Customer Stories
70 %
Faster operational changes across AVD environments.
20 %
Faster image builds and publishes.
15 %
Less manual effort on patching and maintenance.
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Start nowChallenge
- Managing AVD natively required manual, host-by-host changes, slowing execution and increasing human error.
- Unpredictable cloud spend from always-on capacity strained IT budgets and finance visibility.
- Patching, image hygiene, and access control lacked automation, creating routine maintenance bottlenecks.
Solution
- Implemented Nerdio Manager for Enterprise as a unified control plane to automate AVD operations and policy enforcement.
- Deployed Auto-Scaling and right-sizing to power resources only when in use, delivering recurring savings each quarter.
- Automated patching, image updates, and role-based access, reducing manual work and standardizing compliance.
When scale exposed the limits of native AVD
Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) delivered the secure foundation Syneos required. But as adoption surged, the team felt the strain of managing it natively. Routine changes meant clicking through the Azure portal host by host. Image work stretched longer than the business could tolerate. Patch hygiene depended on people remembering to run it. And capacity stayed online “just in case,” so cloud spend moved in ways finance couldn’t easily predict.
The platform was strong, but the control plane wasn’t built for the scale Syneos needed. The mandate became clear: Make growth predictable, give time back to engineering, and tame spending without compromising the user experience.
The search for leverage
With AVD already in production, Syneos considered staying the course with native tools and custom scripts. But as the team weighed their options, Nerdio Manager for Enterprise emerged as the clear choice because it mapped precisely to their pain points: wasted time and untamed spend. The team decided to layer Nerdio Manager for Enterprise on top of AVD to add policy and automation where it matters most.
When Linwood Hunter, Senior Workstation Engineer at Syneos Health, and his team began utilizing Nerdio for daily operations, the difference was immediate. Multi‑step portal work became a few deliberate clicks in Nerdio—a true single pane of glass for AVD administration— with workflows that made sense at enterprise scale.
From the business side, the most noticeable benefit is how quickly we can execute.”
Linwood Hunter,
Senior Workstation Engineer, Syneos Health
How Nerdio changed operations and profit margins
With Nerdio Auto-Scaling, instead of paying for idle capacity, the “stream up/stream down” model powers resources only when users are active and releases them when they’re not. As the host pool crossed 100+ AVD machines, that single shift began returning thousands of dollars in incremental savings per quarter on top of existing Microsoft Savings Plans and Reservations, bending the spend curve in the right direction. Savings compounded with right-sizing, and usage insights highlighted smaller VM SKUs that still met performance expectations, meaning the team could lower unit cost without sacrificing user experience.
The Syneos team’s operations also improved significantly. With one control plane for day-today work, engineers write a script once and target a single VM or an entire host pool, turning slow, portal-driven changes into executions that run 70% faster. Image hygiene became a cadence rather than a calendar event: Nerdio powers image VMs up on schedule, applies Windows updates, and powers them down again. This means that builds and publishes complete 20% faster, and baselines stay current without extra hands.
Patching shifted from “remember to run it” to “already handled,” reclaiming 15% of routine effort. Even access management moved out of the weeds—clear, least-privilege RBAC trimmed administrator onboarding by 10% and made compliance the default.
Taken together, the picture is clear: less toil for IT, more control for finance, and a consistent experience for thousands of users. Engineers get measurable time back, and Auto-Scaling alone delivers thousands of dollars in additional savings per quarter, with more to come as additional pools adopt the policy and SKU right-sizing continues.
Looking ahead
Syneos will keep tuning Auto-Scaling policies, right‑sizing as usage patterns evolve, and leaning into Nerdio’s frequent enhancements—especially around Microsoft Intune scenarios—as AVD management advances. The expectation is simple and shared across IT and finance: Continue leveraging Nerdio to keep a large, global AVD estate efficient, current, and cost‑aware without heavy custom engineering.
