:05:57,365 --> 00:05:59,444 a managed service and more of a service 162 00:05:59,444 --> 00:06:01,064 that you can come in and manage 163 00:06:01,444 --> 00:06:03,865 with that virtual desktop infrastructure. 164 00:06:04,490 --> 00:06:06,490 So you're gonna get kind of more knobs 165 00:06:06,490 --> 00:06:08,430 and more levers that you can, 166 00:06:08,970 --> 00:06:12,750 you know, tweak, twist, pull, push to configure 167 00:06:12,810 --> 00:06:14,730 your environment and get it to where it 168 00:06:14,730 --> 00:06:17,470 needs to be. Yeah. Definitely. And I think 169 00:06:17,745 --> 00:06:19,425 because you brought that up, that's always one 170 00:06:19,425 --> 00:06:21,584 thing to compare. And I've had this discussion 171 00:06:21,584 --> 00:06:23,185 is when do you wanna do, like, a 172 00:06:23,185 --> 00:06:25,584 managed service, like a Windows three sixty five, 173 00:06:25,584 --> 00:06:26,564 the cloud PC 174 00:06:27,024 --> 00:06:30,324 versus your Azure realtor dot virtual desktop. And 175 00:06:30,384 --> 00:06:32,439 like you said, there's some pros and cons 176 00:06:32,439 --> 00:06:33,639 there in terms of how much do you 177 00:06:33,639 --> 00:06:34,379 wanna manage. 178 00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:36,680 I would say there can be some pricing 179 00:06:36,680 --> 00:06:38,300 that comes in there in terms 180 00:06:38,759 --> 00:06:41,100 of what users are doing in these environments, 181 00:06:41,639 --> 00:06:43,399 because the cloud PC is always gonna be 182 00:06:43,399 --> 00:06:45,660 the full desktop. That one's not published apps. 183 00:06:45,814 --> 00:06:46,314 ABD, 184 00:06:46,774 --> 00:06:48,235 you do get some additional, 185 00:06:49,254 --> 00:06:50,794 configuration options there. 186 00:06:51,334 --> 00:06:52,154 And I think 187 00:06:52,774 --> 00:06:54,774 the other thing to think about when you 188 00:06:54,774 --> 00:06:56,854 start going down this route is it's like, 189 00:06:56,854 --> 00:06:58,074 this is what it is. 190 00:06:59,100 --> 00:07:01,120 Why would you go this route? And 191 00:07:01,580 --> 00:07:04,160 I've seen this take off a lot with 192 00:07:04,300 --> 00:07:05,980 work from home. I think there's a lot 193 00:07:05,980 --> 00:07:08,379 of security benefits here, or there can be 194 00:07:08,379 --> 00:07:10,425 a lot of security benefits here as well, 195 00:07:10,824 --> 00:07:11,964 especially with 196 00:07:12,504 --> 00:07:14,764 external vendors. And I see 197 00:07:15,224 --> 00:07:17,544 this type of environment spun up a lot 198 00:07:17,544 --> 00:07:18,044 where 199 00:07:18,504 --> 00:07:20,185 you do have data in your environment or 200 00:07:20,185 --> 00:07:21,004 certain applications 201 00:07:21,784 --> 00:07:23,724 that you wanna protect because 202 00:07:24,279 --> 00:07:27,160 when you give users devices, typically, like, I 203 00:07:27,160 --> 00:07:29,079 have my laptop here, I have a desktop, 204 00:07:29,079 --> 00:07:31,160 whatever it is, if I'm going in and 205 00:07:31,160 --> 00:07:32,300 connecting to 206 00:07:32,600 --> 00:07:33,339 an application 207 00:07:33,879 --> 00:07:35,660 or I'm logging into 208 00:07:36,295 --> 00:07:38,955 Office three sixty five, to SharePoint, to OneDrive, 209 00:07:40,214 --> 00:07:42,214 I can take those files, I can copy 210 00:07:42,214 --> 00:07:44,555 them down to my machine potentially, 211 00:07:45,175 --> 00:07:48,074 or even from a network perspective, there is 212 00:07:48,694 --> 00:07:50,395 information that's going out 213 00:07:50,779 --> 00:07:52,939 over the network. Maybe you set a VPN, 214 00:07:52,939 --> 00:07:54,300 but then you have the VPN to deal 215 00:07:54,300 --> 00:07:56,620 with. When you get into this Azure Virtual 216 00:07:56,620 --> 00:07:57,600 Desktop environment, 217 00:07:57,900 --> 00:08:01,020 you stand up these hosts and the machines 218 00:08:01,020 --> 00:08:02,319 that are running this environment, 219 00:08:02,779 --> 00:08:05,935 really within your network. And because we're talking 220 00:08:05,935 --> 00:08:08,654 Azure, is you're setting this up within your 221 00:08:08,654 --> 00:08:09,475 Azure network, 222 00:08:10,014 --> 00:08:13,134 and now all that traffic is staying within 223 00:08:13,134 --> 00:08:15,314 that network, within that VNET or that particular 224 00:08:15,375 --> 00:08:17,714 subnet on Azure. You can control 225 00:08:18,610 --> 00:08:21,009 that those networking connections a little bit more 226 00:08:21,009 --> 00:08:24,550 from these machines, but these machines now aren't 227 00:08:24,610 --> 00:08:27,089 necessarily a machine someone can just walk away 228 00:08:27,089 --> 00:08:30,069 with or download data to. It's staying within, 229 00:08:30,449 --> 00:08:32,069 I would say, the the confines 230 00:08:32,534 --> 00:08:35,815 of your organization. Where they're remoting into machines 231 00:08:35,815 --> 00:08:36,714 in your organization, 232 00:08:37,254 --> 00:08:40,375 you can do things like prevent what they're 233 00:08:40,375 --> 00:08:43,014 allowed to copy and paste out of that 234 00:08:43,014 --> 00:08:44,794 machine, whether they're allowed to 235 00:08:45,174 --> 00:08:46,075 map different 236 00:08:46,610 --> 00:08:49,669 drives from their local machine up over this 237 00:08:49,809 --> 00:08:52,769 remote connection. From an RDP perspective, you're not 238 00:08:52,769 --> 00:08:54,690 opening up a public port. All of this 239 00:08:54,690 --> 00:08:57,829 happens over port four forty three, HTTPS, 240 00:08:58,815 --> 00:09:00,355 so there's not additional 241 00:09:00,735 --> 00:09:02,674 ports or networking considerations 242 00:09:02,975 --> 00:09:05,235 to take into effect in terms of 243 00:09:05,774 --> 00:09:06,274 where 244 00:09:06,735 --> 00:09:10,095 users can connect to these VMs from. You're 245 00:09:10,095 --> 00:09:11,855 not punching holes in your firewall to get 246 00:09:11,855 --> 00:09:14,360 to them. So I think some of those 247 00:09:14,360 --> 00:09:15,899 from that remote work perspective 248 00:09:16,360 --> 00:09:18,679 or if you have I've seen this too 249 00:09:18,679 --> 00:09:19,500 with contractors 250 00:09:20,039 --> 00:09:20,539 overseas. 251 00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:23,240 You have contractors in a different country than 252 00:09:23,240 --> 00:09:25,480 you are, and there are certain requirements there 253 00:09:25,480 --> 00:09:27,980 around maybe data being allowed to 254 00:09:28,495 --> 00:09:30,815 go over your network from one country to 255 00:09:30,815 --> 00:09:31,315 another 256 00:09:31,855 --> 00:09:34,335 with a VDI type environment because it's all 257 00:09:34,335 --> 00:09:36,335 in the same network. All that data, all 258 00:09:36,335 --> 00:09:37,955 that traffic can stay within 259 00:09:38,495 --> 00:09:40,815 that your home country, I would say. So 260 00:09:40,815 --> 00:09:42,950 it's not you're not, again, opening up that 261 00:09:42,950 --> 00:09:44,169 data to be traveling 262 00:09:44,629 --> 00:09:46,149 across the network to a whole bunch of 263 00:09:46,149 --> 00:09:49,190 different countries. The other use case and and, 264 00:09:49,190 --> 00:09:50,789 you know, I think there's the kind of 265 00:09:50,789 --> 00:09:52,710 the thin client and let me come in 266 00:09:52,710 --> 00:09:54,205 and get my desktop. But the other one 267 00:09:54,205 --> 00:09:56,684 that I use all the time is when 268 00:09:56,684 --> 00:09:58,225 I'm on my personal device 269 00:09:58,524 --> 00:10:01,164 and I don't have my work device near 270 00:10:01,164 --> 00:10:03,245 me. So if I'm just on my personal 271 00:10:03,245 --> 00:10:05,245 laptop and I don't have my work laptop 272 00:10:05,245 --> 00:10:06,845 near me, I still might need to get 273 00:10:06,845 --> 00:10:09,840 in and send an email or you know, 274 00:10:09,840 --> 00:10:10,820 check on something 275 00:10:11,360 --> 00:10:12,580 and go in and triage. 276 00:10:13,679 --> 00:10:16,000 And with my employer, all my devices need 277 00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:18,799 to be registered in MDM. So my personal 278 00:10:18,799 --> 00:10:21,440 laptop is not registered in MDM. Like, that's 279 00:10:21,440 --> 00:10:22,820 just not happening. 