Item: Azure Virtual Desktop
Rating: 8
Author: Mihail Marinov

Overall Satisfaction with Azure Virtual Desktop

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Azure Virtual Desktop has been the go-to remote desktop management solution in two of the organizations I have worked for. It was central in enabling remote work for us during the 2020-2022 period, and is still crucial as far as ensuring contributors work within a trust-agnostic environment and for ensuring compliance. The scale of use was significant in both cases (all remote & hybrid workers).

Pros and Cons

Pros

Lightweight
Easily scalable
Easy to set up
Intuitive

Cons

High latency in some cases
Cost
Unexpected disconnections

Return on Investment

Immediately reduced value drift
Reduced security incidents by 85%
Cut down tool access delay in half

Usability

Stability and latency complaints are common, but not experienced by all users. A drop in overall productivity can be seen in contributors who rely on a lot of copy-pasting for editing, so some such commands are not instantaneous. Set up is intuitive and the tool is simple enough. It was quick to adopt and stick to.

Alternatives Considered

Citrix DaaS

No real competition, Azure Virtual Desktop has a lot fewer problems and is much more usable than Citrix DaaS in my experience. I found my time with Citrix DaaS quite unsettling and issues were flagged daily. I would select Azure Virtual Desktop any day and likely stick to it if these were the shortlisted choices.

Key Insights

Do you think Azure Virtual Desktop delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Azure Virtual Desktop's feature set?

Yes

Did Azure Virtual Desktop live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Azure Virtual Desktop go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Azure Virtual Desktop again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access, Microsoft 365, Microsoft 365 Copilot

Likelihood to Recommend

Azure Virtual Desktop is well suited when you need a "one size fits all" solution for remote and hybrid work in a trustless or trust-agnostic environment. I will help with centralizing or standardizing how your org's resources are used.

It may be less appropriate in cases where even slight latency could affect work, for example for artists or any other type of contributor where precision and immediacy are key.

Comments

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Azure Virtual Desktop Use