For years now, many organizations have been looking at remote work situations to assess just how feasible this can be for their operations. Undoubtedly, businesses would want to know the cost implications of establishing such a setup. They’d also want to know the difficulties involved and how security issues are addressed, among other things.

This is why Windows 365 has garnered plenty of interest in recent years. With the Windows 365 Cloud PC, businesses can expect to get powerful virtual PCs that are easy to set up, cost-efficient to run, and highly secure. And when you bring a service such as Nerdio into the mix, you can offer clients an even better experience.

Explaining Windows 365

Let’s start by going over what exactly this product is. The Windows 365 Cloud PC is a virtualization service that Microsoft introduced to businesses a few years ago in 2021. The service’s design enables users to stream their Windows 10 or 11 desktop, its settings, any applications, and content from the Microsoft Cloud to any of their devices.

As a business, this means that your workers can experience the full Windows ecosystem whether someone is using a personal or corporate-owned device. Regardless of where they are working, Microsoft aims to take the cloud computing experience to a higher level.

Having an option like this opens up vast possibilities for businesses. Workers no longer need to be restricted to the physical confines of their office buildings and can work from anywhere. Some surveys show that as much as 73% of today’s workers want to have the option to work remotely. We can see why a lot of organizations show a growing interest in this service.

So, with essentially what is an Operating System-As-A-Service solution, Windows 365 offers virtual desktops that can be accessed in any modern web browser. And with a large number of available features, businesses can get the digital solutions necessary to bring about technological transformation.

Benefits of Windows 365

Windows 365 has plenty of great features that make it an attractive option for many businesses. Among some of them, organizations can expect:

IMPROVED FLEXIBILITY

As a virtual workstation with access from anywhere, the Windows 365 Cloud PC gives users increased flexibility regarding where they can work. With an internet connection and a modern work browser, you can access your Cloud PC wherever you are. Additionally, you have the freedom to use any device, be it your PC, Mac, iPad, Android device, etc.

This simplifies working outside the office even more. You don’t necessarily have to go out and purchase new devices that would enable you to access your Cloud PC. Moreover, if individuals get to use the devices that they are most comfortable with, this may potentially increase productivity for some.

GREAT SECURITY

With all the flexibility and remote access that Windows 365 offers, it is imperative that the security measures be of the highest standard. Fortunately, as data is stored on a Microsoft Cloud, clients enjoy guarantees that their data is extremely secure. And this can be further enhanced by using Zero Trust principles.

Features including strict authentication of all users and use of just-in-time and just-enough-access, among others, provides you with the kind of cyber security needed for the complexities of today’s modern environment and the hybrid workplace. Therefore, admins will have less to worry about regardless of whether people are in the office or working remotely.

COST-EFFECTIVE

Hardware costs can be prohibitive for businesses, especially for those that have just started operations. By using Windows 365, organizations can pour their finances into other critical areas because hardware expenditure is significantly reduced.

And since heavy computing is being carried out on the cloud, you won’t need to worry about having the latest, most powerful devices. This is something that benefits even the more established organizations as well.

Using Windows 365 can help to reduce the costs of regularly refreshing your hardware. As long as your devices meet the minimum requirements, you can use them just fine.

REDUCE YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT

Data centers can be the cause of significant carbon emissions. As such, considering options like Windows 365 for virtual workstations can go a long way in reducing an organization’s carbon footprint. Especially when the Microsoft Cloud operates far more efficiently than traditional data centers.

Some have even stated that it may operate up to 93% more efficiently. And when you combine that with reduced hardware refresh cycles, your organization can potentially make huge strides toward achieving a green operation. Any organization attempting to achieve net-zero emissions may find using Windows 365 to be hugely beneficial towards achieving that goal.

ACCESSIBILITY

One of the best features of Windows 365 is that it’s not a service that targets only big businesses. From massive organizations to smaller ones with less than 300 users, most can find an option that can meet their unique needs.

Microsoft offers two core subscription models, Windows 365 Business for smaller enterprises and Windows 365 Enterprise for the larger ones. Arguably, the best thing about these options is that they share the same range of features. They also provide several Cloud PC configurations from which to choose.

What is Nerdio?

After going over what Windows 365 is and what it offers, one may naturally wonder what Nerdio is and why you would need it. By definition, Nerdio is a deployment, management, and optimization platform for Managed Service Providers (MSPs.) It’s a solution for those using Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365.

Its design helps users simplify the use of their virtual workstations by addressing challenges that clients may often encounter. For instance, people who have previously had issues with storage management in the native solutions will get the assistance they need with managing storage.

In addition to increasing user efficiency, one of the most attractive features of Nerdio for businesses is that it aims to help enterprises with native Microsoft Cloud technologies to run more cost-efficiently.

Tools like the Cost Estimator provide precise information that will help you plan accordingly for the technologies you intend to use. Therefore, not only will virtual desktop users be empowered, but organizations will have a tool that can minimize costs.

