Azure Virtual Desktop has now been around for a little over 2 years. Some organizations have migrated to it completely, moving away from classic remote working platforms like Citrix and Microsoft Remote Desktop Services. Other organizations are sticking a toe in the water, setting up and testing small scale AVD deployments to see if AVD makes sense for their workflows. Yet even other organizations have already panned AVD, due to increased costs, reduced performance for cost compared to on-premises or co-located hardware, and SLA issues.

In this session, we're going to "keep it real" and strip all of Microsoft's marketing hype away from AVD. We'll discuss AVD's many pros and cons so your organization can determine whether it makes sense to stick with what you're running, or undertake a migration.

We're also going to explore Microsoft's games around licensing in AVD and RDS, their deliberate tactics of not backporting optimizations for AVD (e.g. Teams) to classic RDS, and their lack of support for Microsoft 365 apps on Server 2022 RDS / no support for Microsoft 365 apps on Server 2019 RDS after October 2025.

You will learn:

• A history of Azure Virtual Desktop, and how it is similar and different to classic RDS/Citrix
• Pros/cons of AVD compared to on-premises or hosted RDS/Citrix. Should I migrate to AVD?
• Specific tactics Microsoft is using to encourage organizations to migrate to AVD. E.g. licensing strategies, lack of innovation in classic RDS, sunsetting Microsoft 365 apps support on RDS.