Hey everyone! I'm planning to transition our Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) session hosts to use ephemeral disks, with user data managed through FSLogix and everything essential stored on the image itself. Since I'm looking at dynamic auto-scaling, where machines are deleted when they're not needed and created as demand arises, I'm curious about how to integrate this with Group Policies (GPOs) which typically take 60-90 minutes to apply. Should I just embed the settings directly into the image to avoid using GPOs? This leads to even more questions, especially since the image has to be sys-prepped and generalized, meaning it won't be part of a domain to pull the GPOs. I really like the idea of ephemeral disks for their cost-efficiency and performance, plus I enjoy the concept of VMs that don't accumulate unnecessary data over time. Any tips or insights would be greatly appreciated!
3 Answers
If you're looking for a solution that simplifies this process, I highly recommend checking out Nerdio. It's designed specifically for scenarios like yours and can be set up in under a day, handling all the complexities for you. In our setup, we have a single VM that powers down after 30 minutes of inactivity, and we manage to scale up to three session hosts as needed. If a session starts after being inactive, it usually takes just a couple of minutes for the VM to boot up. They also allow temporary 'burst' capacity for existing hosts, which is handy while waiting for a new one to spin up. Plus, you can schedule live VM re-imaging, deletions, and provisioning—all automated! It saves us tons of time.
You might want to check out Hydra in the Azure Marketplace. It’s a tool developed by a Microsoft MVP in Germany, and there’s a free community version that works great for smaller setups.
Are you experiencing the 60-90 minute delay in policies because you’re using Intune? Just curious because that timeframe seems lengthy.
+1 for Nerdio, it's seriously worth it. The amount of time we save in deployment makes it pay for itself fast!