Announcing Public Preview of Personal Desktop Autoscale on Azure Virtual Desktop

In August 2022, we announced the availability of one of our most anticipated features, Pooled Desktop Autoscale on Azure Virtual Desktop. Today, we are happy to announce that Personal Desktop Autoscale  is now available in public preview! 

Personal Desktop Autoscale 

Personal Desktop Autoscale is Azure Virtual Desktop’s native scaling solution that automatically starts session host virtual machines according to schedule or using Start VM on Connect and then deallocates session host virtual machines based on the user session state (log off/disconnect). With Personal Desktop Autoscale, you can save costs by shutting down idle session hosts while ensuring session hosts can be started by users when needed.

The following capabilities are now in public preview with Personal Desktop Autoscale:  

• Scaling plans are available in all regions where Azure Virtual Desktop host pool objects are, including Australia East, Canada Central, Canada East, Central US, East US, East US 2, Japan East, North Central US, North Europe, South Central US, UK South, UK West, West Central US, West Europe, West US, West US 2, and West US 3. 

• You can use the Azure portal to enable and manage Personal Desktop Autoscale in the public preview. 

Getting Started 

To enable this feature, simply create a personal scaling plan, define whether to enable or disable Start VM on Connect and what action to perform after a user session has been disconnected / logged off for a configurable period of time (deallocate the personal desktop or do nothing) across 4 phases in a day, and assign personal scaling plan to one or more personal host pools. 

Learn more about setting up autoscale and find answers for frequently asked questions about how to use autoscale for Azure Virtual Desktop.  

Also check out this new video from Azure Academy that walks you through the process of enabling and managing Personal Desktop Autoscale.