280 00:10:23,184 --> 00:10:25,264 So in that world, I also have access 281 00:10:25,264 --> 00:10:27,825 just to those virtual desktops, and it it's 282 00:10:27,825 --> 00:10:29,684 actually AVD that my employer uses 283 00:10:29,985 --> 00:10:31,504 to go ahead and get us out there 284 00:10:31,504 --> 00:10:33,024 and and get us quick access to that. 285 00:10:33,024 --> 00:10:34,865 So if I'm traveling, like this week, I'm 286 00:10:34,865 --> 00:10:36,629 on the West Coast, I can just hop 287 00:10:36,629 --> 00:10:38,070 in, you know, if I'm here in my 288 00:10:38,070 --> 00:10:39,990 hotel room on my personal laptop and not 289 00:10:39,990 --> 00:10:41,829 over in the office where my work one 290 00:10:41,829 --> 00:10:44,149 is, then I can still hop onto that 291 00:10:44,149 --> 00:10:45,429 desktop. You know, I can just go to 292 00:10:45,429 --> 00:10:48,695 the the West US AVD pool and start 293 00:10:48,695 --> 00:10:50,134 to hit that side. Or when I'm back 294 00:10:50,134 --> 00:10:51,735 home in Florida, I can hit the East 295 00:10:51,735 --> 00:10:53,415 US pool. If I travel to Europe, I 296 00:10:53,415 --> 00:10:54,875 can hit the European pool, 297 00:10:55,254 --> 00:10:58,215 Asia, things like that. So that's super helpful 298 00:10:58,215 --> 00:11:00,889 as well. And now that I think MMR 299 00:11:01,110 --> 00:11:02,709 is getting a little bit better and some 300 00:11:02,709 --> 00:11:05,269 of the camera pass through, mic pass through, 301 00:11:05,269 --> 00:11:07,929 things like that, it it smooths it out 302 00:11:08,069 --> 00:11:08,569 and 303 00:11:09,110 --> 00:11:11,529 generally makes it a little bit better. So 304 00:11:11,750 --> 00:11:13,190 kinda now that we've got an idea of 305 00:11:13,190 --> 00:11:14,709 the use cases, things like that, why don't 306 00:11:14,709 --> 00:11:16,875 we talk through some of the setup, what's 307 00:11:16,875 --> 00:11:19,434 involved, what you need to have? So what 308 00:11:19,434 --> 00:11:21,534 you need, you need an Azure subscription. 309 00:11:22,154 --> 00:11:24,654 Step one, get an Azure subscription. 310 00:11:25,034 --> 00:11:28,075 Yes. Azure subscription. You need some place to 311 00:11:28,075 --> 00:11:30,014 go deploy these VMs. 312 00:11:30,360 --> 00:11:31,980 Step two, you need 313 00:11:32,679 --> 00:11:33,500 some type 314 00:11:34,440 --> 00:11:37,559 of Active Directory environment. I would say one 315 00:11:37,559 --> 00:11:39,100 nice thing about 316 00:11:39,879 --> 00:11:42,360 AVD I don't know I haven't tried to 317 00:11:42,360 --> 00:11:44,440 do this with other VDI environments, but since 318 00:11:44,440 --> 00:11:45,419 we're talking AVD, 319 00:11:45,794 --> 00:11:47,095 you can use 320 00:11:47,394 --> 00:11:50,115 a traditional Active Directory where you're gonna have 321 00:11:50,115 --> 00:11:51,975 your domain controller up in the cloud, 322 00:11:52,595 --> 00:11:55,475 join them there. But you can also make 323 00:11:55,475 --> 00:11:59,090 these just entry joined. So if you don't 324 00:11:59,090 --> 00:12:01,110 have a typical domain controller 325 00:12:01,410 --> 00:12:03,830 and you just have Entra ID or Microsoft 326 00:12:03,889 --> 00:12:04,870 Entra ID, 327 00:12:05,410 --> 00:12:06,470 you can also 328 00:12:06,850 --> 00:12:07,350 join 329 00:12:07,809 --> 00:12:08,309 these 330 00:12:08,769 --> 00:12:11,169 servers, these hosts that are using to power 331 00:12:11,169 --> 00:12:14,394 ABD straight to Entra. So you are going 332 00:12:14,394 --> 00:12:16,334 to need either Entra ID 333 00:12:16,794 --> 00:12:19,754 or a and to be honest, if you 334 00:12:19,754 --> 00:12:21,595 have an Azure subscription, you're gonna have Entra 335 00:12:21,595 --> 00:12:23,115 ID, so you better have one or the 336 00:12:23,115 --> 00:12:24,875 other of those or both of them. You 337 00:12:24,875 --> 00:12:26,014 also need a network. 338 00:12:26,319 --> 00:12:28,500 So you are going to need that VNet 339 00:12:28,639 --> 00:12:30,879 set up in Azure that you can join 340 00:12:30,879 --> 00:12:32,259 these machines to. 341 00:12:32,559 --> 00:12:33,059 Obviously, 342 00:12:33,440 --> 00:12:34,899 if you're using AD, 343 00:12:35,279 --> 00:12:37,360 whatever network is gonna have to have line 344 00:12:37,360 --> 00:12:38,659 of sight to 345 00:12:39,120 --> 00:12:40,659 between your ABD 346 00:12:41,235 --> 00:12:42,455 environment, your, 347 00:12:43,075 --> 00:12:45,235 that ABD network and your the network that 348 00:12:45,235 --> 00:12:47,554 your domain is in. And really to get 349 00:12:47,554 --> 00:12:48,054 started, 350 00:12:48,674 --> 00:12:51,154 oh, you need a Microsoft three sixty five 351 00:12:51,154 --> 00:12:51,654 subscription 352 00:12:52,115 --> 00:12:53,575 or some way to license 353 00:12:54,209 --> 00:12:55,809 Windows. And I don't know if we wanna 354 00:12:55,809 --> 00:12:59,009 get into pricing or not yet, but you 355 00:12:59,009 --> 00:13:00,929 do need to have Windows licenses. And if 356 00:13:00,929 --> 00:13:03,009 you are running, like, a Microsoft three sixty 357 00:13:03,009 --> 00:13:04,470 five e three or e five, 358 00:13:05,009 --> 00:13:06,149 those licenses 359 00:13:06,714 --> 00:13:09,674 include Windows, and they include the Windows license 360 00:13:09,674 --> 00:13:10,575 for your users 361 00:13:11,034 --> 00:13:11,534 for, 362 00:13:12,235 --> 00:13:15,115 ABD. So your cost is going to be 363 00:13:15,115 --> 00:13:17,195 the hardware for these hosts, but you're not 364 00:13:17,195 --> 00:13:19,570 gonna have to worry about, again, going back 365 00:13:19,570 --> 00:13:20,929 to on prem days where you're worried about, 366 00:13:20,929 --> 00:13:24,049 like, terminal server licensing or Windows licensing for 367 00:13:24,049 --> 00:13:24,710 the server. 368 00:13:25,250 --> 00:13:26,929 That's all gonna be included with that Microsoft 369 00:13:26,929 --> 00:13:28,950 three sixty five license. Some of the licensing 370 00:13:29,089 --> 00:13:31,250 constructs are a little bit weird. So I 371 00:13:31,250 --> 00:13:32,690 think it's a good call out that, yes, 372 00:13:32,690 --> 00:13:34,070 you have to have Windows licensing, 373 00:13:34,615 --> 00:13:36,295 But let's hold off for a couple minutes 374 00:13:36,295 --> 00:13:38,134 and we can kind of talk AVD cost 375 00:13:38,134 --> 00:13:40,695 and estimation and things like that. Because Windows 376 00:13:40,695 --> 00:13:43,254 licensing is almost its own certification on the 377 00:13:43,254 --> 00:13:44,774 side to go out and figure out where 378 00:13:44,774 --> 00:13:46,375 you're going to pick that up from. But 379 00:13:46,375 --> 00:13:48,529 it's definitely consideration for you. Yeah. You have 380 00:13:48,529 --> 00:13:51,590 to think about the operating system, the applications 381 00:13:51,889 --> 00:13:53,429 that are gonna be deployed there. 382 00:13:54,049 --> 00:13:55,330 And you would have done this in any 383 00:13:55,330 --> 00:13:57,190 other VDI environment as well. 384 00:13:58,210 --> 00:14:00,235 Do I even have the rights or the 385 00:14:00,235 --> 00:14:02,554 ability with the vendors that I contract with 386 00:14:02,554 --> 00:14:04,314 to be able to run that software on 387 00:14:04,314 --> 00:14:06,554 a remote desktop? How is it licensed? You 388 00:14:06,554 --> 00:14:09,034 know, does does that piece of software require 389 00:14:09,034 --> 00:14:10,794 a little USB key to be plugged in 390 00:14:10,794 --> 00:14:13,115 the whole time? Well, like, that's maybe not 391 00:14:13,115 --> 00:14:15,115 gonna work for you in this scenario kind 392 00:14:15,115 --> 00:14:17,649 of thing. So you do have to walk 393 00:14:17,649 --> 00:14:20,049 through and and think through that as well. 394 00:14:20,049 --> 00:14:21,889 I would imagine most folks who are looking 395 00:14:21,889 --> 00:14:22,870 at a 396 00:14:23,250 --> 00:14:26,549 remote desktop solution or or a virtual desktop 397 00:14:26,690 --> 00:14:27,190 solution, 398 00:14:27,570 --> 00:14:29,570 they've kind of already worked through this in 399 00:14:29,570 --> 00:14:31,169 on prem land. Like, I see a lot 400 00:14:31,169 --> 00:14:33,784 of folks who are going to cloud. And 401 00:14:33,784 --> 00:14:36,284 then, you know, the cloud first ones, 402 00:14:36,825 --> 00:14:38,424 you know, a lot of them, I think, 403 00:14:38,424 --> 00:14:40,184 for probably for the better or for them, 404 00:14:40,184 --> 00:14:42,184 just end up in the more out of 405 00:14:42,184 --> 00:14:44,284 the box, sassy kind of solutions, 406 00:14:44,949 --> 00:14:47,589 you know, like Windows desktop, like Windows three 407 00:14:47,589 --> 00:14:50,309 sixty five desktop. I would agree. So that's 408 00:14:50,309 --> 00:14:52,230 really I mean, once you have that, that's 409 00:14:52,230 --> 00:14:53,829 all you need to get started. And I 410 00:14:53,829 --> 00:14:57,049 would my opinion, to just stand up a 411 00:14:57,605 --> 00:15:00,324 small ABD environment. Get a couple servers up 412 00:15:00,324 --> 00:15:02,084 there, get it running to the point where 413 00:15:02,084 --> 00:15:03,924 you can log in. Once you have those 414 00:15:03,924 --> 00:15:04,824 things in place, 415 00:15:05,125 --> 00:15:06,345 it's pretty straightforward. 416 00:15:06,804 --> 00:15:09,764 It can get complicated quickly depending as you 417 00:15:09,764 --> 00:15:11,125 scale it out and all of that. There's 418 00:15:11,125 --> 00:15:13,259 lots of different buttons. But once you have 419 00:15:13,259 --> 00:15:13,759 those, 420 00:15:14,220 --> 00:15:16,379 there's just a couple things to create, and 421 00:15:16,379 --> 00:15:17,919 you can be up and running with ABD. 422 00:15:17,980 --> 00:15:20,220 Do we wanna start diving through, like, now 423 00:15:20,220 --> 00:15:22,220 you have those in place, steps to go 424 00:15:22,220 --> 00:15:24,220 stand up ABD? So we should probably start 425 00:15:24,220 --> 00:15:27,375 with host pools and session hosts. So I 426 00:15:27,375 --> 00:15:28,815 was on the fence. I'm like, do you 427 00:15:28,815 --> 00:15:30,894 start with host pools or do you start 428 00:15:30,894 --> 00:15:31,634 with workspaces? 