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Delivering Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) as a customer-facing service required significant custom scripting, deep Azure expertise, and ongoing maintenance.
Building and maintaining a homegrown automation framework tied AVD deployments to senior-level engineers, limiting scalability and slowing onboarding.
Without a standardized platform, the team spent more time troubleshooting infrastructure than growing its desktop as a service offering or innovating.
Solution
Nerdio replaced custom scripts with guided workflows and built-in automation, allowing intermediate engineers to manage AVD while reducing deployment time by up to 50% for senior resources and 75–80% for other engineers.
With Nerdio handling lifecycle management and onboarding, Safari Micro enabled sameday AVD deployments, scaled its desktop as a service model, and redirected engineering effort toward innovation, security, and customer value.
Safari Micro adopted Nerdio Manager for MSP as the standardized platform for deploying, managing, and automating Azure Virtual Desktop environments.
From early AVD experimentation to a scalable service offering
Safari Micro has been operating as a technology solutions provider since the mid-1990s, evolving from a value-added reseller into a Microsoft-centric services organization over the past decade. With deep expertise across Microsoft 365 and Azure, the team began experimenting with Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) during its beta phase in 2019, initially to support internal users.
The experience quickly revealed broader opportunity. “We really liked the product,” said Jeremy Wallace, Principal Cloud Architect at Safari Micro. “We realized we could sell this as a desktop as a service solution for clients.”
Why building it alone wasn’t sustainable
As Safari Micro explored productizing AVD, Wallace began developing custom scripts and automation frameworks. While technically feasible, the approach introduced friction. “There’s a lot of headaches involved with that,” he said. “You’re spending time just trying to make the platform work instead of improving it.”
That effort repeatedly surfaced the same name during research: Nerdio. When Safari Micro engaged with the Nerdio team, the alignment was immediate. Nerdio Manager for MSP provided exactly what Safari Micro had been attempting to build internally–a fully supported, production-ready platform designed for MSP-scale delivery.
Turning AVD into a repeatable, engineer-friendly service
With Nerdio Manager in place, Safari Micro transformed how AVD environments were deployed and managed. Tasks that once required senior Azure architects could now be handled by other engineers using Nerdio’s guided workflows and automation.
For senior resources, Nerdio reduced deployment and management time by roughly 50%. For intermediate engineers, efficiency gains reached 75–80%, dramatically expanding Safari Micro’s delivery capacity without increasing headcount.
Same-day onboarding and a true DaaS model
One of the most tangible outcomes is onboarding speed. Using Nerdio’s structured deployment process, Safari Micro can stand up fully functional AVD environments within hours, and in urgent cases, by the end of the same business day.
“That’s not a promise I’d ever make without Nerdio,” Wallace said.
This speed supports Safari Micro’s differentiated go-to-market strategy. Rather than requiring customers to sign on for full managed services, the company focuses on delivering a best-in-class desktop as a service offering. Clients pay a predictable per-user, per-month fee, while Safari Micro manages the full backend from deployment to backups and lifecycle management.
Innovation fueled by a true partner relationship
Beyond the technology, Safari Micro credits Nerdio’s responsiveness and feedback-driven development as a competitive advantage. Wallace participates regularly in product discussions with Nerdio teams, sharing ideas that often appear in production releases within months.
Building confidence for customers and the team
For Safari Micro’s customers, the result is simple: They don’t have to think about their desktops. The environments are stable, secure, and predictable. For Safari Micro’s internal team, Nerdio enables ownership, confidence, and excitement around modern desktop delivery.
As the platform continues to evolve, Safari Micro sees Nerdio as central to its long-term growth to enable faster delivery, deeper innovation, and a service offering that scales without friction.
Read the full customer story
See how Safari Micro accelerates DaaS delivery and cuts onboarding time in half with Nerdio