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tecsamir's avatar
tecsamir
Occasional Reader
Jun 12, 2025

AVD

Hi MS Tech Community, 

 

We are trying to setup a pilot AVD for 20 users who would belong to either one of the application pool ( Pool A or Pool B. Pool A would need applications - App1 and App2. Pool B would need applications - App1 , App2 and App3.  They are on active directory and connected to Microsoft Entra via Microsoft Entra connect. They have a set of 20 LOB applications and need to be converted to MSIX format and then converted to .cim image for mounting onto app attach. They would like the applications to be listed in the desktop rather then separate applications outside desktop. Currently I have few questions that I would like to clear so we do the things step by step.

 

  1. How many host pool do we need and how many session hosts ( we have thought of 1 host pool and 2 session hosts )?
  2. How many application groups do we need? 
  3. Currently we noticed that a default desktop type application group is created when we create host pool, Is that the only host pool we need or do we need to create seperate desktop type host pools?
  4. How do we attach applications in desktop type application group as we currently see one application session-host inside the application group?

Any responses would be highly appreciated. 

3 Replies

  • JonahBader's avatar
    JonahBader
    Copper Contributor

    In Addition to Chris's advice below, Microsoft has a page detailing their sizing recommendations for the session hosts: Session host virtual machine sizing guidelines for Azure Virtual Desktop and Remote Desktop Services | Microsoft Learn

    Multiple Application Groups are useful when you need to separate out access to different apps for different people. But if all 20 need access to the same apps, then you could put all the apps in the same application group.

    And there are 2 types of Application groups, desktop and remoteApp. The desktop one is default, because you want the users to be able to log in to the desktop. Since you want applications to be listed in the desktop rather than separate applications outside desktop, you do not need any remoteApp-type application groups, just the desktop one.

     

    To add apps to it, in the azure portal I believe you go to Azure Virtual Desktop > Application Groups > (select your application group) > Applications > Add
    Here you can add your MSIX packages.

  • The number of session hosts will very much depend on the load the users generate. 

    It is hard to say without knowing the expected CPU/Memory/Network load for each application.

    I often estimate 2-5 GB memory pr. user and often run 2-4 users pr. CPU core in the session hosts. 
    So if you choose a E series SKU with 4 vCPU and 32 GB RAM, you could have 2 of those running in one host pool. But session hosts in a host pool can only be either Remote App or Full desktop, you would likely have 1 active session host in each of the 2 host pools and then use scaling plan to have the capability to start additional session hosts doing work/peak hours. 

    Depending on how many hours a day you will be running your session hosts with active users on, you may want to look at reserved instance or savings plan to cost optimize your solution. 

  • See whether this can help:

     

     1. Host Pool & Session Hosts

    • 1 host pool with 2 session hosts is a reasonable setup for a pilot.
    • When anticipate high resource usage, consider scaling up session hosts based on user demand.

     

    2. Application Groups

    • Two application groups are necessary:
      • Desktop Application Group (for full desktop access).
      • RemoteApp Application Group (for individual apps like App1, App2, and App3).

    3. Default Desktop Application Group

    • When creating a host pool, a default desktop application group is automatically created.
    • It is not necessary to separate desktop-type host pools unless different user groups is needed to have distinct desktop environments.

    4. Attaching Applications in Desktop Application Group

    • MSIX App Attach allows to mount applications directly onto session hosts.
    • Convert your LOB applications to MSIX format, then package them into .cim images.
    • Store .cim images in Azure Files and attach them to session hosts.
    • Applications will appear inside the desktop environment rather than as separate RemoteApps.

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