How to convert all my AVD's personal pool to host pool

Question

I have 20 AVD's in a personal pool I need to convert to host pool with the users using fslogix

Answer 1

Thanks for the clarification, James.

There isn't a direct way to convert one pool type to another (as far as I know), but you could reuse parts of your current setup.

Here are some key considerations:

1. You can keep the same AVD workspace, but you will need to create a new hostpool, select 'Pooled' as type, and choose the load-balancing algorithm (breath-first or depth-first).
2. Depending on what OS image you chose for the session host, you could reuse the existing VMs (session hosts), reconfigure them and reconnect them to the new pool. If you chose a multi-session Windows 10 or 11 image, you should be good. Otherwise, you would need to create new VMs with a multi-session OS image.
3. You will need to design storage for FSLogix profiles. There are several guides available with design considerations like this one. Depending on your identity provider scenario, you need to think of the right authentication & authorization model for your share.
4. The most complex step (if applicable) is to migrate user profiles from personal session hosts to FSLogix profile containers stored in Azure Files or ANF. It involves creation of VHDX profile disks in e.g., Azure Files share, mounting them to the existing session host, creating a new partition, copying the files from the local profile folder, using Group Policy to enable FSLogix profile redirection, and setting the right NTFS and Share-level permissions.
5. You can re-register existing session hosts by removing them from the personal host pool and joining them to the new pooled host pool. Or you could easily create new hosts from either a Marketplace image or a custom one.
6. You will need to reconfigure user assignments and update Application Groups and Assignments to allow multiple users to connect.
7. You may need to configure Scaling Plans and host capacity planning for multi-user sessions and think about the density of user sessions per host.

Please note: This is not a comprehensive step-by-step guide but rather an overview of areas you should think of when planning for this "migration". Depending on the number of session hosts (unique users) you have in your environment, this could be a complex task.