429 00:15:32,254 --> 00:15:32,754 Because 430 00:15:33,455 --> 00:15:35,955 the I would say the first thing you 431 00:15:36,095 --> 00:15:37,774 go in and create because I think you 432 00:15:37,774 --> 00:15:39,315 can get all the way through a workspace 433 00:15:39,455 --> 00:15:40,335 without any 434 00:15:40,975 --> 00:15:42,389 yeah. The first thing you need is a 435 00:15:42,389 --> 00:15:44,570 workspace. We're gonna start with that. So 436 00:15:45,110 --> 00:15:47,509 a workspace is where these different and I'm 437 00:15:47,509 --> 00:15:48,970 gonna call them applications 438 00:15:49,350 --> 00:15:49,850 live. 439 00:15:50,549 --> 00:15:51,450 But applications 440 00:15:51,830 --> 00:15:54,570 groups or applications that live within a workspace 441 00:15:55,014 --> 00:15:58,375 could be a desktop environment, that RDP type 442 00:15:58,375 --> 00:16:00,615 of session, or it could be those individual 443 00:16:00,615 --> 00:16:01,115 applications. 444 00:16:01,815 --> 00:16:03,894 So, really, what a workspace is is you're 445 00:16:03,894 --> 00:16:05,414 gonna go in and you're gonna pick a 446 00:16:05,414 --> 00:16:07,995 subscription and a resource group for this workspace, 447 00:16:08,639 --> 00:16:11,040 give it a workspace name, give it a 448 00:16:11,040 --> 00:16:13,200 friendly name. So this is what people are 449 00:16:13,200 --> 00:16:15,840 going to see when they go log in 450 00:16:15,840 --> 00:16:16,340 to 451 00:16:16,800 --> 00:16:19,040 the ABD environment. So like you said, Scott, 452 00:16:19,040 --> 00:16:20,639 when you're in Europe, when you're out on 453 00:16:20,639 --> 00:16:22,875 the West Coast, the East Coast, you may 454 00:16:22,875 --> 00:16:25,375 have a workspace that is 455 00:16:26,075 --> 00:16:26,575 based 456 00:16:27,355 --> 00:16:31,054 on East Coast, West Coast, Europe, etcetera, because 457 00:16:31,595 --> 00:16:33,754 one thing you do in addition to the 458 00:16:33,754 --> 00:16:36,209 name and the subscription is give it the 459 00:16:36,209 --> 00:16:36,709 location 460 00:16:37,329 --> 00:16:40,070 where this particular workspace is gonna live. What 461 00:16:40,129 --> 00:16:42,370 region, East US, East US 2, West US, 462 00:16:42,370 --> 00:16:43,669 etcetera. And 463 00:16:44,049 --> 00:16:46,629 once you have kind of this workspace defined, 464 00:16:47,009 --> 00:16:49,009 you can choose at that point in time 465 00:16:49,009 --> 00:16:51,014 to go create one of these application groups. 466 00:16:52,615 --> 00:16:54,774 Applications are gonna live there. If not, you 467 00:16:54,774 --> 00:16:57,014 can just go through, and that's really all 468 00:16:57,014 --> 00:16:59,195 you need is just that default workspace. 469 00:16:59,654 --> 00:17:00,794 After the workspace, 470 00:17:01,654 --> 00:17:04,429 it's kind of a toss-up here because then 471 00:17:04,429 --> 00:17:07,150 you need application groups and you need host 472 00:17:07,150 --> 00:17:09,710 pools. The next thing you're probably gonna wanna 473 00:17:09,710 --> 00:17:11,730 do is that host pool after workspace. 474 00:17:12,269 --> 00:17:15,404 So a host pool is going to be 475 00:17:15,644 --> 00:17:17,565 exactly that. You're gonna say this is a 476 00:17:17,565 --> 00:17:20,224 pool of hosts, a pool of VMs 477 00:17:20,525 --> 00:17:22,545 that are gonna power the different applications, 478 00:17:23,404 --> 00:17:25,025 or the different RDP sessions 479 00:17:25,325 --> 00:17:26,465 within my environment. 480 00:17:27,005 --> 00:17:29,005 So once you have that workspace, you can 481 00:17:29,005 --> 00:17:31,200 go in and same type of thing, you 482 00:17:31,200 --> 00:17:33,859 pick your subscription, you pick your resource group, 483 00:17:33,920 --> 00:17:35,539 you give your host pool a name. 484 00:17:36,319 --> 00:17:38,319 The workspace can be different than the host 485 00:17:38,319 --> 00:17:40,240 pool. So the host pool here, you also 486 00:17:40,240 --> 00:17:42,799 pick a location for, and then you're going 487 00:17:42,799 --> 00:17:45,105 to pick, is this going to be a 488 00:17:45,105 --> 00:17:46,404 host pool that hosts 489 00:17:46,785 --> 00:17:47,285 remote 490 00:17:47,585 --> 00:17:50,545 desktop sessions where people are logging in, or 491 00:17:50,545 --> 00:17:52,625 is this host pool going to host remote 492 00:17:52,625 --> 00:17:55,184 apps? So this is one scenario you can't, 493 00:17:55,184 --> 00:17:57,505 like, mix and match within a host pool. 494 00:17:57,904 --> 00:17:59,799 You pick one or the other. And this 495 00:17:59,799 --> 00:18:00,619 is where workspaces 496 00:18:00,920 --> 00:18:02,059 can come into place 497 00:18:02,759 --> 00:18:05,019 is you could create a host pool for 498 00:18:05,240 --> 00:18:07,400 desktops and a host pool for those remote 499 00:18:07,400 --> 00:18:10,140 apps, launching your Office apps, Firefox, etcetera, 500 00:18:10,519 --> 00:18:12,599 and put them within the same workspace so 501 00:18:12,599 --> 00:18:15,285 that even though you have these different pools 502 00:18:15,285 --> 00:18:17,305 on the back end running your resources, 503 00:18:17,924 --> 00:18:20,644 for your end users, they show up in 504 00:18:20,644 --> 00:18:22,105 a single workspace 505 00:18:22,565 --> 00:18:24,805 and give it a cohesive look for your 506 00:18:24,805 --> 00:18:25,545 end users. 507 00:18:26,180 --> 00:18:28,420 So you're gonna pick that type. Are these 508 00:18:28,420 --> 00:18:29,640 desktops or applications? 509 00:18:30,420 --> 00:18:31,079 And then 510 00:18:31,380 --> 00:18:32,980 do you want this host pool? You have 511 00:18:32,980 --> 00:18:34,740 two different types of host pools that you 512 00:18:34,740 --> 00:18:36,579 can set up. You can set up a 513 00:18:36,579 --> 00:18:39,619 pooled host pool where it's really just taking 514 00:18:39,619 --> 00:18:40,599 a bunch of resources, 515 00:18:41,125 --> 00:18:42,984 pooling all those resources together, 516 00:18:43,365 --> 00:18:45,525 and as users log in, they just draw 517 00:18:45,525 --> 00:18:47,224 from this pool of resources. 518 00:18:47,605 --> 00:18:49,765 The other option is personal, and this gets 519 00:18:49,765 --> 00:18:51,605 into if you wanna kinda host more of 520 00:18:51,605 --> 00:18:53,784 like your own cloud PC type of environment 521 00:18:54,244 --> 00:18:55,384 where a 522 00:18:55,799 --> 00:18:57,980 host is tied to a specific individual. 523 00:18:58,519 --> 00:19:00,279 So if we were creating one for the 524 00:19:00,279 --> 00:19:02,759 podcast, Scott, and we did personal, I would 525 00:19:02,759 --> 00:19:04,039 have to go in and stand up a 526 00:19:04,039 --> 00:19:05,799 host for you and a host for me, 527 00:19:05,799 --> 00:19:06,940 and then I pick 528 00:19:07,320 --> 00:19:09,634 Scott gets this host, Ben gets this host. 529 00:19:09,634 --> 00:19:11,255 So instead of pulling from 530 00:19:11,954 --> 00:19:14,775 a conglomeration of resources in a pooled scenario, 531 00:19:14,914 --> 00:19:16,454 we get our own dedicated 532 00:19:16,994 --> 00:19:19,315 resources. And then from there, you're gonna go 533 00:19:19,315 --> 00:19:21,394 pick how many virtual machines do you wanna 534 00:19:21,394 --> 00:19:24,059 add. And from this this point in time, 535 00:19:24,059 --> 00:19:25,740 it's a lot like just standing up a 536 00:19:25,740 --> 00:19:28,559 virtual machine in Azure. You're gonna go 537 00:19:28,940 --> 00:19:30,700 have a few unique things. You're gonna have 538 00:19:30,700 --> 00:19:33,359 the resource group. You're gonna have the prefix 539 00:19:33,579 --> 00:19:35,119 that you use for session hosts. 540 00:19:35,625 --> 00:19:38,204 So naming your servers. And 541 00:19:38,505 --> 00:19:40,105 this is a little bit unique is that 542 00:19:40,105 --> 00:19:42,184 you don't pick the full name. You pick 543 00:19:42,184 --> 00:19:46,424 a prefix, and then it'll start appending 0123456 544 00:19:46,424 --> 00:19:48,265 on up as you create additional hosts in 545 00:19:48,265 --> 00:19:50,500 your host pool. I so think through that 546 00:19:50,500 --> 00:19:52,900 prefix. Know that it's gonna start adding numbers 547 00:19:52,900 --> 00:19:55,000 to it, so you do have a limited 548 00:19:55,460 --> 00:19:58,500 number of characters. I believe it's 11 that 549 00:19:58,500 --> 00:19:59,640 you can use 550 00:20:00,259 --> 00:20:01,640 because it starts 551 00:20:02,005 --> 00:20:04,005 appending other things to it. I was just 552 00:20:04,005 --> 00:20:06,964 looking ten, eleven. That's 11. Length of 11 553 00:20:06,964 --> 00:20:07,865 for your prefix. 554 00:20:08,484 --> 00:20:11,204 Then you can go pick your virtual machine 555 00:20:11,204 --> 00:20:12,744 settings, regions, availability 556 00:20:13,125 --> 00:20:13,625 zones, 557 00:20:14,320 --> 00:20:15,619 secure boot, TPM, 558 00:20:16,080 --> 00:20:18,980 your disk images, your size of your VMs, 559 00:20:19,279 --> 00:20:21,039 how many you wanna create. So if you're 560 00:20:21,039 --> 00:20:22,559 creating a big host pool and you wanna 561 00:20:22,559 --> 00:20:24,640 create 10 or 15 at a time, you 562 00:20:24,640 --> 00:20:26,820 can do that. OS disks, networking, 563 00:20:27,519 --> 00:20:29,779 domain settings to join the domain, 564 00:20:30,375 --> 00:20:31,994 virtual machine admin account, 565 00:20:32,695 --> 00:20:34,394 get a lot of your normal, 566 00:20:35,654 --> 00:20:37,755 VM settings. With the images, 567 00:20:38,214 --> 00:20:39,115 I would say 568 00:20:39,654 --> 00:20:42,055 look at what images are out there. You 569 00:20:42,055 --> 00:20:43,195 have your 570 00:20:43,509 --> 00:20:46,390 typical Windows seven, Windows 11 or Windows Server, 571 00:20:46,390 --> 00:20:47,210 Windows 11 572 00:20:47,669 --> 00:20:49,450 images. But a lot of times in ABD, 573 00:20:49,750 --> 00:20:51,609 especially if you're doing these 574 00:20:52,150 --> 00:20:54,890 pooled resources and multiple people sharing a VM, 575 00:20:55,190 --> 00:20:57,509 there is a very specific image out there 576 00:20:57,509 --> 00:21:00,894 from Microsoft, the Windows multi session image. 