Category: Windows Virtual Desktop

What is RDP Shortpath for AVD Public Networks and How to Use It

Posted on by Travis Roberts
AVD

This is a follow up to my previous video on RDP Shortpath for Private networks.  A low Round Trip Time (RTT) is required for a good user experience in Azure Virtual Desktop.  RDP Shortpath for Public Networks in AVD improves the connection between the client and session host.  Performance is improved by using UDP and a direct connection over the public internet. In this video, we go over the requirements and considerations of RDP Shortpath for public networks. 

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What is RDP Shortpath for AVD Managed Networks and How to Use It

Posted on by Travis Roberts
AVD

A low Round Trip Time (RTT) is required for a good user experience in Azure Virtual Desktop.  With RDP Shortpath for AVD Managed Networks, we can leverage existing connections between the client network and Azure to keep the RTT latency low.  But this feature is not enabled by default.  In this video, we go over connectivity between the client and an AVD Session Host.  Then we review how we can use RDP Shortpath for AVD Managed Networks to direct traffic over existing private WAN connections between the client and Session Hosts.

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Use PowerShell to Create a Snapshot Based Image of an Azure Virtual Machine

Posted on by Travis Roberts
PowerShell Image Snapshot

This video goes of using the SnapImage.ps1 PowerShell script.  This script automates the process of creating an image from an Azure VM without destroying it during the capture process.  At a high-level, the following steps are taken:

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Private Endpoints and DNS Part Deux: Azure Private DNS Zones

Posted on by Travis Roberts

This is a second video on Azure Private Endpoints and DNS.  Previously, we reviewed options for DNS name resolution with Private Endpoint that included a forward lookup zone for the privatelink.file.windows.core.net zone. However, that option required manually adding hosts to the DNS zone.  This video reviews a hub-and-spoke configuration leveraging a forwarder server in Azure and conditional forwarding in Windows DNS.  Although slightly more complicated, this option does not require manually adding hosts to the DNS lookup zone.

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Private Endpoints with Azure Storage File Shares

Posted on by Travis Roberts

Azure services are publicly available over the internet by default.  That works for many services, but sometimes we need to limit access to internal networks only.  Private Endpoints provide a local, internal connection to resources in Azure.  It does this by adding a virtual NIC to a subnet.  From there, the NIC gets a private IP address where it can be accessed from the internal network.  This video goes over the configuration options to create a new storage account with an Azure File Share Private Endpoint as well as update an existing storage account with a private endpoint.

Links

Zero to Hero with Azure Virtual Desktop
Hybrid Identity with Windows AD and Azure AD
Private Endpoints and DNS in Azure

Autoscale with Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) Scaling Plans

Posted on by Travis Roberts
AVD

Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) now has an integrated session host scaling solution built into the portal.  This video goes over how to configure the custom role required for autoscale, then create a scaling plan and schedule and assign it to a host pool.

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High Performance at a Low Price for WVD

Posted on by Travis Roberts

In this post and accompanying video, we go over the benefits and considerations of using ephemeral disks with Azure Windows Virtual Desktop Session Hosts.  We review the performance improvements as well as limitations that come with ephemeral disks, including the inability to deallocate Session Hosts.  Next, we examine Azure Reserved Instances and how they can be used to keep the cost of Session Hosts down without using an auto scale solution.

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