Cut Cost, Improve Security, Reliability, and Performance with Azure Advisor

This is a quick but important one.  If you are new to Azure or simply looking for ways to manage cost, improve security, reliability, and performance you need to check out Azure Advisor.  Azure Advisor scans Azure environments and compares current configurations to known best practices.  It also identifies ways to save money in Azure.  This video is a quick walkthrough of the Azure Advisor interface meant as an introduction so you can view recommendations in your own environment.  All under 5 minutes.

Continue reading “Cut Cost, Improve Security, Reliability, and Performance with Azure Advisor”

Save Money with an Azure Savings Plan for Compute

Microsoft provide a few options to save money in Azure.  Reserved Instances, Hybrid Benefits, Spot Instances and now Azure Savings Plan for Compute.  This video goes over Azure Savings Plan for Compute, what it is and how it compares to existing cost reduction options.  Then we review details of the Savings Plan and some considerations you should know before implementing Azure Savings Plan for Compute.

Continue reading “Save Money with an Azure Savings Plan for Compute”

VM Applications with Azure Compute Gallery

Azure Compute Gallery is not just for images.  We can create application packages for Windows and Linux Virtual Machines and deploy the applications as part of a deployment or install them on existing Azure VM’s.  This video walks through creating the application package and adding applications to the Azure Compute Gallery, deploying them as part of a VM deployment, adding the application to an existing VM as well as using the uninstall feature to remove an application. 

Continue reading “VM Applications with Azure Compute Gallery”

Windows 365 Enterprise: Requirements and Walkthrough

This post and video we cover requirements and an overview of how to configure and provision a Cloud PC with Windows 365 Enterprise.

Continue reading “Windows 365 Enterprise: Requirements and Walkthrough”

Auto Start and Stop Session Hosts in Windows Virtual Desktop Spring Update (ARM) Edition with an Azure Function

I am happy to release an update to my Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) Start-Stop script for Windows Virtual Desktop updated for Spring 2020, or “WVD ARM.”  This script uses an Azure Function to starts and stops WVD Session hosts in a host pool based on the user load. 

Continue reading “Auto Start and Stop Session Hosts in Windows Virtual Desktop Spring Update (ARM) Edition with an Azure Function”

Deploy Azure AD Domain Service and Join a Server to the Domain

In this video, I go over deploying Azure AD and configuring replication with an on-premises Windows Active Directory domain and Azure Active Directory.  I review deployment options and how to synchronize passwords from Windows and Azure directory services.  A server is deployed and joined to the Azure AD Domain Services domain and users source from Azure AD and Windows AD log in using same sign-on credentials.

Continue reading “Deploy Azure AD Domain Service and Join a Server to the Domain”

Automatically Start and Stop WVD VM’s with Azure Automation

One value proposition of any cloud service is consumption-based pricing, only paying for services when used.  Consumption-based pricing is an advantage of Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD), Microsoft Azure-hosted remote desktop service.  Or at least it would be if there was an easy way to start and stop session hosts based on demand.

Continue reading “Automatically Start and Stop WVD VM’s with Azure Automation”

Azure Windows Virtual Desktop Load Balancing

In this video, I go over the two options for WVD Load Balancing, Depth-First and Breadth-First.  I also demonstrate how each distributes new connections and how to change Load Balancing options and set the maximum number of connections per session host.

Continue reading “Azure Windows Virtual Desktop Load Balancing”