577 00:21:01,195 --> 00:21:04,075 And there's also a multi session with your 578 00:21:04,075 --> 00:21:06,714 Microsoft three sixty five apps. So if you're 579 00:21:06,714 --> 00:21:08,494 standing up that environment 580 00:21:09,115 --> 00:21:11,994 and you are gonna have pool resources, you're 581 00:21:11,994 --> 00:21:14,279 gonna be using Microsoft three sixty five, you 582 00:21:14,279 --> 00:21:16,700 wanna make sure you're grabbing this multi session 583 00:21:17,080 --> 00:21:19,019 image from the marketplace 584 00:21:19,640 --> 00:21:21,720 because Microsoft has done a lot of work 585 00:21:21,720 --> 00:21:23,420 in there to optimize that 586 00:21:23,720 --> 00:21:24,539 certain configurations 587 00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:28,005 around your desktop applications to ensure that those 588 00:21:28,005 --> 00:21:29,944 work well within multi session. 589 00:21:30,404 --> 00:21:32,964 So if you go, like, just grab the 590 00:21:32,964 --> 00:21:34,984 default Windows 11 or Windows 10, 591 00:21:35,365 --> 00:21:38,164 and you're doing that multi session type scenario, 592 00:21:38,164 --> 00:21:39,144 you could run into 593 00:21:39,690 --> 00:21:40,990 several different issues. 594 00:21:41,929 --> 00:21:43,289 The other thing you can do is you 595 00:21:43,289 --> 00:21:45,369 can do custom images. You can go do 596 00:21:45,369 --> 00:21:47,549 your own shared images, your own 597 00:21:47,929 --> 00:21:48,829 golden images. 598 00:21:49,130 --> 00:21:51,369 There's guidance around how to do all that. 599 00:21:51,369 --> 00:21:53,369 If you're gonna go that route, same thing. 600 00:21:53,369 --> 00:21:56,214 Make sure that you're starting with that multi 601 00:21:56,214 --> 00:21:58,694 session image in Azure and creating your own 602 00:21:58,694 --> 00:22:01,575 customized golden image from there. Just, again, to 603 00:22:01,575 --> 00:22:04,214 help with that. I wonder which path you 604 00:22:04,214 --> 00:22:06,694 go down given you've done this with, you 605 00:22:06,694 --> 00:22:08,795 know, a couple customers on your side. 606 00:22:09,150 --> 00:22:10,769 Do you kinda recommend 607 00:22:11,150 --> 00:22:13,809 the image path? Or do you recommend 608 00:22:14,509 --> 00:22:15,009 the 609 00:22:15,549 --> 00:22:17,309 let's go with an out of the box 610 00:22:17,309 --> 00:22:19,809 marketplace image? Like you said, it's gonna be 611 00:22:19,869 --> 00:22:22,509 kinda bootstrapped and configured and have that good 612 00:22:22,509 --> 00:22:24,450 known configuration for, say, 613 00:22:24,964 --> 00:22:25,785 multi session 614 00:22:26,484 --> 00:22:29,525 teams, right, and and everything tweaked and and 615 00:22:29,525 --> 00:22:30,964 ready to go in that image. And then 616 00:22:30,964 --> 00:22:32,964 doing post deployment because I, you know, I 617 00:22:32,964 --> 00:22:34,484 could be jumping the gun a little bit, 618 00:22:34,484 --> 00:22:36,404 but one of the things that happens here 619 00:22:36,404 --> 00:22:40,619 as well is you can manage these environments 620 00:22:40,619 --> 00:22:42,220 and these units of compute. You know, you 621 00:22:42,220 --> 00:22:44,320 said resources a bunch of times. I'm just 622 00:22:44,460 --> 00:22:45,980 thinking in the back of my head. Units 623 00:22:45,980 --> 00:22:47,820 of compute. Units of compute. Units of compute. 624 00:22:47,820 --> 00:22:49,680 I'm spinning up VMs and disks 625 00:22:50,299 --> 00:22:51,974 and things like that behind it. But you 626 00:22:51,974 --> 00:22:54,295 can also manage all that with Intune. Which 627 00:22:54,295 --> 00:22:55,755 means you also get 628 00:22:56,134 --> 00:22:56,795 the management 629 00:22:57,494 --> 00:22:58,795 kind of plane and 630 00:22:59,255 --> 00:23:01,174 tasks and the ability to push things out 631 00:23:01,174 --> 00:23:03,654 of Intune that come from that stack. So 632 00:23:03,654 --> 00:23:05,460 you can also do a lot of your 633 00:23:05,700 --> 00:23:07,720 post configuration as far as, like, 634 00:23:08,019 --> 00:23:10,339 boot of a host comes up and does 635 00:23:10,339 --> 00:23:12,099 this. Well, let me go ahead and pull 636 00:23:12,099 --> 00:23:14,599 these things down for this period of time. 637 00:23:14,659 --> 00:23:16,980 And that can get into the weirdness, like 638 00:23:16,980 --> 00:23:18,579 you said, of what type of host pool 639 00:23:18,579 --> 00:23:20,765 is it. Is it a user host pool? 640 00:23:20,765 --> 00:23:21,585 Is it a big 641 00:23:22,044 --> 00:23:24,605 shared pool where we're doing multi session and 642 00:23:24,605 --> 00:23:26,684 and those kinds of things. But you can 643 00:23:26,684 --> 00:23:28,765 kinda have your cake and eat it too. 644 00:23:28,765 --> 00:23:31,105 It's just you have to think through everything 645 00:23:31,325 --> 00:23:33,140 end to end because there's a bunch of 646 00:23:33,140 --> 00:23:35,140 moving pieces in there between how the host 647 00:23:35,140 --> 00:23:37,380 pools compose, what the underlying units of compute 648 00:23:37,380 --> 00:23:39,539 are. There's a lot of granularity, like you 649 00:23:39,539 --> 00:23:41,539 said, even down to your deployment types because 650 00:23:41,539 --> 00:23:43,859 you're deploying VMs. Like, what zones do these 651 00:23:43,859 --> 00:23:44,519 go into? 652 00:23:45,005 --> 00:23:46,285 What does that look like and how does 653 00:23:46,285 --> 00:23:48,125 it all spin up? But then, yeah, you 654 00:23:48,125 --> 00:23:50,285 know, if it's one less thing to worry 655 00:23:50,285 --> 00:23:52,285 about, I think, if you don't have to 656 00:23:52,285 --> 00:23:54,125 manage images, then you can just use the 657 00:23:54,125 --> 00:23:56,365 out of the box marketplace stuff and do 658 00:23:56,365 --> 00:23:59,779 post deployment, post boot, you know, think through 659 00:23:59,779 --> 00:24:02,259 your roaming profiles and and all those kinds 660 00:24:02,259 --> 00:24:04,500 of things as well and and get your 661 00:24:04,500 --> 00:24:06,359 environments up that way. Yes. 662 00:24:10,420 --> 00:24:12,579 Do you feel overwhelmed by trying to manage 663 00:24:12,579 --> 00:24:14,875 your Office three sixty five environment? Are you 664 00:24:14,875 --> 00:24:18,174 facing unexpected issues that disrupt your company's productivity? 665 00:24:18,474 --> 00:24:20,394 Intelligink is here to help. Much like you 666 00:24:20,394 --> 00:24:22,234 take your car to the mechanic that has 667 00:24:22,234 --> 00:24:24,394 specialized knowledge on how to best keep your 668 00:24:24,394 --> 00:24:27,434 car running, Intelligink helps you with your Microsoft 669 00:24:27,434 --> 00:24:29,694 cloud environment because that's their expertise. 670 00:24:30,230 --> 00:24:32,390 Intelligent keeps up with the latest updates in 671 00:24:32,390 --> 00:24:34,549 the Microsoft cloud to help keep your business 672 00:24:34,549 --> 00:24:36,789 running smoothly and ahead of the curve. Whether 673 00:24:36,789 --> 00:24:38,869 you are a small organization with just a 674 00:24:38,869 --> 00:24:41,269 few users up to an organization of several 675 00:24:41,269 --> 00:24:41,769 thousand 676 00:24:42,325 --> 00:24:44,244 employees. They want to partner with you to 677 00:24:44,244 --> 00:24:45,384 implement and administer 678 00:24:45,684 --> 00:24:47,384 your Microsoft cloud technology. 679 00:24:48,085 --> 00:24:51,625 Visit them at inteliginc.com/podcast. 680 00:24:51,924 --> 00:24:58,640 That's intelligink.com/podcast 681 00:24:59,019 --> 00:25:01,180 for more information or to schedule a thirty 682 00:25:01,180 --> 00:25:03,279 minute call to get started with them today. 683 00:25:03,500 --> 00:25:06,859 Remember, Intelligink focuses on the Microsoft cloud so 684 00:25:06,859 --> 00:25:08,559 you can focus on your business. 685 00:25:10,859 --> 00:25:13,295 So I do the marketplace image as much 686 00:25:13,295 --> 00:25:15,795 as I can. I do have one client 687 00:25:16,335 --> 00:25:16,835 where 688 00:25:17,295 --> 00:25:19,695 we created a golden image and did the 689 00:25:19,695 --> 00:25:21,875 custom image. Again, I started 690 00:25:22,335 --> 00:25:25,390 from that multi session image to build the 691 00:25:25,390 --> 00:25:27,329 custom one. And I would say, 692 00:25:28,349 --> 00:25:29,329 again, it depends. 