We are planning the switch from VMware vSAN to Azure local (formerly Azure Stack HCI). If I have: • CVAD on-prem controller (2402+) • Citrix UHMC CSP on-prem license files • no DaaS components involved • no Cloud Connectors Can I leverage Azure local Resource locations through the Azure Hosting Connection from Studio, for MCS on Azure local?

@Yuhua Lu ^^

I found two sources I honestly don't understand:

Dreaming :-)

So from your words I guess, that to leverage Azure local I would not use the Azure Hosting connection from Studio, but the MSSCVMM Hosting connection, to talk directly to the Hardware, instead indirect through the Azure API?

That’s my understanding, but I also have nothing to do with ASHCI

I sincerely hope, that you are wrong. (no offense) To my understanding, that would raise the complexity of our plans tremendously.

You MUST use SCVMM for Azure Stack at this point. Treating it as a local Azure point doesn't work. Went through this in my lab and for a customer.

FML

Wait till you see how much fun scvmm is 🤓

My CTO already almost decided to switch from Broadcom to Microsoft. But keeping the Citrix MCS process up and running could be a challenge.

I know a pretty good alternate option 🤷‍♂️

Jup, that's the reason I wrote what I wrote ;-D

😜 We never push an agenda in here, but if you need/want alternatives, you know where to find us - sleep time this side of the world 👋

Yeah, I had a customer adamant to go Azure Stack, even though the majority of their VMs are all VDI. They would save a ton of money by just doing Hyper-V, but I am just a consultant.

Its not yet directly supported. I have heard you can use scvmm but I dont know of anyone ever doing it.

I would bet this question will come up more often, after the Broadcom acquisition of VMware.

I will say the reason we dont have it yet is lack of demand. I have only had one customer say they were going to look at it and none using it.

I had one customer go azure stack. But 3 so far deploying XenServer. Another is just bringing down their on-premise VMWare blades to the bare minimum to run N+1, and using IPS to put their Citrix PVS images in Azure to spin up as needed. With the downgrade of storage to standard hdd the park cost in azure is about a dollar per machine. When premium its like 3 per machine. Hopefully in future LTSR PVS they will put the temporary disk or writecache removal for Azure. Effectively taking the cost of parked machines to cents.

We have a working POC with Azure Local & SCVMM. Waiting on senior leadership approval and direct support for a hosting connector before we go any further. Its hard to swallow the MSFT broker fee for Azure Local.

What exactly is this fee for?

When you run AVD on Azure Local there is a "Hybrid Service Fee" of $0.01/vCPU/hour. Adds up real quick!

So we have no idea, if there are plans to support Azure local without SCVMM.

I think I heard its coming, just not a priority.

@Marco Hofmann Azure Local will be only supported from Citrix DaaS per agreement with MSFT and we are working to support via Azure ARC API not from SCVMM. The earlier blog was about enabling provisioning capability but there are other challenges such as onboarding VM to Azure ARC, enabling Azure benefit, etc that customer needs to work out manually themselves. Instead of enabling both ways, we decided to go with Azure ARC API route only, it will enable us and therefore customer automated solution end-to-end. We are looking at private TP by end of Q1 this year. If DaaS is an option for your customer, please let us know

I just don't understand why org's won't go to Xenserver for their onprem cvad stuff, it's freakin free and rock solid!

@Nick Casagrande We discussed this internally, and decided against. I'm not the Hypervisor or Storage guy, although I do understand quite a bit. But I can try to quote my boss who decided against:

1. No HCI possible. He prefers HCI over traditional SAN.

2. Need for availability accross two Zones, which is easy with VMware VSAN, as it handles such replication with for examples two nodes per room automatically.

I see this feedback about the azure local $.01 fee “adding up” every now and then and it seems like there is a disconnect somewhere. If you architect your Avd environment optimally then you’re looking at around $5-$7 per user per month per CONNECTED user. It’s even lower if you calculate per total assigned users. It’s basically an RDS CAL.

That blog is loaded with incorrect information, bad math, and terrible sizing guidance.