Coinciding with the launch of Windows Server 2012 R2, Microsoft announced a change in the license terms for Windows Azure to enable the use of Remote Desktop Service (RDS) in Windows Azure virtual machines (VM). In this way, Microsoft provides a scalable and economic scenario for your company to have virtual desktops in the Azure cloud.
Remote Desktop Services (formerly Terminal Services) uses a similar to a pool of VDI model with a single user desktop and perfectly suited for shared hosting environments through SPLA licensing Windows Server CAL and Remote Desktop. Also, Cal’s RDS acquired through volume contracts with Software Assurance rights granted such desktop not only locally but also in the cloud.
With this solution you can assemble a complete scenario of virtual desktops based on RDS / Windows server directly laas services on Windows Azure. The architecture does not change much with respect to how you would on its own infrastructure and also your company is unaware of the installation of any virtualization platform and benefits from a billing model that can get to pay per minute of use.
There are multiple scenarios in which you use this solution, but basically is geared for consumer desktops and / or applications over the Internet.
The advantages of this solution are:
- Legal solution (versus non-legal solutions like cloud VDA)
- Easy to deploy
- Accommodation in different geographic locations depending on the location of users
- Geo-fault tolerance
- Pay Per Minute resources
- Regardless of their own networks or wide band
Disadvantages:
- Worse than an equivalent architectural scalability on premise
- Impractical for applications with strong dependencies backend
- Less flexibility or restrictions on deployment models
- Possible legal limitations or supportability of some applications
In addition, Microsoft is working on a project called Mohoro, with which aims to provide Windows desktops as a service offering. This project will be released probably in the second half of 2014.