Nerdio: How this Management Portal for Azure Optimizes Your AVD Environment

Businesses and enterprises sent their workforce home nearly two years ago. The remote workforce appears to be here to stay and businesses often turn to Azure Virtual Desktop (formally known as Windows Virtual Desktop) to allow their employees to safely work from home.  

AVD provides businesses with remote capabilities by giving employees access to their Windows desktops from anywhere, all while providing security and the opportunity to scale quickly.  

Now, Arraya has partnered with Nerdio to further enhance our clients’ AVD experience and make managing your AVD environment even easier.  

What is Nerdio? 

Nerdio is a deployment, management, and optimization platform for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) using Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365. Nerdio provides MSPs with the ability to quickly deliver successful Microsoft Azure cloud services.  

All you need to get started with Nerdio is: 

  1. An Azure subscription 
  1. An Office 365 account 
  1. General IT knowledge 

Nerdio’s Main Features & Benefits 

Nerdio enhances the deployment process and management experience of Azure, all while cutting costs considerably.  

Here’s what users can expect: 

  1. Quick & Easy Deployment 

With Nerdio, businesses can automatically deploy a complete Azure environment within just a few hours without any Powershell scripting. This can be done on top of existing environments, without the need to make any changes. 

Anyone with general IT knowledge can complete the one-hour customer deployment. There’s no need to involve an experienced engineer for best-practice configuration.  

  1. Cost Savings 

Nerdio simplifies Azure pricing and provides users with the opportunity to save up to 75% with per-user Azure cost reporting. This estimates Azure compute and storage costs before deploying a WVD host pool and VMs directly on the hold pool creation page.  

With advanced auto-scaling and unified image management, users can optimize their investment and save money.  

With Nerdio’s Cost Estimater, users can fill out a short questionnaire to receive an easy-wizard driven estimate. This determines the total cost of Azure infrastructure and software licensing for your individual business or enterprise. This includes Microsoft 365 licensing, add-on licenses (like SQL server), bandwidth, VPN, and other related recurring and upfront costs.  

The cost estimator has the capability to detect intended usage patterns and recommend the number of Reserved Instances (RIs) to maximize Azure compute savings.  

  1. Streamlined & User-Friendly Management 

Users can take advantage of three-click management. This enables your Help Desk to manage all aspects of AVD or Windows 365 with a powerful and user-friendly portal.  

With Nerdio, businesses can manage several features from one central, single pane of glass platform, including:  

  • Alerts and notifications: Receive email alerts and regular notifications of events so you can take any necessary action immediately.  
  • Desktops, servers, backup, and networking: Users can create and manage WVD desktops, host pools, and server VMs. You can back up desktop images, sessions hosts, and server VMs in addition to managing networking, firewall rules, VPN, and nNet peering.  
  • RBAC with end-user portal: Role-based access controls allow different admin teams access to the Nerdio Manager console for “least privilege” administration on a defined scope. Desktop users can be granted access to Nerdio Manager to control their own pooled desktop sessions.  
  • Performance and utilization monitoring: With Nerdio, users can collect data from WVD service and inside of each VM every minute. Data is collected in Azure Log Analytics and can be retained for a customizable time period. Actionable dashboards will show all users, hosts, and application utilization/performance.  
  • MSIX AppAttach: Automatically create MSIX AppAttach VHDX packages from MSIX installer files. This includes the ability to link Azure Files shares and automatically upload MSIX packages to assign them to users. You can also add MSIX AppAttach applications to host pools and deliver applications to users without the need to install them on the image.  
  • Users and sessions: Nerdio provides the ability to view all users in a Workspace who are currently active or disconnected and shadow/remotely control user sessions to provide secure support.  
  • Image creation and management: Users can create images from Azure marketplace, shared image gallery, existing session host VM, or create custom images. They can both automatically update and package images on a schedule and schedule automated image deployments to host pools on a recurring basis (without any admin intervention).  
  • 3-click complete UI: You can now manage all aspects of the WVD environment from a single user interface with an easy-to-use UX. Most activities can be completed in three clicks or less.  
  1. AVD Optimized 

Nerdio is all about making your technology work harder for you. With Nerdio, you can leverage auto-scale visualization to understand user behavior and the impact on costs. This allows users to better match infrastructure size in comparison to user demand.  

With the auto-heal feature, users can detect “broken” session hosts and quickly repair them. Further, the auto-scale feature automatically matches the size of infrastructure to real-time user demand with algorithms. This combination of features can result in up to 75% in savings.  

Next Steps: Make the Most of Your AVD Environment with Nerdio 

Nerdio customers come from a wide range of deployment scenarios, including: 

  • Greenfield (no Azure footprint) 
  • Landing zone only (existing AD or AADDs)  
  • Existing IAAS environment (existing Azure environment)  
  • Existing AVD (existing AVD deployment) 

Deployment can take anywhere from 10 minutes or up to only one hour, depending on the customers’ existing environment.  

Nerdio allows businesses to manage all aspects of AVD. It’s customizable features and single, user-friendly portal make it easier than ever to control your environment.  

Contact an Arraya expert today to learn more about how we can enhance your entire AVD experience through our partnership with Nerdio.  

Visit https://www.arrayasolutions.com//contact-us/ to connect with our team now.  

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Arraya Insights