Course Introduction
Designing for Azure Virtual Desktop User Identities and Profiles
Course Conclusion
The course is part of this learning path
An important aspect of designing an Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) environment is ensuring you understand user identities and profiles. To get the most out of this cloud-hosted service, it is important to ensure our user identities are fully secure and integrated with the storage solutions you use for user profiles. This will in turn give a much better experience for your users.
AVD allows organizations to set up redundant, scalable, and agile environments that offer the following key capabilities:
- Integration with both cloud and on-premises identity and access management solutions
- Configuring Azure native and 3rd party storage solutions to facilitate user profiles
- Complete licensing solution that covers both Azure Virtual Desktop and Microsoft 365 SaaS services
From an identity perspective, you can synchronize your Azure cloud identities with on-premises Active Directory. This allows you to utilize hybrid join for your Azure Virtual Desktop session hosts and integrate your user profiles with Group Policy.
This course will help you design and plan your Azure Virtual Desktop identity and user profiles and allow you to understand how it integrates with other Azure services. It covers understanding choosing the appropriate licensing model, looking at the different storage solutions available, planning for user profiles, and planning for Azure AD Connect for identities.
Learning Objectives
- Select an appropriate licensing model for Azure Virtual Desktop based on requirements
- Recommend an appropriate storage solution (including Azure NetApp Files vs. Azure Files)
- Planning for Azure Virtual Desktop client deployment
- Planning for user profiles
- Recommending a solution for network connectivity
- Planning for Azure AD Connect for user identities
Intended Audience
This course is intended for anyone who wants to become an Azure Virtual Desktop Specialist and is preparing to take the AZ-140 exam.
Prerequisites
If you wish to get the most out of this course, it is recommended that you have a good understanding of Azure Administration, however, this is not essential.
Welcome to this module on planning for Azure Virtual Desktop Client Deployment. We'll cover the following topics in this module. We'll look at an overview of the connection methods for Azure Virtual Desktop. Finally, we'll look at the web browsers that support the web client. We're going to start by looking at an overview of the different connection methods and clients for Azure Virtual Desktop.
The first is a Windows client, which can be downloaded from the internet and comes in both 32-bit and 64-bit form. This allows for user to either login with their Microsoft 365 email address, or use the remote access resource feed to subscribe to the workspace. We then have a web client which can be accessed from several supported web browsers. However, we will go into more detail on this shortly. Azure Virtual Desktop can also be accessed from Android devices by downloading a client from the Google Play store. This works in the same way the Windows client does in that you can subscribe to the remote access resource feed. There is an Azure Virtual Desktop client for the Apple macOS which is downloaded via web browser. Once installed, you add the workspace and enter your credentials to authenticate to the workspace. Finally, there is a client available to the Apple iOS device, which can be downloaded from the Apple store. This is similar to the Android client in that you subscribe to the remote access resource feed to access the workspace.
Now we understand the different types of clients and operating systems that support access into the Azure Virtual Desktop environment, let's discuss which web browser clients are supported. You can access Azure Virtual Desktop via the web client using our Microsoft Edge internet browser. This is available on Windows operating system devices. Apple Safari supports access to Azure Virtual Desktop via the web client and this browser is available on macOS.
We then have a Mozilla Firefox web browser. However, please note that version 55 or later supports the Azure Virtual Desktop web client. This is also available on multiple operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux. Finally, we have Google Chrome web browser, which supports web client access to Azure Virtual Desktop. Much like Mozilla Firefox, this is available on multiple operating systems, including Windows, macOS, Linux and Chrome OS.
Shabaz Darr is a Senior Infrastructure Specialist at Netcompany based in the UK. He has 15 years plus experience working in the IT industry, 7 of those he has spent working with Microsoft Cloud Technologies in general, with a focus on MEM and IaaS. Shabaz is a Microsoft MVP in Enterprise Mobility with certifications in Azure Administration and Azure Virtual Desktop. During his time working with Microsoft Cloud, Shabaz has helped multiple public and private sector clients in the UK with designing and implementing secure Azure Virtual Desktop environments.