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Microsoft will deprecate the classic edition of its Azure Digital Desktop desktop-as-a-provider (DaaS) and has given prospects three years to attend the usage of the provider sooner than they’ll need to search out an substitute.
The appliance enormous appears to personal spent years attempting to confuse cloudy DaaS customers, as it has supplied two products called Azure Digital Desktop, with varying degrees of integration with Azure.
The “classic” provider has a management GUI that’s no longer half of the Azure Portal and isn’t addressable with the Azure Helpful resource Supervisor (ARM), Microsoft’s predominant deployment and management provider for its cloud.
The successor to Azure Digital Desktop (AVD) classic is is known as – wait for it – “Azure Digital Desktop.”
This from the modern minds that every body straight away and inexplicably renamed Azure Active Directory as “Entra” and saved the title “Active Directory” for on-prem directories.
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But we digress.
The variation between AVD classic and AVD is that the latter makes utilize of ARM – the Azure Helpful resource Supervisor, no longer the processor architecture, need to you had been puzzled seeing as Microsoft provides Windows for Arm.
Whilst you want additional confusion, the most neatly-liked model of AVD became as soon as called Windows Digital Desktop.
Each AVDs are a form of to Windows 365 Cloud PCs – one more Microsoft DaaS providing. The latter mostly runs on AVD however abstracts away the gnarly bits and is sold at a mounted label barely than essentially essentially based on consumption. Windows 365 Cloud PCs are supposed to be managed by customers, whereas AVD is a more locked-down expertise just like mission DaaS.
Now that you (with any luck) know what Microsoft is killing, there is some factual data: a transfer from AVD classic to AVD could per chance additionally additionally be automatic. Microsoft has outlined how, right here. The appliance enormous has also detailed the intention for a manual migration.
However the Windows titan has no longer outlined why it has deprecated AVD classic, rather then bringing up that the provider isn’t integrated with Azure. The Register understands AVD classic could per chance additionally speed on an isolated pod of infrastructure. Killing the classic provider will therefore simplify Microsoft’s like infrastructure. And in all probability, as soon as there is genuine one AVD, yours too – as soon as you migrate.
Microsoft is giving you factual reasons to enact so. Closing Friday it grew to alter into not possible to invent contemporary Azure Digital Desktop (classic) tenants – even though Microsoft will give mountainous prospects an extension.
But come September 30 2026, most fascinating AVD would possibly be supported. Assuming Microsoft hasn’t bored with running it and Cloud PCs by then. ®