Personal Desktops

[HandA]

Hi All,

My question centers around the resizing\scaling up of personal desktop VM's in WVD without having to redeploy brand new VM's to users. I have tried the following 2 tests and both have been successful. Any reason why this would cause any issues?

Test 1.

Resized a VM (personal desktop) from D2s v3 to D4s v3 through the portal.

Test 2.

Used the ARM templates for deploying 3 personal desktop with a rdshVmSize value of Standard_D2s_v3. Ran the ARM template again deploying an extra VM with a rdshVmSize value of Standard_D4s_v3

Thanks

[#2]

@HandA : Can you clarify which method worked and which didn't? Or, what error you're hitting? I didn't get a good understanding from your original question.

[#3]

@Christian_Montoya 

No error for either. It was more a question around supportability of the two scenarios

i.e.

Are there any support concerns with changing the SKU size of a single session host within a host pool?

Are there any support concerns with changing the SKU size of session hosts of a subsequent ARM deployment into an existing Host pool. i.e. existing session host SKU is D2s v3 and new session hosts will be D4s v3. So in effect, a mix of SKU's in same Host pool.

[#4 · Accepted solution]

@HandA 

No issue scaling up/down.  The main thing you want to watch for is if you are using the ds series and provision premium ssd disks, you won't be able to scale to a size that doesn't support premium disks (aka sku's without the s).

I provisioned a WVD initially on an E sku then swapped it for a B (bursting) sku as it was a better price/performance for my clients work habits.

In some cases to see all available sku's you need to shutdown the vm, resize then boot it back up.

As for mixing sku's in a pool.  The main issue you might find is how it load balances.  They just have a basic breadth/depth load balancing option.  If you have one machine larger, to my knowledge there isn't a way to say machine A gets 70% of logins while machine B (smaller) gets 30% (assuming multi-session).  If these are assigned vm's then basically ignore what I've posted above.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-desktop/host-pool-load-balancing

[#5]

@mattplan8Thanks. Pretty much what I thought. My infrastructure is more simplified with respect to load balancing as I'm predominantly using personal desktops with direct assignment. But your point about available SKU's with SSD's is a good one.

[#6]

You should evaluate/consider the bursting skus if they are dedicated desktops (because its more likely they only get used for 8-10hrs a day).

On reserved instance the discount is good and the burst performance is quite good as well. Just my 2 cents!

[#7]

@mattplan8Thanks. I will indeed look at those as I hadn't considered them and you are right they will only get used for 8-10 hours a day.