- Coming up, I'll walk you through all the steps to
get Azure Virtual Desktop up and running quickly.
This is part two in our series on the service.
And by the way, if you're new to Azure Virtual Desktop
and all of its capabilities, I'd encourage you to check
out our recent show covering the service
at a higher level at aka.ms/AVDMechanics.
Now let me show you what you need to get started
and the fastest way to get Azure Virtual Desktop deployed
with identity integration, multi-session host pools,
container profiles, Remote Apps, and more.
And along the way, I'll point out what's unique
to the service and the things you should know about.
And if you've tried this before
or currently have VDI running,
you'll see it's a streamlined provisioning experience
with automation built in based on your parameters.
And you'll also save time
with directory service setup and integration.
First, for prerequisites,
you'll need to have a few things in place
before you set up your Azure Virtual Desktop instance,
including an active Azure account and subscription.
You'll also need to have access
to a global administrator Azure AD role
in the Azure tenant that you intend to use
and for your Azure subscription,
a contributor, as well as a user access administrator.
And because we'll be setting up a new Azure Active Directory
Domain Services instance, in this case,
you shouldn't have an existing instance running.
Next, we'll move on
to the deployment steps for Azure Virtual Desktop.
So, logged in
with your administrator account in the Azure portal,
search for Azure Virtual Desktop and select it.
And this is where you'll set up host pools
containing virtual machines, application groups
to assign Remote Apps to users, workspaces
as logical groupings
of application groups, scaling plan and users
to scope access to running Azure Virtual Desktop resources.
You'll start the provisioning process
by selecting "Getting Started" on the top left.
Here, you'll make sure the correct subscription's selected.
For identity provider, you'll see that
if you do want to use an existing
on-premises active directory
or an existing Azure AD Domain Services instance,
that's another option.
But in this case, we'll use no identity provider,
assuming you are starting from scratch.
Next, for identity service type,
we'll select Azure AD domain services.
Then we'll create a resource group with a unique name.
So I'll type AVD mechanics.
In location, you'll want to select a region
typically closest to your users, so I'll choose West US.
And for Azure admin username, I'll use my account
with the sufficient permissions required to deploy resources
and grant access to them.
Then you'll enter a password for that account
and the next account will be used to join virtual machines
to the domain.
I'll use my account again in this case for simplicity
and input my password again.
Next, we'll move on to the virtual machines tab
where you'll be creating your first session hosts.
So here, the users per virtual machine
will determine if you want more than one user
simultaneously logged into a single vm.
Now this uses a capability unique
to Azure Virtual Desktop to help save costs
and improve utilization
called Windows multi-session,
which used to be a server only capability.
And now here you can also use it
with Windows 11 or Windows 10 client operating systems.
The other option is
one user at a time
which would be a single dedicated virtual machine
to one user.
Now in our case, we'll select multiple users
and next, in image, you'll see we can choose
from a number of supported Windows client
and server virtual machine images for Azure Virtual Desktop.
And these include recent updates
at the specified feature update level
and some have Microsoft 365 apps pre-installed.
So I'll choose Windows 11 enterprise multi-session
plus Microsoft 365 apps, version 22H2.
Now optionally in Azure Virtual Desktop, you can create
and manage your own virtual machine images and choose those
in addition to the standard gallery images that we just saw.
Next, in virtual machine size, you can select
from hundreds of supported VM sizes in Azure
including general purpose VMs like you see in here.
And there are also specialized VMs,
for example, with GPU support
that you can use for demanding workloads.
Now in my case, since we're just testing
I'll choose a B series general Purpose VM.
Then you'll define a unique prefix to
identify your VMs later.
So I'll use avdb in this example.
Then you'll select the number of VMs in the host pool.
So I'll choose two.
Now with your host pool VMs configured,
you'll create an initial user assignment for this host pool
in the assignments tab.
For test username,
I'll add the user principle name for avd test user,
then a password and a password one more time to confirm.
Now with the core steps complete,
the wizard's going to validate everything
and from there, I can create all the resources necessary
for Azure Virtual Desktop.
And that's it.
