If you're like most organizations, you're always looking for ways to reduce your monthly operating expenses. A service from Microsoft Azure called Azure Virtual Desktop can help you do just that. Azure AVD allows you to run a full desktop environment in the cloud, which can save you money on hardware and software licenses. In addition, since the environment is hosted in Azure, you'll enjoy reduced maintenance and management costs. In this post, we'll explore some of the ways that Azure AVD can help reduce your operating expenses.
What is Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD)?
Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) is a cloud-based desktop virtualization service that allows users to access their applications and data from anywhere, on any device. AVD provides a complete virtual desktop experience, including the ability to access remote desktops, applications, and data.
AVD is a cost-effective alternative to traditional on-premises desktop virtualization solutions. AVD reduces the need for expensive hardware and software licenses, and provides a pay-as-you-go pricing model that can save you money on your monthly operating expenses. AVD also works with Azure Reserved Instances and Azure Hybrid Benefit to allow your organization to save even more.
AVD is easy to set up and use, and provides a high-quality user experience. AVD is available in all Azure regions, and supports both Windows 10 and Windows 11.
AVD is a great solution for organizations that need to provide remote access to their applications and data, but do not want to invest in expensive on-premises hardware, operating systems, configuration, management, and maintenance costs. AVD is also an excellent choice for organizations that have already invested in Azure or Microsoft 365 infrastructure.
What are the typical Azure Virtual Desktop costs?
The typical cost of an Azure Virtual Desktop deployment will vary depending on the number of users, the type of workloads, and the region where the deployment is located. As of this article's writing, your AVD per user costs can range between USD ~$9.00 and USD ~$35.00. all depending on the type of workloads and user density deployed in your hosts.
AVD deployments can be either on-demand, which means you pay for the compute and storage resources used, or reserved, which provides a discount for committing to use AVD for a one- or three-year period.
On-demand deployments are often used for testing and development, or for small deployments. Reserved deployments are typically used for production workloads, or for larger deployments.
Additionally, AVD offers the ability to spin new hosts dynamically when demand increases due to workforce simultaneous use, delivering on the true cloud premise of "elastic" operational expenses. An exceedingly difficult feat to achieve in an ever more complex universe of cloud offerings.
What are the features of Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD)?
AVD is comprised of three parts: the desktop client, the AVD infrastructure, and the virtual machines or hosts (VMs) that run the desktops. The desktop client is a software application that you install on your local computer. It provides the user interface and connects to the AVD infrastructure. The AVD infrastructure is a set of Azure services that provide the back-end functionality for AVD. These services include Azure Active Directory, Azure Resource Manager, Azure Storage, and Azure Networking.
What are the benefits of Azure Virtual Desktop?
Azure Virtual Desktop provides many benefits that can help reduce your monthly operating IT expenses. AVD provides a scalable, pay-as-you-go desktop computing service that includes Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) and multi-user support.
AVD also offers cost-effective and flexible licensing options, as well as the ability to connect to on-premises resources. In addition, AVD offers high-performance networking and storage options, making it an ideal solution for businesses with large amounts of data.
If your organization has a Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Microsoft 365 E3 or superior licensing the cost to license your Windows 11 Enterprise Multi-session hosts is ZERO.
AVD is highly scalable, making it easy to add or remove users as needed. AVD also offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee, making it a reliable option for businesses that require high availability.
AVD supports multi-session hosts, making it possible for businesses to support multiple users in a single instance. AVD also offers the ability to customize the user experience, making it possible to tailor the service to the needs of your business.
How does Azure Virtual Desktop cut costs?
Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) is a great way to reduce the total cost of your IT infrastructure. Azure Virtual Desktop as a PaaS reduces the need for on-premises hardware, which can be expensive to maintain. On-premise hardware also requires additional bandwidth to support, which can be costly. Azure Virtual Desktop reduces the workload on your IT staff, by automating many of the tasks that they would otherwise have to perform manually. This can free up time and resources that can be used elsewhere, resulting in cost savings.
In addition, Azure Virtual Desktop cuts down on the amount of bandwidth that your organization needs, since all of the computing is done in the cloud. The bandwidth requirements will depend on the size and number of users, but Azure Virtual Desktop can be scaled to meet your needs.
AVD also provides a pay-as-you-go model which means that you only need to pay for the resources that you use, and not for any additional infrastructure. This can be a significant cost saving for organizations that do not need full-time on-premises IT staff.
Finally, Azure Virtual Desktop can be scaled up or down to accommodate changes in the number of users or workloads, which can help save money on your monthly IT expenses. AVD's scalability means that you only pay for what you use, which can lead to significant savings over time. It further reduces the cost of hardware and software because it only needs to be purchased once for all end-users.
Azure Virtual Desktop is a great choice for organizations that are looking to reduce their monthly IT expenses. By utilizing the power of the cloud, Azure Virtual Desktop can help you save on hardware, bandwidth, and other costs.
Reduce RDP cost
When you are planning to move your organization to Azure, you will quickly realize that there are many opportunities to reduce your monthly IT expenses. One such opportunity is to use Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) instead of Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) for your desktop and application needs.
RDP is a proprietary protocol developed by Microsoft that allows users to connect to a remote computer over a network connection. AVD is a service provided by Azure that allows users to access a virtual machine (VM) running in the Azure cloud.
An on-premise or Azure Remote Desktop architecture that complies with best practices is always an expensive and complex to manage proposition for any IT Team, directly managing or using co-managed IT services. With Azure AVD 80% of the required infrastructure is replaced by Azure platform services that have not cost to the organization. So AVD means no need to spin, configure or maintain RDP Licensing servers, RDP Gateway servers or RDP Session Broker servers. AVD streamlines and optimizes RDP to become a real value creation tool for SMB and enterprise IT.
Will Azure Virtual Desktop be cheaper than my current IT provider?
As you evaluate your options for cloud-based desktops, it's important to consider the costs associated with each solution. Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) can be a more cost-effective option than traditional on-premises virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), and can provide you with additional benefits in terms of automation and scalability.
AVD is a cost-effective option for several reasons. First, it allows you to autoscale your deployment based on user demand. This means that you only pay for the capacity that you need, and you don't have to over-provision to account for peak usage.
Second, AVD includes a per-user licensing model, which can be more cost-effective than per-device licensing models. This is because you can have multiple users sharing the same virtual machine (VM), which can reduce the overall cost of your deployment.
Third, AVD offers a pay-as-you-go pricing model, which can further reduce your costs. With this pricing model, you only pay for the resources that you use, and you don't have to make an upfront investment in hardware or software.
Finally, AVD includes a number of built-in cost-saving features, such as app performance monitoring and auto-scaling. These features can help you to optimize your deployment and reduce your overall infrastructure costs.
In the long run, AVD can be a more cost-effective option than traditional on-premises VDI. With its pay-as-you-go pricing model and built-in cost-saving features, AVD can help you to reduce your overall IT expenses.
Reduce your monthly IT expenses
If you're looking for a more efficient and affordable way to manage your IT needs, Azure Virtual Desktop may be the solution for you. Microsoft's cloud-based platform has been shown to reduce monthly operating expenses, and with ne Digital's help, you can make the most of all that Azure has to offer. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help your business get cloud services and save you money in the process.
