As we’ve shared elsewhere, version 4.7+ of our Remote Desktop Commander Suite supports deployment in Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) tenants.

And much regarding how we handle WVD management has been tuned up since version 4.7 and our subsequent WVD PowerShell integration announcement.

Here, we’ll take an opportunity to drill more specifically into our solution’s integration with WVD and developments along the way in the Remote Desktop Commander Suite.

Product Integration With The WVD PowerShell Management Libraries

As you may already know, the current methods of WVD management are through a set of PowerShell libraries and/or taking the time to deploy Microsoft’s REST API web-based management console. Both approaches have their limitations, and the management features provided in both do not offer feature parity yet with the management features for RDS in the Windows Server Manager.

So, we started wrapping the WVD Powershell management library in our Remote Desktop Commander management GUI. Management actions in our GUI are passed internally to the PowerShell libraries without the admin needing to use PowerShell at all. Moreover, we are offering two modes of management for Windows Virtual Desktop.

 

Windows Virtual Desktop Management Local Mode

“Local Mode” allows you to install our software INSIDE the same Azure VNet as one or more WVD tenants you manage, and then provides you with full management feature parity we currently offer for traditional RDS deployments. WVD hosts are enumerated from the primary WVD broker service, but then are managed with native APIs from within the local Windows network inside Azure for rich functionality, including shadowing, performance counter access, etc. Admins are encouraged to deploy our management client as a RemoteApp in various tenants OR to use Azure Bastion to access our management tools that have been directly deployed on a VM in the VNet of one or more WVD tenants.

Windows Virtual Desktop Management External Mode

“External Mode” a.k.a “Outside Mode” provides a more limited set of management functionality based on the current version of the WVD Powershell library, such as logging off and disconnecting users, sending notification messages to users, and taking hosts in and out of drain mode. However, in this mode you can run our tool from any system that has Internet access to access the WVD broker service.

And there are so many bonuses as well: For example, our software’s ability to automatically install the WVD PowerShell Management libraries for you from the PowerShell Gallery, and the convenient caching of administrative credentials used by those PowerShell libraries.

Perhaps most importantly, our Remote Desktop Commander Management client gives you the power to manage both your traditional on-premises Remote Desktop Services deployments, Remote Desktop Services deployments located in Azure, and new Windows Virtual Desktop deployments all in one interface. It can be instructed to query as many connection brokers or WVD tenants as required for RDS collection and WVD host pool information.

Next Steps . . .

Where to next? Find out where to get started and what best fits your needs.

Updated: December 2020.