Windows Virtual Desktop - What's in it for you?

Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) General Availability is around the corner, somewhere in September 2019. There are already lots of videos from Microsoft Mechanics telling you about its advantages and teaching you how to implement it. But before you proceed to design and implementation of the service, you should ask yourself what's in it for you.

So in this article I'll give you some ideas on why your organization should be leveraging WVD and which benefits it will bring to your business.

Windows 10 multi-user experience

Until now, all shared virtual desktops are running a Windows Server OS. No matter if you're running Citrix, VMware, Microsoft RDS or any other product for your desktop virtualization infrastructure, none of them can provide you with a Windows Client OS for virtualized multi-user desktops.

With WVD, that's about to change. WVD is not only the first, but also the one and only virtual desktop solution that enables you to run virtual machines with a Windows Client OS for multi-user desktops. Of course this is mainly focused on Windows 10, but Windows 7 is also still supported, which leads us to the next point.

Windows 7 and free extended support

When you're running behind on your migration from Windows 7 to Windows 10, you might find this particularly interesting. When you move your Windows 7 clients to WVD, Microsoft offers you 3 years of extended support for free. You will save thousands of €€ / $$ from not having to conclude an extended support contract with Microsoft for Windows 7, and you will also have the time to properly approach and finish your Windows 10 migration.

Auto-scaling of virtual machines

If you provision any multi-user virtual desktops on-premises, you typically deploy a fixed number of virtual machines upfront, based on the number of concurrent users you're expecting to use the service. This changes with WVD. You define your template and you put in place an auto-scaling solution, whill will either deploy additional virtual machines or reduce the number of virtual machines currently running, depending on the current load and the number of concurrent users connected. So you can basically scale your virtual desktops up and down as you need it (e.g. less machines running during the night and on weekends, more machines running during the day, up-scaling on demande for high usage peaks). And the best is: the less machines you run, the less you pay.

User profile solution for cloud services

Classic user profiles, also including Citrix UPM profiles, are not optimized for the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. With the adoption of OneDrive for Business, Exchange Online and other Microsoft 365 services, roaming profiles meet their limitations, as they can't handle the file synchronization and caching efficiently.

On WVD, you can leverage the FSLogix User Profile Container, which stores the entire user profile and it's associated data on a VHD virtual disk in Azure Storage. Now the user can seamlessly sign in to every shared or dedicated virtual desktop in WVD, and he'll immediately have his profile applied, without any delay for downloading or caching profile information. FSLogix profiles are designed for Microsoft 365 services and thus handle the associated user data as efficiently as no other solution on the market today.

Licensing cost

If you're already an active Microsoft 365 customer, with either the E3 or E5 license, you have WVD and FSLogix included in your license with absolutely no additional cost. You only pay for the resource consumption on Azure (compute and storage mainly). If you're using "only" Office 365 today, you might anyway consider changing your subscription to Microsoft 365, as it gives you also the Windows 10 license and EMS (Enterprise Mobility and Security).

Infrastructure cost

As WVD is a PaaS solution (Platform as a Service), it provides you with the backend infrastructure necessary to run your virtual desktops. So you don't need to care about any backend server for running your desktop virtualization solution, you just start deploying the virtual desktops. This does not only save the cost for the associated infrastructure, but it also saves the licenses necessary for those machines.

Low-latency access from all around the globe

If you'r a global company, leveraging WVD will definitely offer your users lower latency and improved connection performance. That's simply because Microsoft maintains one of the largest network backbones worldwide, and it lets you access its network at local entry points all across the world. So no matter from where you're connecting, you'll have almost the same latency for accessing the service, as if you were sitting in your office.

The idea of writing this article came to me a few days ago, when I was discussing about WVD with one of my customers. I hope I was able to give you some ideas on why this service is worth taking a look at, and why so many consultants, techies and geeks are waiting for its GA as if it were Christmas.

If you have any questions or remarks, please don't hesitate to share them with me!