Windows Virtual Desktop now generally available in Azure Government with FedRAMP High

Azure Gov Team

As government agencies respond to the imperative of remote work, we’ve seen an increasing need for solutions that enable teams to work remotely while keeping relevant data within a securely managed environment. Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) in Azure commercial has quickly become a market-leading solution for enabling secure remote work. Government customers have several options for hosting virtual desktops in Azure, including Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktop service and VMware Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure, and you can read more on these below.

Today we’re announcing general availability of Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) in Azure Government with FedRAMP High accreditation. This enables agencies to adopt WVD for mission-critical workloads, empowering more productive work-from-home scenarios while maintaining a stringent security and compliance posture.

For example, government agencies and partners adopting a Zero Trust architecture can provide a secure desktop for employee productivity even in ‘bring your own device’ (BYOD) scenarios, giving users the same experience whether they’re in the office or working remotely. A Zero Trust security model adapts well to the complexity of the modern environment, empowering the mobile workforce and protecting people, devices, applications, and data wherever they’re located.

Why choose WVD?

  • Deliver Windows 10 desktops on any device, anywhere. With WVD, you can provide government employees the best virtualized experience with the only solution fully optimized for Windows 10 and Office 365. They’ll benefit from the seamless Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Office experience they would get on a local desktop or laptop.
  • Benefit from built-in intelligent security. Keep your applications and data secure and compliant with security capabilities that can proactively detect threats and take remedial action.
  • Reduce costs. Windows Virtual Desktop is included with your existing Microsoft 365 or Windows per user license. You can also reduce infrastructure costs by right sizing VMs and shutting down VMs not in use. In addition, Windows 10 Multi-session provides another way to save costs on compute infrastructure.

6 tips for securely enabling remote work with WVD

  • Use the Azure blueprint for Zero Trust to automate cybersecurity guardrails and more easily create hardened environments for your application workloads.
  • Use WVD to securely store all employee and company data in Azure instead of on local desktops, while providing employees with a consistent experience whether they’re working remotely or in the office.
  • Leverage Azure security offerings such as Azure Firewall, Azure Security Center, Azure Sentinel and Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) for end-to-end security from the endpoint to the applications.
  • Use conditional access to manage risks before granting users access to your Windows Virtual Desktop environment.
  • Setup multi-factor authentication for secure user login.
  • Protect your Azure infrastructure by enabling role-based access control (RBAC) and detect threats using Azure Security Center.

Partner solutions for modernizing your virtual desktop infrastructure

You can also maximize investments and skills with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktop service and VMware Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure to integrate Windows Virtual Desktop into existing desktop and app virtualization environments.

In addition to support for hybrid deployments, a centralized management, and advanced tooling, Citrix and VMware customers can rapidly deploy Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session on Azure virtual machines.

Learn more

Visit our documentation pages to learn more about how to deploy WVD in Azure Government:

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