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The Gold Image
Contents
Course Introduction
Imaging Basics
The Gold Image
Session Hosts and Images
Course Conclusion
The course is part of this learning path
This course covers imaging in Azure to show you how you can build Azure Virtual Desktop session hosts as well as prepare for the AVD Specialty exam. This is going to cover a lot of information on the Windows OS, imaging tools, and how we work with images in Azure. Then we'll look at how to manage, maintain, and update those images. Finally, we'll cover how you can automate the whole process so you can scale as well as generate a new image each month or when a zero-day patch comes out, so you can stay secure.
Learning Objectives
- Create a custom image
- Deploy a session host with a custom image
- Modify a session host image
- Install language packs
- Plan for image update and management
- Create and use Azure Compute Gallery image
- Automate custom images with Azure Image Builder
Intended Audience
- Azure administrators with subject matter expertise in planning, delivering, and managing virtual desktop experiences and remote apps, for any device, on Azure
- Anyone looking to learn more about Azure Virtual Desktop
Prerequisites
- Windows operating system
- Imaging a Windows OS
- Azure Virtual Machines
- VM snapshots
- Azure Compute Gallery
- Azure Image Builder
The term gold image refers to your own certified custom image that you use to build out an application or environment. For this course, our gold image will start with Windows 10, version 20H2, multi-session. And this image will come from the Microsoft gallery. The Windows multi-session image is a special version of the client operating system that can support multiple users remoting into it at the same time. This is a special version of Windows and is only supported in the Azure Cloud.
So to create your golden image you first need to deploy an Azure BM from the Windows Enterprise multi-session source image. Since our VM will be deployed from the Azure marketplace, we don't need to take a snapshot right away but we will be taking a snapshot after each step in the process. Once your VM is deployed, you can RDP or log on through Bash in, to access the desktop and we can start installing our customizations. For our customizations, we'll be doing a few applications that have unique installations for a multi-session environment, including Office, Teams, OneDrive, and a few language packs.
Dean Cefola is a Principal Azure Engineer at Microsoft and has worked in the IT industry for over 20 years. Dean has been supporting Azure Virtual Desktop from the beginning and is the Microsoft FastTrack Global Leader for AVD.