Prerequisites

Before your organization can deploy Nerdio Manager for Enterprise (NME), you will need to meet several requirements, including the following:

VNET AND SUBNET

You’ll first need to pre-create a VNET as well as a SUBNET. If your environment is Active Directory-joined, then you need to have connectivity to Active Directory or Microsoft Entra Domain Services domains. You should also verify that DNS and any peerings or WAN connections have been established and are working. Before you can deploy NME, you need to check the following:

• AVD and Azure should have several necessary URLs and ports available.
• Tasks in NME will require additional URLs, which must be accessible for the successful completion of the provisioning process.

DIRECTORY CREDENTIALS AND SERVICE ACCOUNT

To join host virtual machines to the domain, there will be directory credentials required. Additionally, you’ll need a service account with delegated privileges to join computers to the domain. You should note that a domain account could be suitable but is not necessarily required.

ADMINISTRATOR PRIVILEGES

The administrator responsible for carrying out the NME deployment must have the necessary privileges for Microsoft Entra ID and the Azure subscription. Nerdio recommends the Global Admin and Owner privileges as the best option for simplifying the deployment process. Admins should be aware that NME is not assigned as Global Admin or Owner on the subscription.

Despite that, you still need these permissions to complete the setup. Furthermore, if you have access to another Global Admin user capable of granting consent to the required permissions for NME, the Global Admin privilege becomes unnecessary. However, subscription owner privileges still remain necessary.

FUNDED AZURE SUBSCRIPTION

This subscription is another requirement, and it must have the following resource providers:

• Microsoft.DesktopVirtualization
• Microsoft.Compute
• Microsoft.Storage
• Microsoft.Automation
• Microsoft.RecoveryServices
• Microsoft.SQL
• Microsoft.Insights

Most of these resource providers should be automatically enabled by the deployment from the Microsoft Azure Marketplace. Not only that, but NME needs to validate if any resource providers are missing during the initial configuration.

Reasons to choose Nerdio

It’s also important to know that there is far more to Nerdio than just simplifying virtual desktop use or increasing cost efficiency. In this section, we’ll be going over why your organization needs to consider Nerdio as a potentially essential tool for your business operations. According to information provided by Nerdio, there is far more on offer than just cost-savings, and this includes:

AUTOMATION AND REPEATABILITY

Most businesses can appreciate how automation can significantly improve efficiency and minimize human error. This means that certain, often mundane, tasks can be carried out with a greater degree of consistency as well as accuracy.

By providing automation, Nerdio can help you optimize workflows and reduce time wastage. And with almost everything you can do within Nerdio automation, this places the service at least a notch above similar products.

It’s not rare to find management tasks within Windows 365 that some may find too complex or time-consuming. This is precisely why Nerdio would be the ideal solution for handling such issues. The ability to automate some of these repetitive tasks will not only save time but also contribute to cost efficiency.

Furthermore, IT teams will be glad for the help that Nerdio offers them as it reduces their burden by automating routine processes such as on-demand desktop provisioning, desktop (image) management, and software deployment.

DISASTER MANAGEMENT

One of the unfortunate things that businesses need to prepare for is system outages. Whether it be due to software/hardware faults or some cyber security event, every organization needs to have a plan in place to handle disruptions. Without the capabilities to swiftly identify and rectify the problem, productivity will grind to a halt, and businesses can suffer massive financial losses.

Ideally, you would want to minimize downtime as much as possible to prevent prolonged customer dissatisfaction. Here is where Nerdio can come through for organizations with excellent tools:

Proactive Measure	Service
Automated regular critical data and system backups	Most people will appreciate the need for having secure data backups in case the unexpected ever happens. So, in the event of a cyber attack, or hardware failure, etc, you can quickly have your system restored. With Nerdio automating this process, you can expect swift, consistent backups with the risk of suffering data loss reduced to a minimum.
Disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS)	This unique solution gives organizations a reliable backup in the event of a systems failure. Having your data and systems replicated to an alternative region safeguards against prolonged downtime in case of disaster. In some cases, your system may be back up in under 30 minutes.
Specified alternative VM sizes and types	Sometimes, organizations may encounter resource shortages in Azure regions. When facing such situations, Nerdio has the capabilities to help you resolve Azure compute capacity limits by providing fallback VM sizes. Therefore, even if your preferred VM size in the region is unavailable, you can still continue with operations such as host creation, auto-scale, auto-grow, and auto-heal.

MANAGEMENT MADE SIMPLER

Nerdio offers clients a great solution to simplify management that comes in the form of three-click management. This service provides your Help Desk with a powerful and user-friendly portal that enables you to manage all aspects of Windows 365.

By using this feature, your organization can easily manage multiple features from one place, including RBAC with an end-user portal, performance and utilization monitoring, alerts and notifications, and MSIX AppAttach, among many others.

