Note: for autoscale plans to work, you need to grant the Azure Virtual Desktop service principal the permissions to manage the power state of the session host VMs. These permissions can be granted by using the built-in Desktop Virtualization Power On Off Contributor RBAC role. The role assignment must be performed at the subscription scope.

1. If needed, from your local computer, start a web browser, navigate to the Azure portal and sign in by providing your Odl_user credentials.
2. From the Azure portal, start a PowerShell session in the Azure Cloud Shell.
3. In the PowerShell session, run the following command to retrieve the value of the Id property of the Azure subscription you are using in this lab and store it in a variable $subId:
   $subId = (Get-AzSubscription).Id
4. Run the following command to create a $parameters variable, which stores a hash table that contains the values of the RBAC role definition name, Microsoft Entra application representing the Azure Virtual Desktop service principal, and the subscription scope:
   $parameters = @{ RoleDefinitionName = "Desktop Virtualization Power On Off Contributor" ApplicationId = "9cdead84-a844-4324-93f2-b2e6bb768d07" Scope = "/subscriptions/$subId" }
5. Run the following command to create the RBAC role assignment:
   New-AzRoleAssignment @parameters
6. Close the Cloud Shell pane.

Note: to evaluate the autoscaling functionality, you will stop and deallocate all of the session hosts in the Azure Virtual Desktop environment.

1. From your local computer, in the web browser displaying the Azure portal, search for and select Azure Virtual Desktop and, on the Azure Virtual Desktop page, in the vertical menu bar, in the Manage section, select Host pools.
2. On the Azure Virtual Desktop | Host pools page, in the list of host pools, select <sName>-cpoF67-hp1.
3. On the <sName>-cpoF67-hp1 page, in the vertical menu bar, in the Manage section, select Session hosts.
4. On the <sName>-cpoF67-hp1 | Session hosts page, select the checkbox next to each session host name and then select Stop.
5. When prompted to confirm, in the Stop session hosts pop-up window, select Stop.

   Note: you might need to select the ellipsis (...) icon in the toolbar to display the Stop button.

   Note: do not wait until the session hosts are stopped and deallocated but instead proceed to the next task. Stopping and deallocating session hosts might take about 2 minutes.

1. From the Azure portal, on the <sName>-cpoF67-hp1 page, in the Settings section, select Properties.
2. On the <sName>-cpoF67-hp1 | Properties page, in the Max session limit text box, enter 1 and select Save.

   Note: when using autoscale for pooled host pools, you must have a configured MaxSessionLimit parameter for that host pool. In this lab, you will set it artificially low in order to facilitate illustrating the autoscaling functionality.

1. From the Azure portal, search for and select Azure Virtual Desktop and, on the Azure Virtual Desktop page, in the Manage section of the vertical navigation menu, select Scaling plans.
2. On the Azure Virtual Desktop | Scaling plans page, select + Create.
3. On the Basics tab of the Create a scaling plan page, specify the following settings and select Next : Schedules:

   Setting	Value
   Subscription	the name of the Azure subscription you are using in this lab
   Resource group	the name of a new resource group <sName>-cpoF67-412-RG
   Scaling plan name	<sName>-ScalingPlan
   Region	the name of the Azure region where you deployed the Azure Virtual Desktop environment
   Friendly name	<sName>-ScalingPlan
   Time zone	the local time zone of the Azure region where you deployed the Azure Virtual Desktop environment (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
   Host pool type	Pooled
   Scaling method	Power management autoscaling

   Note: leave the Exclusion tag property not set. In general, you can use this feature to exclude Azure VMs with arbitrarily set tags from autoscaling.

4. On the Schedule tab, select + Add schedule.

   Note: schedules allow you to define ramp-up hours, peak hours, ramp-down hours, and off-peak hours for week days and specify autoscaling triggers. A scaling plan must include an associated schedule for at least one day of the week.

5. On the General tab of the Add a schedule pane, adjust the default configuration to match the following settings and then select Next:

   Setting	Value
   Time zone	the local time zone of your Azure Virtual Desktop environment
   Schedule name	<sName>-week_schedule
   Repeat on	7 selected (select all days of the week)

   Note: the schedule effectively covers every day of the week, which will facilitate evaluating the outcome of autoscaling.

6. On the Ramp-up tab, adjust the default configuration to match the following settings and then select Next:

   Setting	Value
   Start time (12 hour system)	your current time minus 1 hour
   Load balancing algorithm	Breadth-first
   Minimum percentage of hosts (%)	30
   Capacity threshold (%)	60

   Note: for pooled host pools, autoscale ignores existing load-balancing algorithms in your host pool settings and instead applies load balancing based on your schedule configuration.

