FlexApp dynamically attaches applications to VMs at every login, enabling applications to be rejoined to WVD VMs without continually manipulating the base image.To extend and complement this ephemeral desktop design even further, Liquidware is a key Value Added Partner in the WVD ecosystem and delivers the following additional benefits: FSLogix allows the user to pick up right where they left off when a new WVD VM is recreated because the profile, in its entirety, rejoins the user from a virtual disk on Azure at the next login. Since WVD machines are managed in this ephemeral way, Microsoft’s FSLogix technology becomes essential to the user experience. The newly created desktop is then kept fresh and runs at top performance and does not suffer from the degradation a traditionally managed OS suffers from overtime. They are recreated (provisioned) from a base image. What is common to both is that non-persistent or ephemeral desktops are deleted (virtually destroyed) at logoff or at a determined interval. There are many benefits touted for the new ephemeral disk usage. However, describing the difference of non-persistent disks and ephemeral disks is mainly splitting hairs because for most intents and purposes because Microsoft WVD should be managed as if it is a non-persistent desktop. If you do not leverage ephemeral disks for WVD, you must recreate the host for rollbacks, which may be done with other technologies such as image management tools. Therefore, to invoke best practices, treating Windows 10 multi-session hosts as ephemeral desktops is a vital way to make keep these Windows host machines clean.Īn ephemeral OS disk essentially lets you roll back a machine to a known good state. To keep the host clean it can only be reset from time-to-time or ephemeral, lasting for a period of time. For this reason, the Windows 10 multi-session host cannot be truly non-persistent and destroyed at logoff. Therefore, you must ensure any host you reset is not in use, lest you interrupt users’ sessions while in production. As this is true multi-session computing, many users may be logged into the Windows 10 multi-session host at any given time.

Most people seem to be exploring the Windows 10 multi-session option. Microsoft WVD can run either an OS like Windows 10 multi-session or a desktop OS such as Windows 7 or 10. In contrast, a Citrix or VMware desktop usually gets destroyed at logoff. This is a little different than non-persistent workspaces from Citrix Desktop (formerly XenDesktop), and VMware as an ephemeral desktop only gets when the administrator opts for it to be reset. A VM on an ephemeral disk enables the VM is designed to last for only a short time so it can be refreshed to its original state. With the GA of WVD, Microsoft has introduced an ephemeral OS disk as an option to deploy VMs on Azure. To keep desktops performing their best and with the lowest cost, Microsoft WVD desktops are best managed with a non-persistent (stateless) design.

Ephemeral virtual machine