Azure-hosted Windows desktop and app service; to add or remove session hosts in a host pool you use either an Autoscale scaling plan or Automation runbooks.
Also called Windows Virtual Desktop, Windows Virtual Desktop.
Read more: Microsoft Learn
In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains Azure Virtual Desktop in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- App Service
Managed PaaS hosting for web apps and Web App for Containers, run in a sandbox without OS access. Deployment slots and autoscale start at the Standard tier.
- Architecture Definition Document
A key deliverable bringing together the main architecture artifacts across the four domains for every relevant state: baseline, transition and target. It sets out, in qualitative terms, what the architect intends.
- Autoscale scaling plan
Feature built into Azure Virtual Desktop that powers session hosts on and off and scales them according to a schedule.
Related terms
- Application groups
Collections of RemoteApp apps or full desktops in Azure Virtual Desktop, which administrators assign to users.
- Azure Automation
Azure service that runs runbooks, scripts that carry out imperative steps such as scaling Azure Virtual Desktop host pools. It is not an infrastructure-as-code tool.
- MSIX
Current Windows packaging format giving tidy installation and removal. With Azure Virtual Desktop, such apps can be attached to sessions rather than installed in the image.
- Multi-session
Several people can share one session host VM in a pooled Azure Virtual Desktop host pool with this Windows client edition, available nowhere else.
- Personal desktop
An Azure Virtual Desktop arrangement in which every user gets a dedicated session host virtual machine instead of sharing multi-session hosts in a pooled host pool.
- RDS
Microsoft's on-premises way to publish desktops and apps remotely from Windows Server, which means hosting your own broker and gateway machines. Azure Virtual Desktop is the cloud replacement.
- RemoteApp
An Azure Virtual Desktop feature for delivering single applications to users instead of an entire desktop.
- Reverse connect
Rather than accepting incoming traffic, Azure Virtual Desktop hosts dial out to the service gateway, so their firewalls need no open inbound ports.