   Note: the Minimum percentage of hosts setting designates the minimum percentage of session host virtual machines to start for ramp-up and peak hours. For example, if Minimum percentage of hosts is 30% and the total number of session hosts in your host pool is 3, autoscale will ensure a minimum of 1 session host is available. Autoscale rounds up to the nearest whole number.

   Note: the Capacity threshold setting is the percentage of used host pool capacity that will be considered to evaluate whether to turn on/off virtual machines during the ramp-up and peak hours. For example, if capacity threshold is 60% and your host pool capacity is 1 session (with one host running), autoscale will turn on additional session hosts once the load of the host pool exceeds 60% (it's 100% in this case).

7. On the Peak hours tab, adjust the default configuration to match the following settings and then select Next:

   Setting	Value
   Start time (12 hour system)	your current time plus 1 hour
   Load balancing algorithm	Depth-first
   Capacity threshold (%)	60

   Note: the Capacity threshold (%) setting is shared between the Ramp-up and Peak hours settings.

8. On the Ramp-down tab of the Add a schedule pane, adjust the default configuration to match the following settings and then select Next:

   Setting	Value
   Start time (12 hour system)	your current time plus 2 hours
   Load balancing algorithm	Depth-first
   Minimum percentage of active hosts (%)	10
   Capacity threshold (%)	80
   Force sign out users	No
   Stop VMs when	VMs have no active or disconnected sessions

   Note: the Minimum percentage of active hosts (%) setting designates the minimum percentage of session host virtual machines that you would like to get to for ramp-down and off-peak hours. For example, if Minimum percentage of active hosts (%) is set to 10% and the total number of session hosts in your host pool is 3, autoscale will ensure a minimum of 1 session host is available to take user connections.

   Note: the Capacity threshold (%) setting designates the percentage of used host pool capacity that will be considered to evaluate whether to turn off virtual machines during the ramp-down and off-peak hours. For example, with 1 user connection and 3 hosts running, if capacity threshold is specified as 80%, autoscale would turn off 1 host (resulting in 50% used host pool capacity).

   Note: in general, autoscale will stop and deallocate session hosts according to the following rules: the used host pool capacity is below the capacity threshold; turning off session hosts will not result in exceeding the capacity threshold; autoscale only turns off session hosts with no user sessions on them (unless the scaling plan is in ramp-down phase and you've enabled the setting to force user logoff); pooled autoscale will not turn off session hosts in the ramp-up phase to ensure that user experience is not impacted.

9. On the Off-peak hours tab of the Add a schedule pane, adjust the default configuration to match the following settings and then select Add:

   Setting	Value
   Start time (12 hour system)	your current time plus 3 hours
   Load balancing algorithm	Depth-first
   Capacity threshold (%)	80

   Note: the Capacity threshold setting is shared between the Ramp-down and Off-peak hours settings.

10. Back on the Schedule tab of the Create a scaling plan page, select Next : Host pool assignments.
11. On the Host pool assignments tab, in the Select host pool drop-down list, select <sName>-cpoF67-hp1, ensure that the Enable autoscale checkbox is selected, and then select Review + create.
12. On the Review + Create page, select Create.

    Note: wait for the autoscale configuration to complete. This typically takes just a few seconds.

    Screenshot must show your Odl_user account, the <sName>-ScalingPlan scaling plan with its <sName>-week_schedule schedule and the <sName>-cpoF67-hp1 host pool assignment with autoscale enabled

Note: you will start by evaluating the Ramp-up settings.

1. From the Azure portal, search for and select Azure Virtual Desktop and, on the Azure Virtual Desktop page, in the vertical menu bar, in the Manage section, select Host pools.
2. On the Azure Virtual Desktop | Host pools page, in the list of host pools, select <sName>-cpoF67-hp1.
3. On the <sName>-cpoF67-hp1 page, in the vertical menu bar, in the Manage section, select Session hosts.
4. On the <sName>-cpoF67-hp1 | Session hosts page, review the values of the Power state setting of the session hosts and verify that one of them is listed as Running.

   Note: you might need to wait a couple of minutes before the first session host reaches the Running state.

   Note: this is expected, since according to the Ramp-up settings of the newly created scaling plan, at least one session host should be always online. At this point, the host pool capacity is 1 (since there is only 1 host running), but the used host pool capacity is 0%, since there are no user connections.

   Screenshot must show your Odl_user account, the <sName>-cpoF67-hp1 Session hosts page with one session host in the Running state and the other session hosts stopped (deallocated)
5. From your local computer, start the Microsoft Remote Desktop client.

   Note: next, you will evaluate the Ramp-up and Peak hours capacity threshold setting by launching a single user session. We can evaluate this even outside of the Peak hours window, since the two stages share the same capacity threshold.

