How do Azure Virtual Desktops compare with Hosted Desktops from Your Office Anywhere

When it comes to running a cloud-based Windows desktop, businesses have a myriad of options to choose from. The household name cloud providers like Microsoft Azure may be an obvious choice and they have a great product and almost infinite scalability and flexibility for complex infrastructure requirements. However, for the smaller business without an IT department there are a lot of benefits in considering independent hosted desktop providers instead. This article sets out some of the differences between these two types of services.

If you’ve found this article online I’m going to assume that you are already somewhat familiar with cloud solutions in general and perhaps cloud virtual desktops specifically. However, I’ve included an explanation at the end of this article for anyone at the beginning of their research.

To make a comparison between Hosted Desktops and Virtual Desktops in Azure I’m going to discuss both options in relation to key requirements such as Initial Setup, Security, Scalability, Flexibility, Price, High Availability. In these comparisons I will be using the services provided by Your Office Anywhere who are probably the countries longest established cloud hosted desktop provider.

Comparing the setup of Azure Virtual Desktops (AVD) and Hosted Desktops

People will tell you that they can “spin up” an AVD remote desktop in minutes, while this may be true there is a lot more to Azure desktop virtualisation than simply spinning up a desktop or server. Designing the architecture for your specific solution requires time and specialist skills, and setting everything up start to finish involves a lot of interconnecting parts. Feedback in reviews in Gartner’s Peer Insights suggests that setting up a Windows Azure VDI solution can be “time consuming” and “cumbersome”.

The architecture for a Hosted Desktop solution can be equally as complex as a Windows Azure remote desktop, but the difference is that the job of designing and setting up the infrastructure is done by the hosted desktop provider, sometimes in conjunction with a software vendor. Critically for most hosted desktop implementations, especially for small businesses, there is no requirement for the end customer to have any IT skills.

How does supporting an Azure Remote Desktop compare with a Hosted Desktop

Both environments require support, monitoring, and maintenance, of course. This is the big differentiator between Microsoft AVD and say Your Office Anywhere’s Hosted Desktop. For a business using an AVD remote desktop solution you will need to pay for the services of a specialist Azure IT consultant to support your Azure remote desktop. When using the service of a hosted desktop provider then support for the remote desktop is all included. This will include day to day support, monitoring and alerting as well as dealing with emergencies.

What is Azure VDI?

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure is the provision of multiple virtual desktop operating systems hosted on larger servers for security, stability and easier management and deployment. Users connect to virtual desktops over a network. Azure VDI is the use of Microsoft Azure cloud services to host these virtual desktops.

Installing software on Windows on Azure VDI

Azure Virtual Desktops are individual operating systems, often Windows 10 or 11 and have to be managed individually, including installing and making available any software. On a hosted desktop all your users are generally connecting to the same virtual server, so software is available as soon as the user is set up and logged on.

Is a Hosted Desktop as Secure as Microsoft AVD?

Security is a very difficult thing to quantify. Some of the biggest companies and organisations in the world, with the best IT and security teams have been hit by cyber-attacks, whether targeted or random victims of malware. A Microsoft consultant once told me in conversation that they are the third most targeted organisation on the planet after the White House and the FBI. Microsoft have multiple layers of security in Azure and whether using an Azure remote desktop or a Hosted Desktop security measures like multi-factor authentication are advisable. Both types of services rely on Windows servers and Microsoft applications at their core, and malware frequently targets vulnerabilities in Windows and other Microsoft applications. It is an arms race between the attackers discovering security holes and Microsoft patching them. A hosted remote desktop provider will automatically patch Microsoft servers as recommended by Microsoft. When using virtual desktops in Azure this patching may not be automatic and is something that needs to be managed by your IT department or external Azure support team.

Does a Hosted Desktop platform have the same High Availability as Azure?

A typical hosted desktop platform will have high availability features such as “failover”, moving the remote desktop server from a physical “host” server to another host in the event of a hardware failure. Some services may offer failover to another data centre although this will have a premium price associated with it. An Azure desktop virtualisation platform has the benefit of failover not only to other host servers in the same data centre, but also to host servers in data centres in the same country, or other countries and regions globally. There is of course a cost associated with this, so businesses considering Azure need to take this into account when balancing cost, risk, and disaster recovery planning.

Is Azure Virtual Desktop Cheaper than a Hosted Desktop?

Depending on the scale of your requirements there may be situations where an Azure desktop virtualisation project works out cheaper than running the same project with hosted desktops but in general a hosted desktop solution would work out cheaper. The main reason for the cost saving is that there is no requirement for a “middle man”. With Azure you will need to pay for the services of an Azure AVD specialist to set everything up and support it going forward. With a hosted desktop solution that service and support is all included.

The other thing to consider with Azure remote desktops is the contract length. Most AVD solutions require specific Microsoft 365 subscriptions and you would normally expect to sign up for 12 months, or pay 20% extra for monthly contracts. With our hosted desktops there are no lengthy contracts, just rolling monthly.

What are cloud-based virtual desktops, hosted desktops and Windows Azure Remote Desktops

Imagine a normal Windows desktop PC that you can connect to over the internet, like a second computer that you can switch to as needed. Businesses all over the world are making use of hosted virtual desktops so they can run their business desktop software in the cloud. All the data, documents, databases are also running in the cloud, sat alongside the remote desktops to maximise performance.

There are various types of remote desktops. Microsoft AVD or Azure Virtual Desktops are Windows Azure Remote Desktops running on the Azure platform run by Microsoft. Hosted Desktops are generally run by independent providers on the own hardware. VDI or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure is more typically an on-premise solution for larger organisations, but you may hear reference to Windows Azure VDI where these solutions are set up in Azure.

If you are looking for a cloud-based solution for your Windows desktop applications and want to find out more about what hosted desktops can do please get in touch using the form below and one of our technical sales consultants can arrange a call or Teams/Zoom desktop share to answer your questions or show you the solution live.