Advances in Managed Azure Virtual Desktop

May 26 2022, by Pauline Thomas | Category: Cloud Services

Three great new features for Managed Azure Virtual Desktop.

1. RDP Shortpath for public networks in Preview

Our initial test results for AVD Shortpath for public networks indicates speed does not have to come at the expense of security.

We usually don’t discuss pre-GA releases, but in this case, the results speak for themselves. RDP Shortpath transport for public networks is a preview feature of Azure Virtual Desktop that establishes a direct UDP data flow between Remote Desktop Client and Session host – which could mean better round trip time not just at connection but across established sessions too. It increases available bandwidth as it takes a “short path” to reduce dependency on the Azure Virtual Desktop gateway relay.

Our little B2ms demo environment had a worst case result of an RTT diff. of 33% – where performance contrasted from 12 ms(UDP) to 16ms (TCP). Best case was a staggering 250% and averaged about 50% performance improvement. Not too shabby, (don’t forget the bandwidth increase!) especially as it still handles connections via the reverse connect transport and a dynamically assigned UDP socket. Security and speed – a winning combination!

2. Trusted Launch VMs in Shared Compute Gallery.

Trusted launch protects against advanced and persistent attack techniques by combining infrastructure technologies like vTPM and secure boot. Azure Compute Gallery now can create and share images of trusted launch virtual machines, which is good news for anyone using a gold image for their Azure Virtual Desktop session hosts.

3. Workbook insights.

Our customers like AVD insights for its deep insights into session hosts, performance and diagnostic data. We’ve built a add-on workbook for an additional level of detail on log-on timing, and importantly the causes for delay, disks, storage accounts and users. Talk to us to add the workbook to report your host pool, or tell us what data you would like to report on!