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What is WVD?

Windows Virtual Desktop is a desktop and app virtualization service that runs on the cloud

Set up a multi-session Windows 10 deployment that delivers a full Windows 10 with scalability
Virtualize Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise and optimize it to run in multi-user virtual scenarios
Bring your existing Remote Desktop Services (RDS) and Windows Server desktops and apps to any computer
Virtualize both desktops and apps
Bring your own image for production workloads or test from the Azure Gallery.
Reduce costs with pooled, multi-session resources. Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session capability exclusive to Windows Virtual Desktop.

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100,000 devices on Campus
~34,000 Students
~100 IT Units - Highly Decentralized
~700 IT Staff (240 in Central IT)
Each College has its own OU, managed by it’s own IT personnel, which has been delegated Full Control to their OU
~30,000 University-Owned Computers�4000 Mac OS, 4000 Linux, 22,000 Windows

Some Info about NC State

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Where we were...

Traditional on campus computer labs

"Butt in the seat" reservation model
Lots of up front cost
Machines sit idle for long periods of time
Different software load in each lab
Little remote access

Virtual Computing Lab (VCL)

NCSU developed solution Open Source Apache VCL

Created in 2004, has been the go-to resource for on demand virtual desktop usage on campus

Students and Faculty could reserve Linux and Windows machines for class use

Reservations could be personal use and could last an entire semester

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Why Windows Virtual Desktop?

Virtual Desktop Access (VDA) licensing cost increases

Augmenting normal solutions due to COVID-19

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Where are we using it?

Physical lab replacement
Classroom instruction
Homework for students
Course specific images
Access general use Site Licensed software

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Where are we using it?

NCSU Meta Hostpool

Software

Site licensed software

D4s V3 & 10 Session Hosts

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Where are we using it?

Electrical and Computer Engineering Computing Lab

Software

Cadence
MATLAB
Ansys

D4s V3 & 4 Session Hosts

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Azure Requirements

An Azure Active Directory.
A Windows Server Active Directory in sync with Azure Active Directory.

A Windows Server AD in sync with Azure Active Directory. User is sourced from Windows Server AD and the Windows Virtual Desktop VM is joined to Windows Server AD domain.
A Windows Server AD in sync with Azure Active Directory. User is sourced from Windows Server AD and the Windows Virtual Desktop VM is joined to Azure AD Domain Services domain.
A Azure AD Domain Services domain. User is sourced from Azure Active Directory, and the Windows Virtual Desktop VM is joined to Azure AD Domain Services domain.

An Azure subscription, parented to the same Azure AD tenant, that contains a virtual network that either contains or is connected to the Windows Server Active Directory or Azure AD DS instance.
VNet (Virtual Network)

Basically a subnet in Azure terminology
Has firewall capabilities (Network Security Groups or NSG)

Connectivity to on-prem (site-to-site VPN, or Express Route)

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WVD Connectivity

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WVD 1.0 (Classic/Fall) vs WVD 2.0 (Spring/ARM)

Tenant (1.0/Classic/Fall)

Workspace (2.0/Spring/ARM)

Session Host(s)

VM running multi-session Windows 10 20XX
VM running Server 2016/2019

Hostpool

One or more session hosts working together to handle the load of users accessing provided applications

Application groups - Full desktop or Remote Apps (streaming apps)

Desktop Application Group or DAG (1.0/Classic/Fall)

Default Desktop (2.0/Spring/ARM)

Remoteapp - same for both versions

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We give departments a base VM to log into and customize as needed, capture, and use for hostpool creation and updating
Updating Hostpools

Golden image

Maintain image and re-deploy hostpools as needed when image is updated

Update session hosts in place

Premium SSD is really a must for performance reasons on pooled hostpools
Suggestions from other universities
Trial and error until we achieved the performance we were needed
Idle sessions are automatically disconnected after 1 hour
Disconnected sessions are closed after 30 minutes

Choices we made

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Using the Fall/Classic model
Separate Azure VNET

Two subnets

WVD
Lab Services

Peered with hub VNET to on-prem
Firewall rules back to campus

2 Azure resource groups for each dept - Dev / Production
WVD OU in each college for computer objects for their session hosts
GPOs for required policy settings
SCCM for application deployment
Gallery Multi-session Windows 10 2004 with Office for base images
Session hosts and hostpools rolled with custom images created from the gallery base images
Started with WebJEA to automate

Base VM
Capturing Image
Deploying / Updating new hostpools

How we built it

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Our setup cont’d...

Our platform services team used WVD APIs to incorporate a self-service portal of sorts for end users and admins

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FSLogix

Profile redirection to Azure files
App Masking

Certain software is restricted to who can use it and for what purpose. On certain hostpools that are used for multiple courses, app masking is used to ensure only students from certain classes can see the software they need.
Works better for us than MSIX app attach

User data is not recommended to be stored on session hosts

Google Drive
OneDrive
NCSU Home Drive

Our setup cont’d...

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Problems / Gotchas

Cloud Management Gateway (CMG) application deployment issues for large applications
MSIX app attach

Wouldn’t work for larger applications. Small apps like VLC or Notepad++ were no problem but large applications wouldn’t finish building without errors
Do we want to maintain separate application packages in SCCM and MSIX app attach?

50 app group limit is tenant-wide for Azure Resource Manager (ARM) version of WVD

Not currently limited for Classic
Call to MSFT may get the limit increased

Webhooks don’t require auth, keep them secret!
User assignments

Classic requires access to be granted on a user by user basis
ARM allows for group based access

Optimizing number of hostpools vs software loads vs session host sizes

Is it “better” to have 10 hostpools with 5 main apps or�5 larger hostpools with 10 main plus lesser used apps?

Some applications believe the OS to be server based and will not install
Time zone may throw people

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Adoption has been slower than anticipated, the ability to expand or shrink with demand is beneficial

Perhaps professors aren’t pushing software usage as much, but cloud platforms from individual vendors have also taken some of the load

Discovering usage

Hostpool normally used by a course with 25 people, suddenly another course with 98 people hop on the hostpool and hijacks all resources.

Could be solved with scaling the hostpool, but not knowing when this may happen is an issue.

App streaming makes the rdweb portal potentially super busy

A cmdlet existed to allow folders for grouping similar to on-prem RDS, but after inquiring about its usage the cmdlet was deprecated and removed from documentation

Problems / Gotchas cont’d

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Monitoring

Azure Monitor
Sepago
Azure alerts
Azure performance counters
Looking into Nerdio
Getting feedback is difficult in COVID times.

In-person, if a student has a problem, they raise their hand. If everyone is having the same problem, IT staff can be alerted, stop by, and see for themselves. When everyone is remote on WVD, much harder to get feedback.

Does it work well? We think so.

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Azure Monitor

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Future Uses / Improvements

Conversion to ARM scheduled for Winter break
Investigate conversion of on-prem RDS services to WVD
Possibly use to replace RDP’ing to desktops in offices burning electricity
Admin VMs
Scaling script

Need to know how big to make hostpools
Decision to use breadth or depth

Pull information from monitoring into Splunk

We aren’t currently using Sentinel

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WVD Resources

Anything Chrisitiaan Brinkoff

Links, links, and more links

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Thanks!

Questions: mlpollar@ncsu.edu

***Please add subject of WVD Hi-Ed***