693 00:25:29,869 --> 00:25:32,349 Like you said, multisession is great. Part of 694 00:25:32,349 --> 00:25:34,269 what I would say you run into with 695 00:25:34,269 --> 00:25:36,769 just doing Intune and just doing post deployment 696 00:25:37,230 --> 00:25:37,730 is, 697 00:25:38,095 --> 00:25:40,674 one, can you get Intune to do 698 00:25:41,134 --> 00:25:41,634 everything 699 00:25:41,934 --> 00:25:42,674 you need? 700 00:25:42,975 --> 00:25:44,914 So certain applications can 701 00:25:45,215 --> 00:25:46,275 be very complex 702 00:25:46,654 --> 00:25:48,595 to get set up with Intune and deploy 703 00:25:48,894 --> 00:25:50,894 if there's more than just, like, run an 704 00:25:50,894 --> 00:25:52,140 MSI to get it there. 705 00:25:53,339 --> 00:25:54,799 The other thing Microsoft 706 00:25:55,180 --> 00:25:57,660 does still recommend, and if you think about 707 00:25:57,660 --> 00:26:00,299 it, it does kinda make sense, is not 708 00:26:00,299 --> 00:26:02,539 to turn on the auto updating in your 709 00:26:02,539 --> 00:26:03,440 Windows updates. 710 00:26:04,220 --> 00:26:06,059 You can do, like, the security updates, but 711 00:26:06,059 --> 00:26:08,404 you still wanna be careful with feature updates. 712 00:26:08,865 --> 00:26:10,644 Even some of the other patching, 713 00:26:11,505 --> 00:26:13,765 think through the whole whole host pool scenario 714 00:26:13,904 --> 00:26:14,404 where 715 00:26:14,784 --> 00:26:15,845 if you have 716 00:26:16,304 --> 00:26:18,884 a pool of 50 different virtual machines, 717 00:26:19,265 --> 00:26:19,765 and 718 00:26:20,144 --> 00:26:23,460 because it's pooled, a user could log out 719 00:26:23,460 --> 00:26:24,680 and log in to 720 00:26:24,980 --> 00:26:27,160 log out, log in again the same day, 721 00:26:27,220 --> 00:26:29,140 and end up on a completely different host 722 00:26:29,140 --> 00:26:31,000 than they were on fifteen minutes before. 723 00:26:31,539 --> 00:26:32,519 So if your 724 00:26:32,980 --> 00:26:33,480 machines 725 00:26:33,974 --> 00:26:34,474 aren't 726 00:26:35,335 --> 00:26:35,994 all identical, 727 00:26:36,615 --> 00:26:38,234 you could, in theory, 728 00:26:38,615 --> 00:26:41,494 end up with weird things, especially if you're 729 00:26:41,494 --> 00:26:43,515 doing the whole roaming profiles in FSLogix 730 00:26:44,535 --> 00:26:47,240 where, like I think of Teams for an 731 00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:49,399 example. Teams does not install in program files 732 00:26:49,399 --> 00:26:51,480 anymore. It does some weird stuff with what 733 00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:52,700 it puts in a user's 734 00:26:53,159 --> 00:26:55,720 app data or app data. So if you're, 735 00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:57,559 like, have a roaming profile and you end 736 00:26:57,559 --> 00:26:59,319 up with two different versions of Teams on 737 00:26:59,319 --> 00:27:00,220 different machines, 738 00:27:00,654 --> 00:27:03,474 different things with browsers, like, all those different 739 00:27:03,934 --> 00:27:06,174 things you think about that if you go 740 00:27:06,174 --> 00:27:09,134 to a different machine and something's mismatched where 741 00:27:09,134 --> 00:27:11,855 problems could arise. So there is, I would 742 00:27:11,855 --> 00:27:13,855 say, an aspect that's nice to doing a 743 00:27:13,855 --> 00:27:14,755 custom image 744 00:27:15,055 --> 00:27:15,555 that 745 00:27:16,220 --> 00:27:17,599 certain things you control. 746 00:27:17,900 --> 00:27:19,200 And when it's time 747 00:27:19,980 --> 00:27:22,059 to do certain updates, you just do a 748 00:27:22,059 --> 00:27:24,000 refresh of the image and 749 00:27:24,539 --> 00:27:25,359 start there. 750 00:27:25,660 --> 00:27:27,500 But like you said, there are certain things 751 00:27:27,500 --> 00:27:29,580 you can manage with Intune, certain applications you 752 00:27:29,580 --> 00:27:30,880 can install with Intune. 753 00:27:31,944 --> 00:27:33,384 So I end up with that weird mix 754 00:27:33,384 --> 00:27:34,444 of certain applications. 755 00:27:34,744 --> 00:27:36,825 Absolutely. I just push them down from Intune. 756 00:27:36,825 --> 00:27:37,944 I don't worry about putting them in the 757 00:27:37,944 --> 00:27:40,825 global image. Adobe Reader is a great one. 758 00:27:40,825 --> 00:27:43,304 Push Adobe Reader down from Intune. Your Office 759 00:27:43,304 --> 00:27:43,804 applications, 760 00:27:44,424 --> 00:27:46,679 those are bundled in the image. What other 761 00:27:46,679 --> 00:27:49,000 ones? Firefox. I think they tend to push 762 00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:51,179 different browsers down through Intune. 763 00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:53,559 But, yeah, there's other things and other scenarios 764 00:27:53,559 --> 00:27:55,399 where you absolutely still end up doing custom 765 00:27:55,399 --> 00:27:57,319 images. That felt like a really long answer. 766 00:27:57,319 --> 00:27:58,919 Yeah. Well, I mean, you can also mix 767 00:27:58,919 --> 00:27:59,884 and match. So 768 00:28:01,065 --> 00:28:03,305 you can do both along the way. You 769 00:28:03,305 --> 00:28:05,704 know, I think image management used to be 770 00:28:05,704 --> 00:28:07,644 a lot easier when it was all local. 771 00:28:07,945 --> 00:28:10,025 And you could kind of do everything in 772 00:28:10,025 --> 00:28:12,025 your local hypervisor and then just load it 773 00:28:12,025 --> 00:28:12,924 into your environment. 774 00:28:13,950 --> 00:28:16,509 And managing Azure images in general is a 775 00:28:16,509 --> 00:28:18,349 little bit different. Like, there's a different set 776 00:28:18,349 --> 00:28:20,369 of drivers and considerations 777 00:28:20,750 --> 00:28:22,589 and how you might wanna think about even, 778 00:28:22,589 --> 00:28:24,990 you know, just monitoring VM health and things 779 00:28:24,990 --> 00:28:27,115 like that that end up on those. So 780 00:28:27,115 --> 00:28:28,714 it's not something where you kinda walk in 781 00:28:28,714 --> 00:28:30,474 and you go, it's just the way I 782 00:28:30,474 --> 00:28:32,794 did it on prem. It's it's different. And 783 00:28:32,794 --> 00:28:35,194 I think you're better served by kinda thinking 784 00:28:35,194 --> 00:28:36,875 about it as different. Like, if you're not 785 00:28:36,875 --> 00:28:38,875 in this world today or you're coming in 786 00:28:38,875 --> 00:28:40,399 and you're like, you know, I just just 787 00:28:40,399 --> 00:28:42,099 do golden images today and it's fine. 788 00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:44,399 You might wanna rethink that and take some 789 00:28:44,399 --> 00:28:46,640 time and plan through it because it might 790 00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:48,559 not be the fit for everything along the 791 00:28:48,559 --> 00:28:50,640 way. So before we leave the kind of 792 00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:51,919 compute side of it, I think the other 793 00:28:51,919 --> 00:28:54,434 thing that's important to mention is these are 794 00:28:54,434 --> 00:28:56,275 units of compute that get spun up. These 795 00:28:56,275 --> 00:28:57,414 are virtual machines. 796 00:28:57,875 --> 00:28:59,174 So they consume 797 00:28:59,554 --> 00:29:03,414 CPU. They potentially consume GPU. They consume disks. 798 00:29:03,714 --> 00:29:05,154 So that means you need to have quota 799 00:29:05,154 --> 00:29:07,230 for all those things as well. Like, I 800 00:29:07,230 --> 00:29:08,450 can't stand up 801 00:29:08,910 --> 00:29:09,569 a 50, 802 00:29:10,389 --> 00:29:11,329 a 50 803 00:29:11,710 --> 00:29:13,089 VM host pool 804 00:29:13,390 --> 00:29:16,190 if I don't have access to, you know, 805 00:29:16,190 --> 00:29:17,490 those hundred CPUs 806 00:29:17,789 --> 00:29:19,329 or those 200 CPUs 807 00:29:19,884 --> 00:29:22,765 and that actual quota in that region ready 808 00:29:22,765 --> 00:29:24,285 to go in there. And then the other 809 00:29:24,285 --> 00:29:26,525 thing to keep in mind is just because 810 00:29:26,525 --> 00:29:28,924 you have a quota doesn't always mean that 811 00:29:28,924 --> 00:29:30,924 the compute is available as well. Like that's 812 00:29:30,924 --> 00:29:33,005 another weird one. You can't just go and 813 00:29:33,005 --> 00:29:35,670 always spin up 50 VMs depending on your 814 00:29:35,670 --> 00:29:38,309 environment, your quota, and what's going on, especially 815 00:29:38,309 --> 00:29:41,109 if it's not all reserved compute that's reserved 816 00:29:41,109 --> 00:29:42,890 and held out for you all the time. 817 00:29:43,029 --> 00:29:46,009 Yes. I have absolutely hit that before where 818 00:29:46,150 --> 00:29:47,829 we went to go stand up and I 819 00:29:47,829 --> 00:29:50,065 mean, a lot of default quotas are, like, 820 00:29:50,065 --> 00:29:50,964 50 CPUs. 821 00:29:51,424 --> 00:29:53,204 And one of these in particular, 822 00:29:53,984 --> 00:29:56,565 we needed to stand up, like, twenty sixteen 823 00:29:56,785 --> 00:29:57,684 core VMs 824 00:29:58,065 --> 00:30:00,724 or twenty four sixteen core VMs. 825 00:30:01,119 --> 00:30:02,799 That is a lot more than 50. So 826 00:30:02,799 --> 00:30:04,500 we had to go get quota right away. 827 00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:08,179 The other thing I would also say is 828 00:30:08,799 --> 00:30:09,779 a lot of these 829 00:30:10,159 --> 00:30:12,399 going back to even your custom images, if 830 00:30:12,399 --> 00:30:14,240 you wanna refresh these. Right? If you have 831 00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:15,380 a VM that 832 00:30:15,684 --> 00:30:16,424 has issues 833 00:30:17,365 --> 00:30:18,984 or when I go to 834 00:30:19,765 --> 00:30:22,005 stand up new images, let's say I go 835 00:30:22,005 --> 00:30:23,845 do an update, I wanna refresh with my 836 00:30:23,845 --> 00:30:26,325 golden image, Intune does not push stuff down 837 00:30:26,325 --> 00:30:26,825 instantaneously. 