This process will now deploy several resources and services
on your behalf, including four new Azure resource groups,
the Azure AD domain service that'll be used
for authentication,
a storage account to store data
FSLogix profile containers to support your
multi-session environment,
your host pool
and virtual machines,
an application group and a workspace,
a virtual network or VNet
and a few network interfaces to connect everything up.
A network security group, a pair of new Azure AD groups
and the VM joiner and test user accounts
we configured in the previous step.
So we now have the service up and running
with the desktop host group.
Now, one of the advantages
of using Azure Virtual Desktop compared
to our hosted VM
is that you can use Remote Apps.
So let's take a look at the application group
we deployed and configure a Remote App.
Now this is where you define the Remote Apps
and full desktops that you want to make available to users.
And these can be pre-installed Windows apps
or other apps within the Windows image that you deployed.
Now in our case, we install Microsoft 365 apps
with familiar office applications.
So let's define a new app.
We'll configure Microsoft Teams in our case.
In basics, you define your normal Azure parameters
along with your corresponding host pool.
Here, I'm using a different one than we've just created.
I'll choose a remote app in this case
and I'll give it a name;
Microsoft365apps, without any spaces.
Next, in the applications tab, we'll define the specifics
of the app and what the users will see.
So I'll add my app,
I'll keep the application sourced as the start menu.
Now I'll choose Microsoft Teams work or school
and the display name is generated automatically
but you can edit it if you want.
I'm going to keep the icon path and index.
We can skip the command line in this case and save.
Next, in assignments, I've already created a group
of licensed Azure Virtual Desktop users called AVD users
and I'll add them.
Next, in the workspace tab,
you can register your app group to a workspace.
The workspace can have multiple app groups assigned to it.
Here I'll choose yes
and select EB-AVD-WS.
For the rest, I'll leave the defaults
and hit review and create.
And from there, I'll confirm to kick off the process.
And if I go back to the workspace I showed before
with just a desktop app group type, you can see
that we have a Remote App group type as well now.
So now with everything running
and our application group's configured,
let's test it out.
So first, I'll start in the browser.
I've already navigated to aka.ms/AVDweb.
I'll log in with my username, then my password.
And since I've set up my account for multifactor auth,
I'll approve on my phone along with a required biometric.
So here you can see that I've got the desktop
and the Microsoft Teams app
from both of my app groups.
I'll open the session desktop and it requests access
to the local clipboard, microphone and printer.
Now, as an admin,
you can control
whether users can enable these integrations
but in my case,
I'll hit allow to connect to my desktop.
Now based on my configuration,
I need to enter my password once more
for the VM to authenticate against the domain service.
I'll open the desktop
and you'll see it's the full Windows 11 desktop
ready to go.
And while a browser's a really flexible way to
access your desktops and Remote Apps,
the remote desktop client has deeper integration
with Windows,
like access to webcams
and better integration with the Windows shell.
So it's the recommended way to connect to your hosts.
And just so you know, there are clients available
for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android.
I've got the Windows Remote Desktop app open
and it's already signed into my account.
You can see the same app
and desktop that we saw in the browser client.
And if I open the Teams app,
it will connect to the session host
and you'll see it looks like a native local app window
that I can move
like any other app window, where I want it.
And I can also resize it, even though it's a Remote App.
I'll show you that in the Teams device settings.
And if I scroll down,
you can see that I've got my local webcam available
just like it would be on my local PC.
And one last thing to point out while I have Teams open,
since we use the gallery image
with the Microsoft 365 apps pre-installed
when we created the host pool,
it's got the built-in optimizations
pre-configured for AudioVideo-redirect.
Now without it for users to share and receive video
from their virtual machines to the local devices,
multiple encoding and decoding hops need to happen,
which causes lag and stutter during online meetings
whereas AudioVideo-redirect creates a more direct connection
between local device cameras
and microphones via the Teams service.
So now we have a fully operational Azure Virtual
Desktop environment with desktops
and Remote Apps available to a few users.
There's more to come
in our series on Mechanics for Azure Virtual Desktops.
So please check out the complete playlist
at aka.ms/AVDMechanicsSeries.
Be sure to subscribe and thanks for watching.