Azure Virtual Desktop is a desktop and app virtualization service that runs on the cloud. We can create a full desktop virtualization environment in Azure subscription without running any gateway servers.
Microsoft has rebranded its virtual desktop infrastructure platform under the Azure name and announced new security and management capabilities under preview.
The company has also launched public previews of several features in Azure Virtual Desktop to improve security and management for users, such as enhanced Azure Active Directory support, Kam VedBrat, Microsoft partner group program manager, wrote in a blog post on Monday.
Select users of Azure Virtual Desktop will gain enhanced support for Azure Active Directory, which is used to manage security controls and user access to apps and data. Users will soon gain the ability to enroll virtual machines automatically with Microsoft Endpoint Manager, making deployment easier and reducing the need for a domain controller, VedBrat said.
A new onboarding experience in the Azure portal will start an automated deployment of a Virtual Desktop environment, he said. And finally, independent software vendors can pay a monthly per-user access price to use Azure Virtual Desktop to deliver apps for customers to stream as opposed to just internal employees, VedBrat said.
Azure Virtual Desktop can deliver remote applications as well as an entire desktop. Previously that was only useful for an organization streaming applications to its own users because it uses the Windows license entitlement.
Now software vendors can use AVD to stream their applications to customers as SaaS.
Azure Virtual Desktop partner integrations lists approved Azure Virtual Desktop partner providers and independent software, vendors.
Gavriella Schuster, who was then Microsoft’s channel chief, said that Azure Virtual Desktop had been seeing a spike in demand with the shift to remote work during the pandemic and was an opportunity for partners.
And in December, an executive with Chicago-based Azure automation provider Nerdio told CRN that the company had seen “unbelievable” demand for the Azure Virtual Desktop offering during the pandemic.