6. Click Subscribe and, when prompted, sign in with the credentials of the User2 account in Entra ID which you have created in the first lab.
7. Ensure that the Remote Desktop page displays four icons, including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Command Prompt.
8. Double-click the Command Prompt icon.
9. When prompted to sign in, in the Windows Security dialog box, enter the User2 password.
10. Verify that a Command Prompt window appears shortly afterwards.

    Note: at this point, the used host pool capacity is 100%, which is greater than the capacity threshold (60%). This should result in autoscaling turning on another host, which will bring the used host pool capacity to 50%. Since this is below the capacity threshold, the third host will remain stopped/deallocated. You will verify this next.

11. From your local computer, switch to the web browser displaying the Azure portal.
12. On the <sName>-cpoF67-hp1 | Session hosts page, select Refresh, review the values of the Power state setting of the session hosts, and verify that now two of them are listed as Running. Screenshot must show your Odl_user account, the <sName>-cpoF67-hp1 Session hosts page with two session hosts in the Running state
13. From the Remote Desktop client, subscribe with User1 now. Select SessionDesktop and from within the desktop run the Command Prompt and type whoami /upn.

    Note: see the samples at the end of the instruction for more clarity on what you need to include in your screenshots.

    Screenshot must show your Odl_user account, the User1 SessionDesktop session with the Command Prompt window displaying the whoami /upn output for cpoF67-User1-<sName>
14. On the <sName>-cpoF67-hp1 | Session hosts page, select Refresh, review the values of the Power state setting of the session hosts, and verify that now all three of them are listed as Running. Screenshot must show your Odl_user account, the <sName>-cpoF67-hp1 Session hosts page with all three session hosts in the Running state
15. On the <sName>-cpoF67-hp1 | Session hosts page, in the vertical navigation menu, in the Manage section, select Scaling plans and then, on the Scaling plans page, select <sName>-ScalingPlan.

    Note: next, you will evaluate the Ramp-down capacity threshold setting by adjusting its time window.

16. On the <sName>-ScalingPlan page, in the vertical navigation menu, in the Settings section, select Schedules and then select <sName>-week_schedule.
17. In the <sName>-week_schedule pane, navigate to the Ramp-down tab and adjust the value of the Start time (12 hour system) setting to any time between the Start time (12 hour system) of the Peak hours phase and your current time.

    Note: you might need to adjust the value of Start time (12 hour system) of the Peak hours phase.

18. In the <sName>-week_schedule pane, navigate to the Off-peak hours tab and select Save.
19. Switch to the Remote Desktop app and, from both Command Prompt windows, enter the following and press the Enter key:
    logoff
20. On the Azure Virtual Desktop | Host pools page, in the list of host pools, select <sName>-cpoF67-hp1, then on the <sName>-cpoF67-hp1 page, in the vertical menu bar, in the Manage section, select Session hosts.
21. On the <sName>-cpoF67-hp1 | Session hosts page, review the values of the Power state setting of the session hosts and verify that now only one of them is listed as Running.

    Note: it may take 1-2 minutes before the session host is shut down.

    Screenshot must show your Odl_user account, the <sName>-cpoF67-hp1 Session hosts page with only one session host in the Running state after the Ramp-down evaluation

Note: to ensure that the autoscaling configuration will not affect other labs, you will remove the host pool assignment of the scaling plan you implemented in this lab.

1. From the Azure portal, search for and select Azure Virtual Desktop, in the Manage section select Scaling plans, and select <sName>-ScalingPlan.
2. On the <sName>-ScalingPlan page, in the Manage section, select Host pool assignments.
3. Select <sName>-cpoF67-hp1, then select Unassign and, when prompted to confirm, in the Unassign host pool dialog box, select Unassign.

Minimum 2-3 sentences each — original thinking, your own words!

1. After creating the scaling plan and assigning it to the host pool, how many session hosts were in the Running state? Given that no users had connected yet, explain why autoscale started that host automatically.
2. Using a company with 100 remote users, 10 session hosts, and max 8 sessions per VM, explain what “ramp-up,” “peak,” “ramp-down,” and “off-peak” mean, and how you would set their start times for a normal 9–5 workday. What “Minimum percentage of active hosts” would you recommend for each phase?
3. Lab Reflection (answer based on your own personal experience doing the lab, not general or textbook statements): what were the most important concepts you learned about Azure Virtual Desktop autoscaling, and what challenges did you face while completing the tasks or verifying the results?

Screenshots you attach above and your Task 7 answers appear here. This is exactly what prints/exports as your PDF.

1. All attached screenshots must be high quality, with your Odl_user account clearly visible.
2. A brief explanation added for each screenshot.
3. Export with Print / Save as PDF and upload it to the Blackboard lab submission page.