Azure Updates: Virtual Desktop; Arc-enabled Kubernetes and servers; On-prem monitoring

Microsoft's pace of new updates slowed for the first time in recent weeks, following the broad slate of announcements around the Inspire 2020 conference. Nonetheless, the Azure team indicated new provisioning, monitoring and cost management updates, together with capabilities around Windows Virtual Desktop.

The Azure team touted a variety of recent updates. Back in April, Microsoft released the public preview of an Azure portal integration aimed at making Virtual Desktop easier to manage. It was accompanied by an audio-visual redirect for meetings and collaboration with Teams. All of these capabilities are now GA, permitting users fine-grained access, role-based access control and new ways to publish apps and desktops to Azure Active Directory groups.  Throughout July, a string of updates touched on Cost Management and billing. Users can now drill into untagged resources or view billing menu items on the Cost Management menu.

Partner group program manager Kam VedBrat highlighted the general availability of Windows Virtual Desktop capabilities. While likely in the works before, widespread remote work due to Covid-19 has perhaps accelerated Microsoft's roll-out of  virtual desktop features. VedBrat shared the example of Microsoft customer Fife Council, in the UK, which needed to modernize its existing Remote Desktop Services infrastructure in a hurry. While the Azure portal integration took center stage among the list of capabilities, VedBrat provided additional details about the A/V redirect to Teams, user management for publishing resources to Active Directory groups and further details on RBAC. He noted that monitoring logs are now stored in Monitor Logs, available for analysis and create visualizations to troubleshoot ...