838 00:30:27,859 --> 00:30:29,779 So if this is one of those environments 839 00:30:29,779 --> 00:30:31,380 where it has to run around the clock 840 00:30:31,380 --> 00:30:32,920 or you have to have a certain number 841 00:30:33,059 --> 00:30:35,779 around the clock, you may actually have to 842 00:30:35,779 --> 00:30:36,279 run 843 00:30:37,220 --> 00:30:40,100 double the amount of compute that you normally 844 00:30:40,100 --> 00:30:43,059 would for twelve hours or for twenty four 845 00:30:43,059 --> 00:30:44,974 hours so that your 846 00:30:45,275 --> 00:30:47,515 new images can come up, Intune can get 847 00:30:47,515 --> 00:30:49,375 deployed, they can get joined to AD, 848 00:30:49,835 --> 00:30:52,474 they can get all the applications pushed down 849 00:30:52,474 --> 00:30:55,355 to them. All that stuff that maybe takes 850 00:30:55,355 --> 00:30:57,674 a few hours to do can get done 851 00:30:57,674 --> 00:31:00,059 on your new VMs while your old VMs 852 00:31:00,059 --> 00:31:02,140 are still running, which means you need twice 853 00:31:02,140 --> 00:31:03,900 the amount of quota. And then you can 854 00:31:03,900 --> 00:31:06,380 shut down your old images, get rid of 855 00:31:06,380 --> 00:31:07,980 them as people log out of them as 856 00:31:07,980 --> 00:31:10,140 you don't need them anymore. But sometimes you 857 00:31:10,140 --> 00:31:11,919 need a lot more quota than you initially 858 00:31:11,980 --> 00:31:14,585 think because of some of that overlap in 859 00:31:14,585 --> 00:31:16,924 how you do your deployments. We got compute. 860 00:31:17,225 --> 00:31:19,644 You mentioned kind of roaming profiles in FSLogix. 861 00:31:19,865 --> 00:31:21,545 So once you've got your compute, I think 862 00:31:21,545 --> 00:31:23,384 there's a step kind of in the middle 863 00:31:23,384 --> 00:31:26,525 here where you've got to assign your users. 864 00:31:26,690 --> 00:31:28,929 So we talked about the need for Active 865 00:31:28,929 --> 00:31:30,390 Directory or Azure 866 00:31:30,929 --> 00:31:33,089 AD, Entra ID to be there. And push 867 00:31:33,089 --> 00:31:34,769 those things through. So you've got to assign 868 00:31:34,769 --> 00:31:36,869 those users to virtual desktops 869 00:31:37,250 --> 00:31:37,750 or 870 00:31:38,289 --> 00:31:40,230 to your groups of applications 871 00:31:40,529 --> 00:31:42,615 that you have out there. You gotta give 872 00:31:42,615 --> 00:31:45,494 those users access, potentially bootstrap them, get them 873 00:31:45,494 --> 00:31:47,174 going, get them set up on the Windows 874 00:31:47,174 --> 00:31:47,674 app. 875 00:31:48,295 --> 00:31:49,835 All that kind of stuff. 876 00:31:50,855 --> 00:31:53,015 And once that's ready to go, then we're 877 00:31:53,015 --> 00:31:53,515 into 878 00:31:54,869 --> 00:31:58,009 actually configuring that. So you mentioned roaming profiles, 879 00:31:58,230 --> 00:31:58,730 FSLogix. 880 00:31:59,589 --> 00:32:01,690 Let's kinda take a step back there, maybe 881 00:32:01,990 --> 00:32:04,230 real high level. What's what the benefits are 882 00:32:04,230 --> 00:32:04,970 of FSLX, 883 00:32:05,829 --> 00:32:07,049 FSLogix profiles, 884 00:32:07,589 --> 00:32:08,730 profile containers, 885 00:32:09,174 --> 00:32:12,454 and how that impacts the user experience. So 886 00:32:12,454 --> 00:32:15,015 profiles, this is a big one. I would 887 00:32:15,015 --> 00:32:16,394 say this is almost a requirement 888 00:32:16,855 --> 00:32:19,255 if you are doing that pooled approach. Because 889 00:32:19,255 --> 00:32:21,174 we we talked about it. Right? Like, this 890 00:32:21,174 --> 00:32:21,835 one environment 891 00:32:22,134 --> 00:32:25,710 or a larger environment, you may have 24 892 00:32:25,710 --> 00:32:26,210 different 893 00:32:26,829 --> 00:32:29,410 VMs in a shared host pool. Let's say 894 00:32:29,549 --> 00:32:31,230 each one of those can support 10 people. 895 00:32:31,230 --> 00:32:33,390 You have, like, 240 users that are using 896 00:32:33,390 --> 00:32:36,670 ABD across those 24 VMs. If you don't 897 00:32:36,670 --> 00:32:37,730 do the whole 898 00:32:38,174 --> 00:32:40,115 roaming profiles, which is essentially 899 00:32:40,575 --> 00:32:41,394 my profile 900 00:32:41,695 --> 00:32:44,654 for my Windows environment, is stored off in 901 00:32:44,654 --> 00:32:45,154 another 902 00:32:45,535 --> 00:32:47,775 storage account. It could be NetApp storage. It 903 00:32:47,775 --> 00:32:49,075 could be Azure files. 904 00:32:49,535 --> 00:32:50,674 But that typical 905 00:32:51,134 --> 00:32:52,355 c users, 906 00:32:53,160 --> 00:32:53,820 b steging, 907 00:32:54,440 --> 00:32:56,840 s h og is stored out there. When 908 00:32:56,840 --> 00:32:59,240 I log in to a virtual machine, it 909 00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:01,559 goes out to that file share, grabs my 910 00:33:01,559 --> 00:33:02,059 profile, 911 00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:04,759 loads it into that VM that I'm connected 912 00:33:04,759 --> 00:33:06,764 to so that as I'm doing my work, 913 00:33:06,764 --> 00:33:08,625 working in my documents or 914 00:33:09,325 --> 00:33:11,024 working within Outlook, 915 00:33:11,404 --> 00:33:12,944 all of that application 916 00:33:13,244 --> 00:33:15,424 data that's stored in my user profile, 917 00:33:15,804 --> 00:33:17,565 stored in there. When I log out of 918 00:33:17,565 --> 00:33:19,859 the VM, it gets written back to 919 00:33:20,319 --> 00:33:21,940 that network storage location, 920 00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:25,359 and saved out there. The benefit is is 921 00:33:25,359 --> 00:33:27,519 because I'm in that pooled environment, and I 922 00:33:27,519 --> 00:33:29,119 mentioned this before, I may go log in 923 00:33:29,119 --> 00:33:31,440 ten minutes later and end up on a 924 00:33:31,440 --> 00:33:33,220 completely different virtual machine. 925 00:33:33,815 --> 00:33:35,894 If I have my profile on that network 926 00:33:35,894 --> 00:33:37,755 drive, now it can pull in my profile, 927 00:33:37,974 --> 00:33:39,974 pull it into that second VM I'm logged 928 00:33:39,974 --> 00:33:40,474 into, 929 00:33:40,775 --> 00:33:42,855 and I really am just picking up right 930 00:33:42,855 --> 00:33:45,035 where I left off. All my applications 931 00:33:45,494 --> 00:33:47,654 are configured the same. My documents are there. 932 00:33:47,654 --> 00:33:49,710 Everything I configured on my desk top is 933 00:33:49,710 --> 00:33:50,210 there. 934 00:33:50,990 --> 00:33:53,230 Everything is configured as it should be or 935 00:33:53,230 --> 00:33:55,630 as I left it versus if I'm not 936 00:33:55,630 --> 00:33:57,470 doing that and I'm logging in from one 937 00:33:57,470 --> 00:33:59,950 machine to another machine to another machine, those 938 00:33:59,950 --> 00:34:01,869 profiles are local to that machine. So now 939 00:34:01,869 --> 00:34:02,295 I have 940 00:34:02,855 --> 00:34:05,494 a profile on every single VM I've logged 941 00:34:05,494 --> 00:34:05,994 into, 942 00:34:06,295 --> 00:34:06,795 and 943 00:34:07,494 --> 00:34:09,735 the information that's stored in my user profile 944 00:34:09,735 --> 00:34:10,554 on my machine 945 00:34:11,015 --> 00:34:12,695 is different because it's on all these other 946 00:34:12,695 --> 00:34:16,000 virtual machines. The other downside is guess what 947 00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:17,840 else profiles take up on all those different 948 00:34:17,840 --> 00:34:20,960 virtual machines? Storage space on your c drive. 949 00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:21,460 Mhmm. 950 00:34:21,920 --> 00:34:23,360 If I have 240 951 00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:23,860 users 952 00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:26,000 logging in to each one of those machines 953 00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:27,920 at any time, 240 954 00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:28,420 profiles 955 00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:31,375 on each machine across however many machines. I 956 00:34:31,375 --> 00:34:32,515 said 24 machines. 957 00:34:32,894 --> 00:34:34,575 It takes up a lot of storage space 958 00:34:34,575 --> 00:34:36,735 as well, so you end up with a 959 00:34:36,735 --> 00:34:38,755 whole mess of profiles 960 00:34:39,295 --> 00:34:39,795 and 961 00:34:40,335 --> 00:34:43,375 storage bloat and expensive disks and all of 962 00:34:43,375 --> 00:34:46,280 that. So, absolutely, if you're going down this 963 00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:49,000 pooled route, I and if you're doing more 964 00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:51,079 than if you're doing really more than one 965 00:34:51,079 --> 00:34:53,640 machine, you should think about doing these roaming 966 00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:54,140 profiles, 967 00:34:54,519 --> 00:34:55,340 doing FSLogix. 