Azure Virtual Desktop (formerly Windows Virtual Desktop): scalable cloud desktops for US businesses.
What your people get is a complete Windows 11 desktop, or just the individual applications they need, streamed out of Azure. The distinction from a Cloud PC matters: this pools several users onto shared hosts under your own management, which is what makes it economical for shared workloads, where the Cloud PC is single-user software as a service. It suits contact centers, outsourced operations, secure remote working and any situation where regulation drives you toward virtualized access. We design, build and operate these environments anywhere from ten users to ten thousand, working remotely.
- Multi-sessionCost-efficient at scale
- Azure-nativeSame tenant as M365
- FSLogixProfile management
- ConditionalAccess policies enforced
Six functions for production-grade virtual desktop deployments.
Session-host design
Shared Windows 11 Enterprise hosts pooled for the bulk of your workforce, with dedicated personal desktops reserved for whoever genuinely needs one. Pool sizing comes from three inputs: how many people are actually concurrent, how demanding their applications are, and what you are willing to spend.
FSLogix profile management
Profiles live in containers held centrally, which is what makes the sessions themselves disposable. Somebody landing on one host today and a different one tomorrow gets an identical experience either way. Container growth is managed deliberately and the underlying storage sized correctly, because getting that wrong is what makes people say the desktop feels slow.
Application delivery
Applications stream in separately from the base image rather than being baked into it, which keeps that image small and far easier to maintain. Office, your line-of-business systems and anything bespoke all get delivered per person or per group, with image versions managed properly through a compute gallery.
Security and Conditional Access
Your existing access policies apply to these sessions exactly as they do to everything else: a second factor required, device compliance enforced, geographic restrictions where you want them. Endpoint protection runs on the session hosts themselves rather than being assumed unnecessary because they are virtual.
Monitoring and scaling
Monitoring covers session counts, how hard each host is working and metrics reflecting what users actually experience rather than what the infrastructure claims. Scaling plans then shut hosts down automatically outside working hours, which is where the cost control genuinely happens rather than in a spreadsheet.
Cost optimization
Reserved capacity for hosts that genuinely run continuously, automatic scaling wherever demand varies, smaller machine sizes for people who barely tax them, and GPU-backed sizes strictly where the work requires them. Deployments nobody has optimized carry substantial waste in idle hosts, and this is the discipline that takes it out.
Four reasons clients choose us for AVD.
Microsoft cloud-native deployment
All of this sits inside the tenant you already own, next to Microsoft 365. One identity, one set of security policies, one monitoring stack. There is no separate platform to learn, no federation to build and no second administration team to staff. We work remotely inside your tenant as a Microsoft CSP and Solutions Partner.
Cost-aware from day one
Without active cost discipline this gets expensive very quickly, and quietly. Hosts get sized to the actual workload, scaling plans go in from the start, reserved capacity is used where it makes sense, and somebody reviews the numbers every month. Predictable cost is part of what you are buying rather than something you chase afterwards.
FSLogix and image management done right
There are exactly two ways these platforms fail operationally, and both are gradual: profile containers growing unchecked, and images drifting out of currency. We engineer container sizing and lifecycle deliberately, and manage image versions through a compute gallery, which is what keeps things stable as the deployment grows rather than degrading through year two.
Compliance-aware configuration
Configuration aligned to HIPAA, GLBA and NYDFS Part 500 obligations: clipboard restricted, removable storage blocked, screen capture controlled, audit logging in place, and nothing sensitive ever written to the endpoint. That last property is frequently the entire reason an organization chooses this approach in the first place. Interpretation of your obligations belongs to your compliance advisors. Building the controls and producing the evidence is ours.
Six scenarios where AVD beats alternatives.
Compliance-driven access
Financial services and healthcare organizations needing people to reach sensitive systems inside a controlled environment, with nothing landing on the endpoint itself. Configured strictly, this produces exactly the audit trail a HIPAA risk analysis or an FTC Safeguards assessment expects to be shown.
BPO and contact center operations
Contact centers running several shifts across shared workstations, where pooling agents onto multi-session hosts brings the cost per seat down dramatically compared with anything dedicated.
Clinical workstations
Clinical machines needing tight data controls, genuinely fast switching between practitioners, and access to the records platform, with protected health information never touching a local disk.
Retail back-office
Shared back-office machines spread across dozens of store locations, where nobody local is available to fix a desktop and consistency matters more than performance.
Industrial-floor shared workstations
Terminals on a production floor passed between shifts, where the hardware takes a beating and the desktop needs to survive the machine being replaced.
Education lab environments
Teaching labs, controlled examination environments and training rooms, where a room full of identical desktops has to be reset reliably between one cohort and the next.
Four virtualized-desktop approaches compared.
| Feature | Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) | Windows 365 Cloud PC | Citrix DaaS | VMware Horizon (on-prem) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Multi-session per host | Single-user per PC | |||
IT-managed scale | Per-user SaaS | |||
Azure-native | Azure or AWS | On-prem | ||
M365 native integration | Connectors | Connectors | ||
Cost-efficiency at scale | High | Mid | Mid-High | High CapEx, low OpEx |
Single-user IT simplicity | Mid | Highest | Mid | Lowest |
Suitable for regulated industries | ||||
Optimal user count | 50-10,000+ | 1-500 | 50-10,000+ | 50-5,000 |
Four phases from assessment to managed AVD in 6-12 weeks.
- 1
Assessment and design
2 weeks
User profile analysis, application inventory, identity foundation review. Host pool sizing, image design, profile container sizing, scaling-plan logic. Output: written AVD design.
- 2
Foundation deployment
2-3 weeks
AVD landing zone, host pools, FSLogix, base image, Azure Compute Gallery, application packaging, Conditional Access policies, monitoring foundation.
- 3
Pilot rollout
2 weeks
Pilot user group on AVD. Friction captured (printer access, USB, app compatibility). Profile-container behavior verified. Performance and cost validated.
- 4
Full rollout and managed state
2-4 weeks plus ongoing
Full user base onboarded. Monthly cost review, quarterly capacity planning, semi-annual image refresh, annual license and reservation review, with 24/7 coverage and a 5-minute P1 response for managed clients.
What buyers ask before deploying.
Book an AVD scoping call and get a written design proposal in 5 days.
A scoping call covers user count, application mix, security requirements, compliance constraints, and budget envelope. Output: a written AVD design with a cost model and timeline, scoped per engagement.
Related Services
Explore more solutions that work great with this service