In RDS deployed by VDS, the storage strategy is designed so that no persistent user/company data resides on the AVD session VMs. Persistent data for user profiles, user files and folders, and corporate/application data are hosted on one or more data volume(s) hosted on an independent data layer.

FSLogix is a profile containerization technology that solves many user profile issues (like data sprawl and slow logins) by mounting a user profile container (VHD or VHDX format) to the session host at session initialization.

Due to this architecture a data storage function is required. This function must be able to handle the data transfer required each morning/afternoon when a significant portion of the users login/logoff at the same time. Even moderately sized environments can have significant data transfer requirements. The disk performance of the data storage layer is one of the primary end user performance variables and special care must be taken to appropriately size the performance of this storage, not just the amount of storage. Generally, the storage layer should be sized to support 5-15 IOPS per user.

Required: An inventory of all existing network subnets including any subnets visible to the GCP project via a VPN. The deployment needs to avoid overlapping subnets.

The VDS setup wizard allows you to define the network scope in case there is a range that is required, or must be avoided, as part of the planned integration with existing networks.

Determine an IP range to user during your deployment. Per best practices, only IP addresses in a private range are supported.

Some of the unique capabilities of VDS such as the cost saving Workload Scheduling and Live Scaling functionality require an administrative presence within the organization and project. Therefore, an administrative VM called CWMGR1 is deployed as part of the VDS setup wizard automation. In addition to VDS automation tasks this VM also holds VDS configuration in a SQL express database, local log files and an advanced configuration utility called DCConfig.

Decide which GCP region or regions will host your VDS virtual machines. Note that the region should be selected based on the proximity to end users and available services.

Decide where the data for user profiles, individual files, and corporate shares will be placed. Choices include:

Administrators must provide a Domain Administrator credential at some point in the deployment process. A temporary Domain Administrator credential can be created, used and deleted later (once the deployment process completes).
Alternatively, customers who require assistance in building out the pre-requisites can leverage the Domain Preparation Tool.