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 user profiles in Azure Virtual Desktop. We will cover the following topics in this module. Storage options for user profiles in Azure Virtual Desktop. We will then discuss FSLogix Profile Containers. Finally, we will have a look at what FSLogix Office Containers are. Let's start off by looking at storage options for user profiles.
Azure Virtual Desktop integrates with both Azure Files and Azure NetApp Files to facilitate user profiles. We discussed both of these services in a previous module in this course. As we discussed in the Recommending an appropriate storage solution module, Azure Files offers a general purpose use case, whereas Azure NetApp Files is more suited to higher performance user cases. You also need to be aware of the location you are storing your user profiles, as both Azure Files and NetApp files have different availability options. We are now going to discuss FSLogix profile containers. This is a remote profile solution which is installed on the Azure Virtual Desktop sessions hosts.
The FSLogix profile containers offer profile redirection and are similar to traditional on-premises roaming profiles. FSLogix profile containers fully integrate with Azure Files and Azure NetApp Files. You can also domain join the storage accounts associated with FSLogix which will enable you to control access using Active Directory Domain Services. In the final part of this module, we are going to discuss FSLogix Office Containers. This is also a form of profile redirection, however it is specific to Microsoft Office related data only. Office Containers allow the user to have an enhanced experience when using Office apps, but best practice recommendation is to implement it with another profile solution.
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.