Windows 365 Business, for the SMB

Windows 365 is essentially a virtual cloud-based PC running Windows - but it’s more than that. It currently comes in two editions:

• Windows 365 Business - designed with smaller companies in mind (300 seats or less) who want simplified management. Perhaps because they have no, or little, internal IT resources or perhaps they outsource IT and need simplicity and easy management.

• Windows 365 Enterprise - is intended for larger companies with dedicated IT teams and offers unlimited seats. This allows for custom images, more integration with Endpoint Manager, more networking options and more management capabilities.

We’ll be focussing on Windows 365 Business in this post.

So why virtualise your Windows desktop in the cloud? Here are just a few of the things that you’ll get with a cloud-based PC:

• Performance - currently the PCs range from, 1 vCPU 2GB RAM and 64 GB Storage up to 8 vCPU 32GB RAM and 512GB Storage.

• Cost - Ultimate flexibility on the size and cost of the machine. If you have Windows 10 Pro or Windows 11 Pro already, you can utilise Windows Hybrid Benefit for up to 16% off the cost.

• Scalability - you can scale up, or down, as your staff numbers fluctuate.

• Security - Your business data stays in the cloud, ideal if you don’t entirely trust the connecting device.

• Mobility - Your users can access their cloud PC from any device, including a mobile device.

• Compatibility - you can create an environment specific to cater for an irksome or old application.

• Management - Windows 365 Business has a very hands-off deployment and management process.

• Persistence - Windows 365 machines retain their state and user customisations, users get assigned the same machine each time, not one from a pool of machines.

There’s a significant reduction in complexity, whilst adding a significant layer of security to your endpoints. Provisioning is done in a few mouse clicks, and if something goes wrong users can perform a self-service reset of the cloud PC, which can resolve many issues without the intervention of the IT support team.

Once a user has a Windows 365 business assigned to them and the cloud PC has automatically provisioned, your users can go to the https://windows365.microsoft.com portal and access their personal workspace using their Microsoft 365 credentials.

This is a great deal simpler to provision than Windows 365 Enterprise. This is because Business currently has native support for Azure AD and Enterprise currently requires Active Directory Domain Services. Azure AD support should reach the Enterprise product in the second half of 2022, which opens this product up to small businesses as well. This should also negate the need for an Azure Subscription which is an annoyance if you don’t currently have one and makes costs less predictable.

For Windows 365 Business the following outbound data allowances are included:

• 2 GB RAM = 12 GB outbound data

• 4 or 8 GB RAM = 20 GB outbound data

• 16 GB RAM = 40 GB outbound data

• 32 GB RAM = 70 GB outbound data

This makes the Business edition entirely predictable on cost, and therefore very attractive as they are billed in a per-user per-month cost model. This means you don’t have the variability of compute, storage and bandwidth costs to worry about.

However, with its simplicity, the Business edition does miss out on a number of features such as tight integration with Endpoint Manager, health reporting and connection to on-premises and datacenter environments. The lack of policy management however may be too big a price to pay as it lacks Group Policy and MDM policy support.

Another major drawback currently is that in the Business edition users are assigned the Local Administrator role on their cloud PC. I’m not sure what Microsoft was thinking here but running users as a local administrator, it’s a bad idea in almost all scenarios - and indeed would likely be a fail during a Cyber Essentials certification - you’d struggle with a business justification for this. This can be undone using Endpoint Manager but it’s fiddly and takes away somewhat the simplicity of the product to achieve what should be the baseline.

From a Partners perspective, the Business edition lacks management via Microsoft 365 Lighthouse and so Partners may need to trade off that lack of visibility with ease of deployment and management on behalf of customers.

There’s more to come from Windows 365 in 2022, and hopefully, Microsoft will iron out some of these issues and make the Enterprise edition more appealing to non-enterprises.

With a different way of working during the pandemic and in a post-pandemic world, it might be worth considering how cloud-based desktops or Device-as-a-Service (DaaS) can help your business work in different ways and provide some predictability when the unpredictable occurs.

If you’d like to know more about Windows 365 Business or Enterprise. Get in touch! We can discuss your requirements to see how cloud desktops can benefit your business.