Azure Virtual Desktop Hybrid Reaches GA with Licensing Details Unpublished

Microsoft has officially made Azure Virtual Desktop Hybrid generally available, marking an important step in the company's push to provide flexible cloud desktop solutions. The hybrid model allows session hosts to run on customers' own hardware and hypervisor, connected through Azure Arc, while maintaining management and session brokering within Azure. Pricing for the service is split, with per-user licensing for the Azure Virtual Desktop Hybrid component, while compute, storage, and networking costs remain on-premises.

Microsoft officially announced the hybrid version in November 2023, expanding its capabilities beyond Azure Local to include Hyper-V, Nutanix AHV, VMware vSphere, and physical Windows Servers. The architecture remains unchanged since general availability, with session hosts running in customers' data centers and Azure Arc facilitating the connection to Azure.

Users can access their desktops and applications through the Windows App, with all communication occurring outbound over HTTPS, eliminating the need for inbound connectivity.

However, Microsoft has yet to officially disclose the pricing details for Azure Virtual Desktop Hybrid. This omission has led to a great deal of speculation among early adopters and partners. Some concerns raised include the lack of support for Windows 11 multi-session, Windows Server licensing requirements, and the absence of built-in operational features such as power management and autoscaling.

Additionally, the service does not provision or manage virtual machine state, requiring organizations to deploy and manage their own session hosts using hypervisor tools, scripts, or partner solutions.