Moving one or more Windows 365 Cloud PCs to another location

[anyweb]

Introduction

Microsoft recently released a new feature for Windows 365 Cloud PC’s namely the ability to move one or more Cloud PCs to another region. This involves editing a previously created provisioning policy and then deciding whether you want to move all Cloud PC’s or only a subset targeted by that policy. All data/settings etc on the device (except for stored snapshots) will be retained with the move, which is great from an end user perspective.

Microsoft themselves recommends testing this on a few Cloud PCs to review how the end to end process works for your users’ Cloud PCs.

Why change location ?

But first of all, why would we want to change the location of a Cloud PC ? Changing the location of a Windows 365 Cloud PC can be beneficial for several reasons:

• Improved Performance: Moving the Cloud PC to a location closer to the user can reduce latency and improve overall performance, making applications and services more responsive.
• Compliance and Data Sovereignty: Different regions have varying regulations regarding data storage and processing. Moving the Cloud PC to a location that complies with local laws can ensure adherence to data sovereignty requirements.
• Cost Optimization: Some regions may offer lower costs for cloud services. By relocating the Cloud PC to a more cost-effective region, businesses can reduce their operational expenses.
• Disaster Recovery and Redundancy: Relocating the Cloud PC to a different region can enhance disaster recovery plans by ensuring redundancy and availability in case of regional outages or disasters.
• User Experience: If a business has employees in different geographical locations, moving the Cloud PC closer to the majority of users can enhance their experience by providing faster access to resources.
• Scalability: Certain regions may offer better scalability options or more advanced infrastructure, allowing businesses to expand their operations more efficiently.
• Security: Some regions may have more robust security measures or offer specific compliance certifications that are important for certain industries.

So let’s dig in and see how this works in reality.

Moving one or more Cloud PC’s

In the Intune console, locate the Windows 365 node and select Provisioning policies.

Select the target provisioning policy, and click it to edit it. the policy details are revealed. Take note of the current location configured within the policy, this is optional but useful to know if you want to revert to that location later on.

Review location before change

At this point, pick a test Cloud PC to allow you to review that the move process goes smoothly.

On that Cloud PC, verify the current location using a site such as https://www.whatismyipaddress.com or https://mylocation.org/. Below you can see the approximate location of our test Cloud PC before any move is attempted.

As we can see it’s listed in Iowa, in the United States.

1. Inform the users

Now that we know which provisioning policy we’ll be editing, and what location our target Cloud PC’s reside in, we need to pick one or more users of those Cloud PC’s and inform them of what is about to happen (and why).

You need to explain to the users that they must save any open documents, close their apps and to sign out of their Cloud PC for the weekend. It’s a good idea to do the move over the weekend as obviously some Cloud PC’s will have more data/apps/settings to move than others.

2. Edit the policy

In the General section of the provisioning policy, click Edit and modify the Geography. I chose European Union as that’s where I want to move my target Cloud PC’s. You can fine tune the region and select an actual region such as Sweden, but it’s recommended to choose the Automatic (Recommended) option to avoid provisioning failure. For a list of supported regions see here.

As this is an actual move and not a provisioning, I chose Sweden.

after editing the policy, click Next followed by Update.

3. Pick one or more target Cloud PC’s

Now that you’ve changed the Geography and Region of your provisioning policy, click Apply this configuration to select one or more target Cloud PC’s.

To select one or more devices, click the third option which is Region or Azure network connection for select devices and click Apply.

That will bring up a list of devices to select. Select one or more targets and place a check in the Cloud PC’s will be disconnected and shutdown while the configuration is updating. Any unsaved work may be lost message.

Note that the disconnect only affects selected devices, not all targeted by this provisioning policy.

4. Review the Cloud PC’s status

The status of the selected Cloud PC’s will change to Moving region or network in the All Cloud PC’s section of the Windows 365 node.

Individual Cloud PC’s will also show new status in Intune devices via the Overview and Device action status areas of each device.

Also to note, the above statuses will have changed even before the move of the actual target takes place, so the Cloud PC may still be online for a brief period before it receives the instructions to shutdown.

You can also monitor the status using the Cloud PC actions report.

which reveals some more data for individual Cloud PC’s

plus, if you selected multiple Cloud PC’s, click on Bulk batches.

After some time, the status should update on the device to Completed

and the Cloud PC actions report will be updated with the new status.

And on the target PC itself, you can verify it’s location using the previously mentioned sites to confirm the new location.

Job done!

Final thoughts

Keep in mind that after you’ve completed your Cloud PC move operations, that any new Cloud PC’s targeted by that provisioning policy will also be provisioned in the new region. This new ability is great, and I’ve tested it successfully in multiple tenants.

I do however feel that with just a little bit more work it could be even better. What I’d like to see is native ability within Intune to send customizable emails/alerts/notification for any Cloud PC’s targeted by the move operation, both before and after the event to alert the end users about what is happening and when, and more importantly to let them know that operations are complete.

Great job Microsoft!