Publishing AutoCad with Azure Windows Virtual Desktop

Goal:

Here, the goal is to run a CAD application (Autocad) on Azure Infrastructure and provide access to it to multiple users via Windows Virtual Desktop on Azure.

WVD Overview:

Windows Virtual Desktop is a desktop and application virtualization service that runs on the Azure cloud.

It is a Paas offering and contains all the numerous Remote Desktop Services components into one single managed package. Practically it eliminates the need to host,deploy and maintain an RDS deployment on your own.

Topology:

Azure required components:

• Vnet
• 1 Active Directory Domain Services Directory ( either onprem or as in this case, an AADDS)
• Windows Virtual Desktop Solution deployed on Azure with 1 session host running Autocad Software

ADDS:

• First , deploy an Azure Active Directory Domain Services instance, to allow the interaction and integration of the future RDS farm with an ADDS domain

 Steps here : https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory-domain-services/tutorial-create-instance

Virtual Network:

• The Azure VNET used for the AADDS instance needs to be the same as the one used for Azure Windows Virtual Desktop instance ( WVD)

Deployment Steps:

• Create Azure Enterprise Applications for WVD ( Server and client applications)
• grant them consent to interact with your Azure AD tenant
• copy your tenant id , navigate to the following URLs and click on “Accept”

The same for the next Url.

https://login.microsoftonline.com/<tenant_id>/adminconsent?client_id=fa4345a4-a730-4230-84a8-7d9651b86739&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Frdweb.wvd.microsoft.com%2FRDWeb%2FConsentCallback

• on the newly created enteprise application, grant tenant creator role to a user which will be used later to create the RDS Tenant

• next, switch to a Powershell session, install and import the Microsoft.RDInfra.RDPowershell modules and create a new RDS tenant
• you will need your Tenant_id from before and also your Azure Subscription id
• run the New-RdsTenant cmdlet as seen in the screenshot

• (optional) you can also create a service principal for  the tenant to be used in the later configuration , but the UPN of the admin account should be sufficient

Once these have been created, you can proceed with deploying the WVD solution in Azure.

Create a new resource and search for Windows Virtual Desktop

Configure the required settings and choose “Pooled” for Desktop Type. This will allow the multi-session capability.

• Choose a predefined usage profile or as in this case “Custom”
• Enter the number and size of the VMs which will publish the application
• for Autocad , the recommended VM Family is “GPU” or N-Series VMs , however in this test, none of the regions available to me had a similar VM, so I needed to select a High Performance H Series VM

• for N Series session hosts , special steps are required for configuring the NVIDIA Grid Extension ( https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-desktop/configure-vm-gpu )

• continue by setting the image for the Session host ( this can also be taken from blob storage or from a previously imported image)

• you need to enter an account which has permission to join the RDS machines to the ADDS domain and also specify the ADDS Domain name

• the Vnet needs to be the same as the one hosting the AADDS instance or one that has connectivity to the DCs in that domain

• validate and deploy

• once the deployment is ready you can login to the session host VM and install the application

a free-trial version of Autocad Demo can be taken from https://www.autodesk.com/products/autocad/free-trial

• next create a poweshell session and follow the steps here to create a new AppGroup, a new RemoteApp and to configure the correct links for the executables and the icons : https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-desktop/manage-app-groups

• in case of creating the published Autocad App, you need something similar to this

New-RdsRemoteApp CalinRDS CalinRDSPool Autocad -Name autocadarchitecture2021 -AppAlias autocadarchitecture2021english

• also provide permission to an user to the newly created Remote App. This user needs to not also provisioned for a Desktop App Group at the same time, as this is a current limitation

Add-RdsAppGroupUser CalinRDS CalinRDSPool Autocad -UserPrincipalName engineer1@cduiuleasaoutlook.onmicrosoft.com

• after this has been done, the user which has been added to the Autocad Remote App, can browse with the Web RDS Client or use the Windows RDS Client (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-desktop/connect-windows-7-and-10)

• login here:

https://rdweb.wvd.microsoft.com/webclient/index.html

• start the Autocad application:

• at first the Application will need to install a small package locally ( necessary for updates)
• login to Autocad with an Autocad Account and start using the app

Mission Completed 🙂