When a Virtual Machine is running we have to pay for using CPU and RAM. When we are able to turn off (deallocate) a Virtual Machine then we can save costs.

With “Start on Connect” feature we can allow end users to turn on AVD Hosts and if they log off we can deallocate our hosts again. The result can be that we save costs!

I will go through all task to enable that feature.

1. Create and Assign Custom Role

First of all we need to have a custom role that will be used to start our hosts.

Subscription > Access control > add > custom role

Now we can create a role assignment. I did this on my Ressource Group “rg-avd” where my host is located.

our next step is to look for our new created custom role. if you can not find this, please try to refresh your session.

next part is to define members – here we need to find “Windows Virtual Desktop”

If you can not see any member then your user must be assigned to the security administrator role.

2. Enable “Start on Connect” on Hostpool

Let’s try if its working. My pool only one host and this host is deallocated.

Lets start our SessionDesktop:

Our Client will wait until one host is up and connected to the avd service.

Within the activity logs we can check who initiated the start of my host.

It was initiated by “Azure Virtual Desktop” as designed .

Thats it and thx for reading