Nerdio Unveils New MSP Solution To Simplify WVD Deployments

Along with automating work related to Microsoft’s Windows Virtual Desktop, Nerdio Manager for MSP also aims to reduce costs associated with the Azure cloud platform.

Azure automation provider Nerdio on Tuesday launched its newest solution for managed services providers aimed at improved deployments of Microsoft’s Windows Virtual Desktop.

The new Nerdio Manager for MSP solution aims to simplify and optimize WVD environments within Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, and offers the ability for MSPs to provision a full environment in an hour or less, the Chicago-based company said Tuesday. The announcement came in connection with the company’s NerdioCon virtual event.

[Related: Nerdio Seeing Growth Surge Amid ‘Unbelievable’ WVD Demand]

Nerdio Manager for MSP is a multi-tenant Azure virtual desktop platform that is “designed exclusively for managed service providers,” said CEO Vadim Vladimirskiy in remarks during NerdioCon on Tuesday.

Crucially, the solution takes “the best of both worlds” from Nerdio’s existing products, Vladimirskiy said-- Nerdio Manager for WVD and Nerdio for Azure. The new solution includes “the simplicity and the wide scope of what Nerdio for Azure can do,” specifically around multi-tenant management and the ability to manage virtual machines, backups and networking, he said.

That is coupled with “the flexibility and the scale and the advanced auto-scaling capabilities and the image management that’s found in Nerdio Manager for WVD,” Vladimirskiy said.

Nerdio is “bringing those two sets of features together into this new product called Nerdio Manager for MSP,” he said.

At Sandy Springs, Ga.-based Decision Digital, an MSP and partner of Nerdio, Founder and CEO and Rick Harber said that Nerdio Manager for MSP is big step forward, and will especially help with saving time for his team. The solution will rapidly move the MSP’s Azure practice “from compelling to formidable,” he said.

Nerdio Manager for MSP also demonstrates the company’s commitment to “further enabling partner success,” Harber said.

Key features of Nerdio Manager for MSP include a centralized interface for simplified management of WVD environments, as well as improvements related to acquiring Azure pricing with the inclusion of a wizard-driven cost estimator for Azure.

Nerdio Manager for MSP works both for deploying new environments or connecting to an existing WVD environment. Meanwhile, advanced auto-scaling capabilities included in the solution enable savings of up to 75 percent on Azure compute and storage costs, according to Nerdio.

Nerdio and its MSP partners have been deploying WVD to customers at a rapid pace since last March, said Nerdio Chief Revenue Officer Joseph Landes in a recent interview with CRN. Nerdio saw an “unbelievable rush to WVD in March, April and May” of 2020, and demand has remained strong ever since, Landes said.

Windows Virtual Desktop runs on Azure and offers a simpler and less-expensive licensing model for deploying virtual desktops. Among WVD’s key features is the ability for multi-session usage--in which multiple users can connect to Windows 10 virtual desktops on a single virtual machine at the same time.

In remarks during a NerdioCon keynote on Monday, Microsoft Channel Chief Gavriella Schuster said that Nerdio “solves a challenge that I hear from our partners all the time.”

“They want to build a cloud practice, and they want to focus on customer lifetime value with managed services, but they don’t know where to start,” Schuster said.