DYNAMIC SCALING

Most people can probably agree that manually handling the scaling up and down of resources during traffic spikes can be a burdensome task. This is why organizations with regularly fluctuating workloads can leverage dynamic scaling to minimize time wastage while optimizing resource usage. Nerdio monitors various aspects, such as CPU and RAM, that provide essential data that can be used to determine the actions that need to be implemented.

Additionally, to ensure an even better experience, this service extends to storage as well, and this includes attached disks, Azure files, and more. Ultimately, this service ensures that your business runs as efficiently as possible by helping to allocate resources accordingly. Whenever traffic spikes occur, those who require greater access to resources will get what they need when they need it.

UPDATES AND PATCHING

Keeping up with routine updates can be a hassle for a lot of people. Whether it’s for personal or corporate devices, sometimes people won’t implement the necessary actions to ensure that their devices maintain high levels of security and performance. Most of the time, the reason for this is simple – performing these processes manually can be labor-intensive and thus time-consuming.

Also, recognize the errors that one could easily make. With a lot of IT teams already burdened with a never-ending list of tasks, many virtual machines under their control may end up not getting necessary updates and patches, leaving them vulnerable.

More

Fortunately, Nerdio has a solution for this by offering automation for the update and patching process, thus lightening the load on IT departments. One of the ways you can take advantage of this is by setting up recurring schedules within Nerdio that will automatically install updates a pre-determined number of days after Patch Tuesday. Once this is set up, Nerdio will update your chosen image with the latest patches and the sys prepping process. All this while removing the complexities that the administrator may otherwise have to deal with.

After the update process is complete, you can choose a host pool to test the updates. By doing so, you can verify that all apps are working as they should and that you don’t have any driver or performance issues. Another thing that Nerdio will handle is backing up critical components and integrating them with the Azure Computer Gallery.

With a safety net in place, you can easily go back to your previous versions if the situation ever calls for it. This means that you get to roll out the updated image to your production host pools using the same automated mechanisms only after you’ve satisfactorily tested that everything works as you want it to.

PROOF OF BUSINESS VALUE

The process of establishing an entire AVD environment can potentially be such a massive task that few would envy taking on. Nerdio can help you make this task a lot more manageable by enabling you to provision multiple host pools and machines that can be availed to users within a couple of hours.

Similarly, when a client wants to start a Proof of Value, Nerdio uses this same mechanism. Leveraging the same mechanism helps to maximize efficiency for your organization. Moreover, this can also be combined with scaling profiles.

Nerdio enhances the Windows 365 experience

Nerdio already has a great setup with AVD, so it should come as no surprise that it can also offer services to improve the Windows 365 experience. Moreover, Nerdio Manager starts by providing additional management capabilities for users in addition to what they already get with the native Windows 365 service. Those familiar with the excellent image management options that Nerdio provides for AVD will be glad to know that this will be extended to Windows 365 as well. Not only that, but you’ll be getting it in a single management interface, side-by-side.

With everything being automated and scheduled according to your convenience, image-based software deployments, as well as updating and patching MEM-managed Windows 365 machines, should become much easier.

More

Those who may find themselves in need of a File Server or an Azure Files file share will benefit immensely from the auto-scaling, auto-provisioning, and fine-tuning that Nerdio Manager can deliver. However, this only applies to Enterprise Windows 365 because it has the same network flexibility as AVD. Some of the options you can look forward to are listed below:

• Readying your environment with the necessary prerequisites for Windows 365.
• Creation and management of on-prem network connections and provisioning policies.
• Creation and management of desktop images, including backups and versioning.
• Management of Active Directory profiles.
• Assignment of licenses, groups, and users.
• Cloud PC provisioning as well as re-provisioning.
• Cloud PC machine restarting.
• Leveraging a single interface to manage multiple environments.
• Management of Cloud PC user settings.
• Providing a comprehensive overview of all provisioned Cloud PCs and their status.
• There is an audit of everything, and this can be viewed in detail.

But, before you can enable Windows 365, you need to know a few things. If you are going to successfully complete the process, the individual who wants to enable Windows 365 must be a global administrator. You also need to verify that an Intune license is available in the Entra ID tenant where Nerdio Manager is installed.

Furthermore, you should ensure that the Entra ID has the requisite approval on an application permission request consent page. If you are presented with an option to “grant consent on behalf of my organization“, you must approve.

Wrap up

Cloud computing has evolved to a point where it can offer businesses exceptional computing abilities that are difficult to ignore. By working with services such as Windows 365, organizations can take advantage of very powerful virtual workstations regardless of their choice of physical devices.

Users will have excellent accessibility with great security measures in place to ensure business networks are well protected. And if you want to enhance the experience even more, then partnering up with Nerdio can help you do just that. It provides you with tools that will make setting up and managing your virtual desktops a far simpler task. By doing so, you can lighten the burden for admins and potentially improve overall productivity.