Deploying with VDS
Azure Marketplace Steps
Suggest changes
PDFs
The VDS team is excited to report that service is live and ready to transact through the Azure Marketplace as of Friday, January 15, 2021. This new marketplace capability delivers several key benefits to you as a joint NetApp/Microsoft customer:
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Since you can use your existing Enterprise Agreement commitments to pay for services purchased through the Azure Marketplace, you don’t need to define and allocate net-new budget for this powerful AVD enhancement service – you can leverage your existing Azure commitments to enable VDS, streamline your AVD environments, and reduce your overall cloud spend!
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Enhanced operations without administrative burden – Microsoft simply adds your VDS service to your existing Azure invoice right alongside the rest of your infrastructure and service
This is a fast, easy way to leverage automation and orchestration to streamline AVD deployments, reduce your cloud infrastructure spend, and get more out of your AVD investment.
License Count FAQ:
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The Azure Marketplace requires the enforcement of license count capacity, which means that you will not be able to enable virtual desktops for more users than the number of licenses purchased in the Azure Marketplace.
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For example: if you purchased 100 users for a POC and want to enable additional users, please navigate back to the Azure Marketplace and increase the number of licenses purchased via the Azure Marketplace.
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As license count enforcement is required, if an admin decreases the number of licenses purchased via the Azure portal to a number lower than the number of users with desktops provisioned in VDS, admins will see an error prompt when logging into the VDS UI.
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For this reason, in the event it is necessary to decrease the number of VDS licenses purchased it is a best practice to de-provision the virtual desktops from users in VDS prior to decreasing license count in the Azure Marketplace.
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Workflow
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Search for Azure Marketplace
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Check in "Private Offers"
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Click "Set up + subscribe"
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Choose Subscription, Name and User count
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Review terms and click "Subscribe"
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Wait for Subscription to complete
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Click "Configure account now" once Subscription is complete
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Accept permissions and consent on behalf of your organization
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Enter primary contact information
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Register a VDS Admin account
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Confirm entries and click "Register"
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Begin the deployment wizard. AVD deployment wizard documentation link
Resolving Common Issues
Failure to fetch Azure AD Profile
This generic error message doesn’t tell you what the issue actually is. The reason a user sees this message is cookie related - this can happen if the user has third party cookies blocked in their browser. This setting is activated by default when in Incognito mode in Google Chrome. Re-enabling third party cookies allows you to proceed with ordering VDS via the Marketplace.
Users can resolve this issue via the Settings section of each browser. The specific location in each browser is:
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Chrome: these settings are in the Privacy and Security section
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Edge/Edge Chromium: these settings are in the Privacy section
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Firefox: these settings are in the Privacy & Security section
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Internet Explorer: these settings are in the Trusted Sites section
Note: if you are on a corporate network (VPN, etc.) then your organization may have applied these controls in your browser for you. You can check another browser to see if third party cookies are still enabled there, and if they are not then you should contact your system administrator.
Inability to access VDS
There is another element that can present a barrier to Marketplace purchases – an organization’s controls around what websites a user can access. Unfortunately, this is often unclear to users and can present a scenario where users aren’t sure how to proceed.
This can manifest in several ways:
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Organizations expressly disallow access to specific websites
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Organizations disallow access to any website except expressly allowed websites
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Organizations quarantine any website the first time a user accesses it (common Cisco Umbrella/OpenDNS functionality)
Users can test this issue by attempting the same process from outside the corporate network or from a mobile device. If that resolves the issue and you’re able to proceed, it is a corporate-controlled web browser setting. Please contact your system administrator to allow access for the purchase of this service and for future updates to this service.