968 00:34:56,199 --> 00:34:57,880 I have done this before where it's a 969 00:34:57,880 --> 00:34:58,699 small company, 970 00:34:59,155 --> 00:34:59,974 five users. 971 00:35:00,434 --> 00:35:03,235 They want the benefits of ABD from the 972 00:35:03,235 --> 00:35:05,954 remote application logging in. They just stand up 973 00:35:05,954 --> 00:35:08,595 one great big machine. There's some downsides to 974 00:35:08,595 --> 00:35:10,994 that, but one great big machine, you don't 975 00:35:10,994 --> 00:35:12,595 need to go through the extra effort of 976 00:35:12,595 --> 00:35:14,215 roaming profiles because 977 00:35:14,570 --> 00:35:16,570 you got a handful of people, their profiles 978 00:35:16,570 --> 00:35:17,469 are on the machine, 979 00:35:17,849 --> 00:35:19,130 you can get away with it and be 980 00:35:19,130 --> 00:35:21,690 fine. I think beyond the consistency of the 981 00:35:21,690 --> 00:35:23,469 user experience, which is important, 982 00:35:23,849 --> 00:35:26,409 hey, let's make sure my app config carries 983 00:35:26,409 --> 00:35:28,664 over and those things are there, You'll also 984 00:35:28,664 --> 00:35:31,785 see vastly improved login times because all that 985 00:35:31,785 --> 00:35:33,785 information already exists and it's ready to go 986 00:35:33,785 --> 00:35:35,164 and it doesn't need to be bootstrapped. 987 00:35:35,545 --> 00:35:37,065 If you think about the out of the 988 00:35:37,065 --> 00:35:39,864 box bootstrapping experience for just logging in the 989 00:35:39,864 --> 00:35:41,224 first time as a user to a new 990 00:35:41,224 --> 00:35:41,724 desktop, 991 00:35:42,090 --> 00:35:44,250 you don't want your users to go through 992 00:35:44,250 --> 00:35:46,010 that every time. So, yeah, if you do 993 00:35:46,010 --> 00:35:48,890 have that pool out there and then that's 994 00:35:48,890 --> 00:35:50,829 ready to go, I think that's a consideration 995 00:35:50,970 --> 00:35:53,849 for you. So we got roaming profiles. We 996 00:35:53,849 --> 00:35:56,590 talked a little bit about management with Intune. 997 00:35:57,014 --> 00:36:00,234 Management with Intune does extend beyond deploying applications. 998 00:36:00,454 --> 00:36:01,914 You can also monitor 999 00:36:02,375 --> 00:36:04,534 VM health and and some things in there. 1000 00:36:04,534 --> 00:36:06,214 So I think it's a little bit of 1001 00:36:06,214 --> 00:36:08,454 a mix between what you're gonna monitor potentially 1002 00:36:08,454 --> 00:36:09,755 in Intune versus 1003 00:36:10,454 --> 00:36:12,554 Azure Virtual Desktop as a service 1004 00:36:12,989 --> 00:36:15,070 and Yep. And the health of your pools, 1005 00:36:15,070 --> 00:36:17,570 things like that. Yeah. We talked about FSLogix. 1006 00:36:17,949 --> 00:36:19,710 Intune, you can also push out all your 1007 00:36:19,710 --> 00:36:20,849 FSLogix settings. 1008 00:36:21,230 --> 00:36:23,309 So, typically, a lot of people did that 1009 00:36:23,309 --> 00:36:25,469 with GPOs. Those are all in Intune now. 1010 00:36:25,469 --> 00:36:28,085 So you can say, here's all my FSLogix 1011 00:36:28,224 --> 00:36:30,864 settings, all that. That's another big reason to 1012 00:36:30,864 --> 00:36:32,385 put them in Intune. Alright. So we got 1013 00:36:32,385 --> 00:36:34,085 that. Other considerations, 1014 00:36:35,105 --> 00:36:35,605 cost. 1015 00:36:36,065 --> 00:36:38,945 So you mentioned Windows licensing, things like that. 1016 00:36:38,945 --> 00:36:40,860 I think that's definitely out there. 1017 00:36:41,340 --> 00:36:43,180 You know, you've got the cost of Azure 1018 00:36:43,180 --> 00:36:45,900 Virtual Desktop itself. Like, here's the cost of 1019 00:36:45,900 --> 00:36:47,739 the service. Which do you know what the 1020 00:36:47,739 --> 00:36:49,820 cost of that is, Scott? Free? Nothing. Yeah. 1021 00:36:49,820 --> 00:36:52,220 It's free. It's all management. It it's it's 1022 00:36:52,220 --> 00:36:54,059 kinda like AKS It really is. And those 1023 00:36:54,059 --> 00:36:56,905 things. But then you roll in your virtual 1024 00:36:56,905 --> 00:36:59,385 machines on top of that, your storage is 1025 00:36:59,385 --> 00:37:00,905 gonna have a cost to it. So if 1026 00:37:00,905 --> 00:37:04,764 you deploy those FSLogix profiles into Azure Files 1027 00:37:04,824 --> 00:37:06,364 or Azure NetApp Files, 1028 00:37:06,680 --> 00:37:08,519 That's another thing that you potentially need to 1029 00:37:08,519 --> 00:37:10,519 consider that's out there. You also need to 1030 00:37:10,519 --> 00:37:13,400 consider your network usage. Depending on how your 1031 00:37:13,400 --> 00:37:15,800 egress goes from regions, things like that, there 1032 00:37:15,800 --> 00:37:18,760 can be billable networking components in there for 1033 00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:20,305 you. So it's worth it to spend a 1034 00:37:20,305 --> 00:37:21,744 little bit of time in the Azure pricing 1035 00:37:21,744 --> 00:37:24,065 calculator as well and add some of those 1036 00:37:24,065 --> 00:37:25,505 services in and see where you're going to 1037 00:37:25,505 --> 00:37:26,945 land. Like if you know you're going to 1038 00:37:26,945 --> 00:37:27,445 have 1039 00:37:28,144 --> 00:37:29,364 n hundred gigabytes 1040 00:37:29,664 --> 00:37:30,164 or 1041 00:37:30,465 --> 00:37:31,364 n terabytes 1042 00:37:31,664 --> 00:37:32,565 of user profiles, 1043 00:37:33,090 --> 00:37:35,410 Well, go figure that out and and start 1044 00:37:35,410 --> 00:37:37,650 to spec that cost. Start to spec some 1045 00:37:37,650 --> 00:37:38,309 of your 1046 00:37:38,610 --> 00:37:40,930 VM sizes. And, you know, you can play 1047 00:37:40,930 --> 00:37:42,930 around with the sizes within the pools and 1048 00:37:42,930 --> 00:37:43,910 things like that. 1049 00:37:45,650 --> 00:37:48,070 There can be some meaningful differences between 1050 00:37:49,664 --> 00:37:51,605 the cost of a VM 1051 00:37:52,144 --> 00:37:54,625 size and series as you're stepping in. And 1052 00:37:54,625 --> 00:37:57,425 that might even, you know, impact the regions 1053 00:37:57,425 --> 00:37:59,184 that you go to. Maybe you require a 1054 00:37:59,184 --> 00:38:01,204 certain VM size or VM series 1055 00:38:01,590 --> 00:38:04,250 for your multi session pool compute 1056 00:38:04,630 --> 00:38:07,030 and that forces you into, say, like, East 1057 00:38:07,030 --> 00:38:09,210 US 2 in The US versus East US. 1058 00:38:09,430 --> 00:38:12,470 Or it forces you into West Europe versus 1059 00:38:12,470 --> 00:38:14,235 North Europe. Things like that. So 1060 00:38:14,635 --> 00:38:16,075 you you know, make sure that you're paying 1061 00:38:16,075 --> 00:38:18,974 attention to all of those things as well 1062 00:38:19,195 --> 00:38:21,375 when you're standing up your your environment 1063 00:38:21,675 --> 00:38:22,175 and 1064 00:38:22,555 --> 00:38:24,315 you're getting ready to go for it. You 1065 00:38:24,315 --> 00:38:27,409 can also use reserved instances for your compute. 1066 00:38:27,710 --> 00:38:29,650 So if you are a customer with reservations, 1067 00:38:29,949 --> 00:38:32,589 that's potentially another consideration for you or an 1068 00:38:32,589 --> 00:38:34,530 optimization that you can make along the way. 1069 00:38:34,670 --> 00:38:36,670 Is the same reservations that you're using for 1070 00:38:36,670 --> 00:38:38,269 your other compute in Azure, if you happen 1071 00:38:38,269 --> 00:38:39,824 to be using it there, can also be 1072 00:38:39,824 --> 00:38:42,304 used for, your pooled compute over in your 1073 00:38:42,304 --> 00:38:45,344 host pools in APD. Yep. Another cost I 1074 00:38:45,344 --> 00:38:45,844 would 1075 00:38:46,144 --> 00:38:47,105 100% 1076 00:38:47,105 --> 00:38:49,824 factor in is think about cost of log 1077 00:38:49,824 --> 00:38:50,324 analytics. 1078 00:38:50,784 --> 00:38:53,410 There are a lot of insights for ABD 1079 00:38:53,630 --> 00:38:54,130 around 1080 00:38:54,910 --> 00:38:56,849 errors when users are connecting, 1081 00:38:57,230 --> 00:38:58,369 around monitoring 1082 00:38:58,750 --> 00:38:59,490 the performance 1083 00:39:00,190 --> 00:39:01,970 of your ABD environment, 1084 00:39:02,510 --> 00:39:03,730 monitoring host diagnostics, 1085 00:39:04,635 --> 00:39:07,695 round trip times between your users and ABD, 1086 00:39:09,034 --> 00:39:11,934 any errors that users may log into, utilization, 1087 00:39:12,715 --> 00:39:16,015 all of that those insights in your monitoring 1088 00:39:16,554 --> 00:39:17,215 of ABD, 1089 00:39:17,914 --> 00:39:20,869 is tied to or is it's required to 1090 00:39:20,869 --> 00:39:22,730 have that tied to a log analytics workbook. 1091 00:39:23,030 --> 00:39:24,869 So if you do want to have any 1092 00:39:24,869 --> 00:39:25,610 type of 1093 00:39:25,989 --> 00:39:27,130 monitoring, logging 1094 00:39:27,670 --> 00:39:30,150 insights into all of that, you're gonna have 1095 00:39:30,150 --> 00:39:32,565 that cost of log analytics. And you can 1096 00:39:32,565 --> 00:39:35,445 also do scaling. So you mentioned reserved instances 1097 00:39:35,445 --> 00:39:35,945 as 1098 00:39:37,445 --> 00:39:38,744 a tweak and optimization. 