Editor’s note (November 2026): This post has been updated to reflect expanded regional availability for Azure Virtual Desktop Regional host pools, changes to the deployment scope experience in the Azure portal, and future plans to deprecate the creation of new Geographical host pools. Existing host pools are not affected.
Resiliency improvements are arriving for Azure Virtual Desktop. Regional host pools reduce cross-region metadata dependencies to help improve service resiliency. This provides enhanced resiliency for AVD metadata which in conjunction with all the multiple recent improvements we have made in the RDP multipath brings increased resiliency across your connections and metadata. The same regional resiliency improvements are also coming soon to Windows 365 through a gradual, service-managed rollout while keeping the same customer experience as today.
Regional host pools are now available in more Azure regions
When we announced general availability of Regional host pools for Azure Virtual Desktop, Regional host pools were available in East US 2 and Central US. We’re now expanding availability to additional Azure regions:
- Australia East
- Canada Central
- Canada East
- Central India
- East Asia
- Japan East
- Japan West
- Korea Central
- North Europe
- South Africa North
- Southeast Asia
- West Europe
What are regional host pools?
Regional host pools are a new host pool deployment type that stores your host pool metadata in a regional database within the Azure region you choose, removing cross-region dependencies and strengthening the resiliency of your Azure Virtual Desktop deployments.
Historically, Azure Virtual Desktop stored host pool metadata in a geographical database shared across the regions within a geography. While replicated for recovery, this design introduced a cross-region dependency: an issue in the region hosting that geographical database could affect host pools in unrelated regions in the same geography.
Regional host pools remove that dependency. We are deploying dedicated regional Azure Virtual Desktop databases and infrastructure into each supported Azure region. Any issue is now contained in a single region, and your host pool metadata stays in the region you select.
The benefits of regional host pools include:
- Increased resiliency: The blast radius of any infrastructure or Azure region issue is contained in that region — an outage elsewhere does not affect admin or end-user experience for your regional host pool.
- In-region recovery preserved: We continue to store multiple local replicas across availability zones and replicate metadata to a paired region (where applicable) for cross-region failover.
Deployment scope experience
As Regional availability expands, we’re also updating the host pool creation experience in the Azure portal.
Deployment scope will now be visible when creating a host pool in any Azure Virtual Desktop location. Deployment scope determines how the host pool metadata is stored.
Where both deployment scopes are available, administrators will be required to explicitly select one of the following options:
- Regional (recommended): Host pool metadata is stored in the selected Azure region.
- Geographical (not recommended): Host pool metadata uses the existing geographically distributed metadata model.
Where Regional isn't yet available, only the supported deployment scope can be selected.
We strongly recommend Regional for new host pools wherever it is available. Regional reduces cross-region dependencies, provides greater regional isolation, and gives organizations greater control over the location of their Azure Virtual Desktop metadata.
Existing host pools aren't changed by this update and will continue to operate with their current deployment scope.
Getting started
No functional differences exist between existing geographical host pools and regional host pools. However, you must choose from one additional field during creation: the Deployment scope. You can create regional host pools using both the Azure portal and PowerShell.
Create a regional host pool in the Azure portal
- In the Azure portal, open Azure Virtual Desktop → Host pools, then select Create.
- Under Basics, choose your resource group and enter a host pool name.
- Select your Azure region for the host pool location field, then set the Deployment scope to Regional. This will store the host pool metadata regionally.
- We recommend placing your session host virtual machines in the same region as your Regional metadata.
- Complete host pool type (Pooled or Personal), networking, and session host settings as usual.
- Select Review + Create to deploy.
Create a regional host pool with PowerShell
When creating the host pool, set the DeploymentScope parameter to Regional so the metadata is written to the regional database. Example:
New-AzWvdHostPool -ResourceGroupName "testrg" -Name "xyz" -Location "centralus" -DeploymentScope "Regional"
Note: In regions where regional host pools are not yet supported, regional-deployment scope calls return a "Not Supported" response.
Regional host pools use regional workspaces, app groups, and App Attach packages
The Deployment scope is also relevant for new workspaces, application groups, and App Attach packages. Regional and geographical objects cannot be mixed: a regional host pool can only be a member of a regional workspace and can only contain regional application groups. A regional host pool cannot join a geographical workspace, and vice versa.
You can use the new Deployment scope column in the host pool view to see the type — regional or geographical — of each of your host pools.
Regional is the path forward for Azure Virtual Desktop
Regional represents the architecture we are moving toward for Azure Virtual Desktop. As Regional availability expands, our direction is for new host pools to use Regional deployment wherever it is supported.
As part of this evolution, we plan to deprecate the ability to create new Geographical host pools in the future.
There is no action required for existing Geographical host pools today. We will communicate the deprecation timeline, transition guidance, and appropriate notice separately, giving customers time to plan for the transition.
Our recommendation
For any new host pool in a supported region, we strongly recommend creating it as a regional host pool to take full advantage of the added resiliency benefits.
Support for migrating existing geographical host pools to regional is coming in a phased rollout. Stay tuned for future updates.
Next steps
- You can always check which Azure regions support regional host pools on Microsoft Learn, where the list is kept current as new regions come online: Regional host pools - Azure Virtual Desktop
- Learn more about deploying regional host pools on Microsoft Learn.
- Read the Azure Virtual Desktop architecture and reliability guidance on Microsoft Learn.
- Learn more about Windows 365 resiliency and Multi-Region on Microsoft Learn.
- Explore Windows 365 Flex and Enterprise deployment guidance.
- Continue the conversation in the Azure Virtual Desktop Tech Community.
- Continue the conversation in the Windows 365 / Windows IT Pro Tech Community.
Stay up to date! Bookmark the Azure Virtual Desktop Tech Community.
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