Microsoft is bringing its Azure Virtual Desktop offering on-prem

Glowing server racks inside a data center.

Image Credit: Shutterstock (Image credit: Shutterstock)

Microsoft has announced the general availability of Azure Virtual Desktop for Azure Stack HCI, bringing Microsoft Cloud capabilities directly into organizations’ own data centers.

The decision comes as an evolving IT landscape reveals that not all enterprises are going all-in on cloud, offering them the option to adopt a more hybrid approach.

Azure Virtual Desktop for Azure Stack HCI provides a solution for those who need an on-prem solution for performance, data locality, or regulatory reasons.

Azure Virtual Desktop now has an on-prem option

Azure Virtual Desktop is a cloud-based solution designed to offer a secure remote desktop experience for Windows 10 and Windows 11 sessions. The fact that it’s now available on the company’s hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), which is a hybrid that connects the on-prem system to Azure’s cloud-based services, is a sure sign of the times.

Recent months have seen the emergence of a number of studies reporting that businesses are choosing not to go 100% cloud-based for one reason or another, be it cost or technicalities, and Microsoft seems to be adapting to its customers.

Azure Virtual Desktop Product Manager Steve Downs noted that “the cloud isn't the best option for every workload.”

Speaking of the benefits of the company’s new on-prem virtual desktop service, Downs added: “Azure Virtual Desktop can simplify deployment and management of your infrastructure, gives you full control over configuration and management, and reduces costs by optimizing through existing virtualization investments and skills.”

Azure Virtual Desktop for Azure Stack HCI is chargeable on an as-used basis, helping enterprises to have greater control over their spend. Pricing is based on user access rights, infrastructure costs, and an additional hybrid service fee, which is set at $0.01/vCore/hour of consumption.

The service is now generally available and is managed as a resource location for Azure Virtual Desktop host pools.

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