How to Build a Laboratory

Automatic

In the summer of 2019, Azure Virtual Desktop was presented with the name of Windows Virtual Desktop, and deploying it in production or in a laboratory environment was quite tricky because the service was not fully integrated with Azure Active Directory, and because of the complete lack of a graphical interface.

Today, Azure Virtual Desktop is a very mature service that provides full integration with Azure and the rest of Microsoft ecosystem, and delivers a very good graphical interface inside the Azure Portal.

But there is more: a wizard that builds a full laboratory automatically.

This logic is good for proof of concepts and for learning the service, and it can be easily triggered from the Azure Virtual Desktop graphical user interface inside the Azure Portal.

The prerequisites are:

• An Azure subscription.
• An Azure Active Directory tenant.
• Global admin credentials.

Go to https://portal.azure.com.

In the search box, type Azure Virtual Desktop and click the icon.

Figure 55: Search for Azure Virtual Desktop inside the Azure Portal

In the Azure Virtual Desktop graphic user interface, click Getting started > Start.

Figure 56: Getting Started Feature inside the Azure Virtual Desktop Graphical User Interface

The wizard can create a laboratory using an existing domain hosted on an existing Azure virtual machine that is acting as a domain controller, or it’s creating an Azure Active Directory domain service domain.

Figure 57: Getting Started Wizard, First Page

On the second page, I can choose the base image (Microsoft has a gallery of prebuilt and always-up-to-date images), the type of virtual machine (D series is good for multi-session), and the number of virtual machines that I want to create.

Figure 58: Getting Started Wizard, Second Page

Finally, I must create a user and assign the resource (the desktop access).

Figure 59: Getting Started Wizard, Third Page

Manual

The quickest way to manually create a simple laboratory is to use Azure Active Directory-only virtual machines (currently in preview).

The prerequisites are only an Azure tenant with a subscription, a virtual network created in the Azure region of choice, and the role of Global Administrator.

From the Azure Virtual Desktop portal, click Create a host pool.

Figure 60: Create a Host Pool, First Step

Select the subscription, click Create new, and insert the name of your resource group, the name of the pool, and the location.

Note: Because the Azure Active Directory Join feature is still in preview, I need to select Yes for the Validation environment in this example (check the latest news about this feature).

Select the host pool type to specify if you prefer personal or pooled and click Next.

Figure 61: Create a Host Pool, Second Step

Now it’s time to create the virtual machines. In the first half of the page, you must select Yes for Add virtual machines and choose the name prefix, the availability zone, and the image (choose one for the list of already available images). Finally, enter the number of virtual machines that you want to create; leave everything else as default.

Figure 62: Create a Host Pool, Third Step, First Half

In the second half of the same page, you select the existing virtual network (that must be created in the same Azure Region of the host pool), select Azure Active Directory Join, and create a local admin for the virtual machines.

Click Next.

Figure 63: Create a Host Pool, Third Step, First Half

In the Workspace page, select Yes and Create new to enter the name of the workspace. Click Review + create.

Figure 64: Create a Host Pool, Fourth Step

If everything is correct, you can click the Create button and wait for the end of the host pool creation.

At the end of the deployment, from the Azure Virtual Desktop Portal, click Application Group > <the name of your pool+DAG> > Add.

Select the name of a user that will consume the virtual machine desktop.

Figure 65: Application Group Assignment

From the Azure Virtual Desktop Portal, select Host pools > <The name of your pool> > RDP Properties > Advanced.

Manually type ;targetisaadjoined:i:1 at the end of the box and click Save.

Figure 66: Host Pool RDP Properties

In the search box on top of the webpage, search for Resource Groups and select <the name of your resource group> > Access Control (IAM) > Add.

Add the Virtual Machine Administrator Login and the Virtual Machine User Login and assign them to your test user.

Figure 67: Resource Group Permissions

Now from a compatible browser, navigate to https://rdweb.wvd.microsoft.com/arm/webclient/index.html and perform authentication with your test user. Double-click the session desktop resource.

Figure 68: AVD web portal

You are now inside one of your test virtual machines.

Figure 69: AVD Virtual Machine inside Web Browser