1099 00:39:39,364 --> 00:39:41,304 The other thing you can do is scaling. 1100 00:39:41,364 --> 00:39:42,585 So if you 1101 00:39:43,045 --> 00:39:45,684 in the evenings, everybody leaves, it's not being 1102 00:39:45,684 --> 00:39:47,950 used at night. As people log out, you 1103 00:39:47,950 --> 00:39:49,329 can also shut 1104 00:39:49,630 --> 00:39:50,289 down and 1105 00:39:50,670 --> 00:39:51,730 turn on VMs 1106 00:39:52,269 --> 00:39:54,590 based on utilization and usage to help with 1107 00:39:54,590 --> 00:39:56,769 some optimization there. So you're not leaving 1108 00:39:57,070 --> 00:39:59,789 24 VMs running twenty four seven. You'd scale 1109 00:39:59,789 --> 00:40:01,545 down and you have four of them running 1110 00:40:01,545 --> 00:40:03,704 overnight. As people start logging in in the 1111 00:40:03,704 --> 00:40:05,864 morning, you ramp up, turn them on as 1112 00:40:05,864 --> 00:40:07,784 needed. Then again, as they leave, you start 1113 00:40:07,784 --> 00:40:10,505 shutting them down as people are logging off, 1114 00:40:10,505 --> 00:40:12,425 headed home for the evenings. Yeah. It's it's 1115 00:40:12,425 --> 00:40:14,824 basically VM scale sets and some of the 1116 00:40:14,824 --> 00:40:16,125 things that come in there. 1117 00:40:16,500 --> 00:40:18,179 All available and ready to go. So you 1118 00:40:18,179 --> 00:40:19,940 get that up, get your compute running, get 1119 00:40:19,940 --> 00:40:21,860 your users on there while your users need 1120 00:40:21,860 --> 00:40:24,579 to connect. That's just the Windows app these 1121 00:40:24,579 --> 00:40:27,480 days, AKA the remote desktop client. 1122 00:40:27,860 --> 00:40:29,860 I always forget all the platforms it runs 1123 00:40:29,860 --> 00:40:32,074 on. So you know the other one that 1124 00:40:32,074 --> 00:40:33,514 I do as I mentioned about like I'm 1125 00:40:33,514 --> 00:40:35,194 on my personal laptop and maybe I go 1126 00:40:35,194 --> 00:40:38,234 into AVD through the Windows app. I also 1127 00:40:38,234 --> 00:40:40,875 have you know my iPad. Sometimes I go 1128 00:40:40,875 --> 00:40:42,635 in there through my iPad real quick too 1129 00:40:42,635 --> 00:40:44,554 if I can just jam something out and 1130 00:40:44,554 --> 00:40:47,150 get it done. So you've got remote desktop 1131 00:40:47,150 --> 00:40:49,009 connectivity and clients across 1132 00:40:49,630 --> 00:40:50,849 Windows, macOS, 1133 00:40:51,230 --> 00:40:51,730 iOS, 1134 00:40:52,109 --> 00:40:52,609 Android, 1135 00:40:52,909 --> 00:40:54,609 you know all that stuff's out there 1136 00:40:54,989 --> 00:40:56,909 ready to go for you. You probably have 1137 00:40:56,909 --> 00:40:59,355 to give your users some information like 1138 00:40:59,914 --> 00:41:01,594 you know, make sure you log in with 1139 00:41:01,594 --> 00:41:03,835 your organizational ID. So that way, the first 1140 00:41:03,835 --> 00:41:05,835 time you log in, it ties into your 1141 00:41:05,835 --> 00:41:06,335 workspace 1142 00:41:06,875 --> 00:41:07,695 or workspaces 1143 00:41:08,394 --> 00:41:10,155 and presents that back to you in that 1144 00:41:10,155 --> 00:41:11,835 client. Like, if you're in the Windows app, 1145 00:41:11,835 --> 00:41:13,355 you know, it'll just present you a bunch 1146 00:41:13,355 --> 00:41:14,175 of, like, accordion, 1147 00:41:14,589 --> 00:41:16,589 Hey. You've got access to this workspace, this 1148 00:41:16,589 --> 00:41:18,829 workspace, this workspace. And then within those, here's 1149 00:41:18,829 --> 00:41:19,329 your 1150 00:41:19,869 --> 00:41:21,949 your units of compute that are available to 1151 00:41:21,949 --> 00:41:23,710 you. Yep. You can also do it, Scott, 1152 00:41:23,710 --> 00:41:24,989 right in the browser. If you don't want 1153 00:41:24,989 --> 00:41:26,909 to install an application, you just want to 1154 00:41:26,909 --> 00:41:29,170 go to the browser, there is a 1155 00:41:29,630 --> 00:41:31,724 URL you can visit, log in via the 1156 00:41:31,724 --> 00:41:35,324 browser, and do your remote desktop right in 1157 00:41:35,324 --> 00:41:36,924 your browser as well. Yeah. I always forget 1158 00:41:36,924 --> 00:41:38,525 that one. Like, it's just easier for me 1159 00:41:38,525 --> 00:41:39,804 to have the app there and sign in, 1160 00:41:39,804 --> 00:41:42,204 and then your workspace is automatically tied into 1161 00:41:42,204 --> 00:41:44,500 it. I've I've gotten quite lazy in my 1162 00:41:44,500 --> 00:41:47,139 old age. Yes. And, fortunately, to now the 1163 00:41:47,139 --> 00:41:49,779 Windows app, if you have multiple tenants, because 1164 00:41:49,779 --> 00:41:51,460 that's the world I live in, you can 1165 00:41:51,460 --> 00:41:53,799 add multiple accounts and quickly flip 1166 00:41:54,099 --> 00:41:54,599 between 1167 00:41:55,074 --> 00:41:56,535 different accounts and 1168 00:41:56,914 --> 00:41:59,474 different m three sixty five environments, different a 1169 00:41:59,474 --> 00:42:02,275 d v AVD environments within the app too, 1170 00:42:02,275 --> 00:42:04,434 which is also a handy aspect to it. 1171 00:42:04,434 --> 00:42:05,715 Cool. Well, that was a little bit of 1172 00:42:05,715 --> 00:42:08,114 a whirlwind one and a long one for 1173 00:42:08,114 --> 00:42:08,855 us. So 1174 00:42:09,170 --> 00:42:10,769 thanks for those of you that are still 1175 00:42:10,769 --> 00:42:11,269 listening 1176 00:42:11,570 --> 00:42:12,070 and 1177 00:42:12,769 --> 00:42:13,269 sticking 1178 00:42:13,650 --> 00:42:14,469 with us. 1179 00:42:14,849 --> 00:42:16,550 And so we've got AVD 1180 00:42:16,930 --> 00:42:18,610 end to end. We'll have to see if 1181 00:42:18,610 --> 00:42:21,269 we can talk about some more VDI stuff 1182 00:42:21,969 --> 00:42:24,644 in the future here. But we'll have links 1183 00:42:24,644 --> 00:42:26,585 in the show notes for everybody to 1184 00:42:26,965 --> 00:42:28,184 go out and 1185 00:42:28,565 --> 00:42:29,065 listen. 1186 00:42:29,445 --> 00:42:31,525 As always, you can give us feedback and 1187 00:42:31,525 --> 00:42:34,664 questions via the website. We're on threads 1188 00:42:35,364 --> 00:42:36,105 at MSCloudITPro. 1189 00:42:37,590 --> 00:42:38,329 We're on 1190 00:42:39,190 --> 00:42:39,769 the Mastodon, 1191 00:42:40,390 --> 00:42:40,890 LinkedIn, 1192 00:42:41,349 --> 00:42:43,269 Facebook. Hit us up. Let let us know 1193 00:42:43,269 --> 00:42:44,390 what you want to do. Blue Sky. Come 1194 00:42:44,390 --> 00:42:45,829 on, Scott. Blue Sky. Blue Sky. That's where 1195 00:42:45,829 --> 00:42:47,590 I've seen I've had most of my interactions 1196 00:42:47,590 --> 00:42:49,269 lately on Blue Sky. Blue Sky is out 1197 00:42:49,269 --> 00:42:49,994 there as well. 1198 00:42:50,635 --> 00:42:52,235 Yeah. All the socials. You can find us 1199 00:42:52,235 --> 00:42:54,494 somewhere. All the all the socials. 1200 00:42:55,434 --> 00:42:57,775 Alright. Well, thank you, Scott. Enjoy 1201 00:42:58,474 --> 00:42:59,535 Seattle. Hopefully, 1202 00:42:59,835 --> 00:43:01,835 you get some nice weather out there, and 1203 00:43:01,835 --> 00:43:03,839 I will enjoy sunny, warm Florida. Well, it's 1204 00:43:03,839 --> 00:43:06,639 cold here. It's currently 22 degrees Fahrenheit. So, 1205 00:43:06,639 --> 00:43:09,839 like, we're Go skiing. By minus 10. Celsius 1206 00:43:09,839 --> 00:43:12,480 minus 10. It's it's cold. It's chilly. Alright. 1207 00:43:12,480 --> 00:43:15,039 Well, thanks. Enjoy. Stay warm, and we'll talk 1208 00:43:15,039 --> 00:43:16,465 to you again soon. Alright. Thanks, 1209 00:43:18,284 --> 00:43:20,684 bud. If you enjoyed the podcast, go leave 1210 00:43:20,684 --> 00:43:22,764 us a five star rating in iTunes. It 1211 00:43:22,764 --> 00:43:24,445 helps to get the word out so more 1212 00:43:24,445 --> 00:43:26,684 IT pros can learn about Office three sixty 1213 00:43:26,684 --> 00:43:27,585 five and Azure. 1214 00:43:28,125 --> 00:43:29,609 If you have any questions you want us 1215 00:43:29,609 --> 00:43:31,929 to address on the show, or feedback about 1216 00:43:31,929 --> 00:43:34,329 the show, feel free to reach out via 1217 00:43:34,329 --> 00:43:36,509 our website, Twitter, or Facebook. 1218 00:43:36,809 --> 00:43:38,650 Thanks again for listening, and have a great 1219 00:43:38,650 --> 00:43:39,150 day.

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Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast

Ben Stegink, Scott Hoag

On the MS Cloud IT Pro Podcast, Scott and Ben discuss the Microsoft Cloud with a focus on IT Pros. They'll discuss the latest in Microsoft 365 and Office 365 News, Azure news and talk about their experiences with managing the Microsoft Cloud as well as interview industry experts on various cloud technology. They'll cover things such as SharePoint, Exchange, Microsoft Teams, PowerShell, Azure, Azure AD, Security, Networking, Storage, and the many other technologies and products that have made their way into the Microsoft 365 suite and Azure. To stay up-to-date on the latest in Microsoft Cloud news and gain some valuable knowledge as you deploy it within your own organization, make sure to tune in every week! Find out more at msclouditpropodcast.com.

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