Is Azure VDI Worth the Cost?

What is Azure VDI? Why use VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) — and what is the cost?

Employees are increasingly working remotely. But even if your employees aren’t working remotely, there are still some major advantages to using Azure VDI. Let’s look at the costs involved in Azure VDI, whether it’s worth it and some alternatives. We’ll also look at how you can reduce your Azure VDI expenses.

What is Azure Virtual Desktop?

Azure Virtual Desktop is a cloud-based solution that makes it possible to access virtual desktops. These virtual desktops function effectively like a remote desktop solution, but they don’t correlate to any physical device. A cloud server can provision dozens, hundreds or even thousands of virtual desktops. Some desktops may be persistent; others may reset, depending on the needs of the company.

Azure Virtual Desktop has many pricing options, and you only pay for Azure Virtual Desktop on a per-seat basis. Consequently, working with Azure Virtual Desktop is very cost-effective. But there are things that can impact this. If you have many seats, your organization could find itself spending thousands of dollars on Azure Virtual Desktop seats. It’s possible that a localized server would make more sense.

The Pros and Cons of Azure Virtual Desktop

Azure VDI provides many benefits that can save organizations money in the long run, including:

• The ability to quickly provision and de-provision virtual desktops. Your virtual desktops only exist within virtual space. They are taken as snapshots and can be provisioned, re-provisioned and de-provisioned. Every time a virtual desktop is provisioned, it can be reset to a blank slate. This ensures that there are no lingering issues and greatly reduces the chances that there could be security issues such as rogue tech.
• Flexible pricing options allow organizations to pay only for what they use. Rather than having to pay for a certain number of desktops by default, you can just provision them as needed. In fact, employees can even use personal devices with limited potential for security risk because everything is filtered through the virtual desktop solution.
• The ability to scale up or down as needed. It may be the case that your organization suddenly needs to scale up during busy times and scale down during light times. Rather than investing in static solutions, you can invest in a dynamic solution that lets you pay for only what you need at any given time. This gives your corporation more agility during volatile times.
• Highly available and extremely reliable. Your systems are built on cloud solutions, which means that your systems will always be available, and that disruption will be rare, if at all. Because these systems operate through redundancy, it is difficult to experience true downtime, and because each VDI solution is a separate instance, the desktops should not interfere.
• Easier to secure and protect. As mentioned, these provisions can be re-instanced at will, which also shores up many serious security issues. Your organization can maintain security by wiping solutions to a blank slate, preventing employees from installing software. Additionally, because these VDI instances are entirely under the organization’s control, they will always be up-to-date and securely patched.

In virtually every respect, Azure VDI works like an actual desktop. Employees can either remote in from their devices at home, or they can use their virtual desktops at the office through terminals. Either way, though, Azure VDI gives systems administrators more complete control over the system.

But there are some cons to Azure VDI, too. You need to understand how to configure and provision the system, and you need someone to administer the system. Because you have complete control over the organization’s systems, you need to configure them correctly or you could experience serious efficiency or security issues later.

Alternatives to Azure Virtual Desktop

Beyond Azure VDI, there are other cloud solutions. Organizations can simply rely on cloud-based SaaS apps rather than virtualizing their entire desktop solution — employees can have their own desktops managed on their physical machine. Alternatively, organizations can use remote desktop utilities to let employees remote into desktops held within their network. This increases security but does reduce the utility for employees.

And there are other virtual desktop solutions, such as the ones provided by AWS. But Azure VDI works most cleanly with a Microsoft ecosystem and is consequently the virtual desktop of choice for most Microsoft infrastructures.

Are you wondering whether Azure is right for you? If you’re not sure whether Azure is the right virtual desktop solution, then an MSP can help. An MSP will help you explore your options more effectively to avoid committing to a solution that isn’t right for you.

Why Should You Get an MSP for Azure VDI

All cloud services can become expensive if they aren’t properly controlled. Ultimately, the costs of a cloud service are relative to the resources you need. You can easily overpay simply by engaging with services that your organization doesn’t need or has overlaps with other services. Not protecting your resources and incorrectly configuring and provisioning solutions may also impact your cost.

So, an MSP can pay for itself when it comes to managing and protecting cloud solutions.

Azure VDI is an excellent solution for those who operate within the Microsoft ecosystem and those who want to be able to connect to their ecosystem from anywhere. But it still is a complex solution that needs some strict controls.

Getting Into Azure VDI With an MSP

Is VDI worth it? An MSP can help your organization determine how much Azure VDI would cost. From there, the MSP can then tell you exactly how much an alternative would be. Your MSP can even help you deploy your Azure VDI solution or the solution that will work best for you.

If you’re wondering whether your current infrastructure needs changes, the best place to go is the professionals. A professional managed services provider will act as a partner, investigating new technologies and determining whether they’re the right ones for you.

When it comes to Azure VDI, the answer should be clear. Either it will be a cost-effective solution, or you might need something more robust.