Azure Virtual Desktop RDP Connection Routing

RDP Shortpath for Azure Virtual Desktop (RDP) improves the responsiveness of virtual desktop sessions by optimizing the connection between a remote client device and the Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) session host running in Azure. This illustration provides a simplified view of how those connections are routed. To make a connection to a virtual desktop hosted on an AVD session host, a client device (left) uses the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) via Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) to connect to an AVD gateway service hosted in Azure (bottom right). The gateway service then relays RDP over TCP to the session host in Azure (top right) via the internal Azure network and acts as an intermediary between the client device and session host for the duration of the virtual desktop session. (Other aspects of AVD, such as load balancing and authentication, are not pictured here.) While this offers a reliable connection, overhead incurred by using TCP and the gateway service add latency that can impact the responsiveness of the virtual desktop session.