Hydra 2.1.0: Advancing AVD Performance, Hybrid Image Management, and Windows 365 Integration
December 19, 2025
The Hydra 2.1.0 release is here, and it’s packed with new features designed to enhance your experience with Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD), Azure Local environments, and Windows 365. Whether you’re scaling your VDI infrastructure, exploring hybrid environments, or optimizing your migration workflows, this release brings significant upgrades to your workflow.
Let’s dive into the key features.
Azure NetApp Files Support for Azure Virtual Desktop
Hydra 2.1.0 introduces support for Azure NetApp Files (ANF) with Azure Virtual Desktop, providing customers with high-performance, enterprise-grade storage on AVD workloads.
Figure 1 – ANF Support with Auto-Sizing
As AVD adoption grows, organizations are increasingly turning to Azure NetApp Files for storage solutions that meet the needs of performance-sensitive applications, such as FSLogix profiles and user data shares. Hydra now integrates seamlessly with this powerful storage service, allowing you to manage AVD images and lifecycle operations while maintaining the performance and reliability Azure NetApp Files is known for.
With this integration, Hydra users can confidently deploy AVD on Azure NetApp Files, ensuring top-tier performance and capacity management for their virtual desktop infrastructure.
Enhanced Azure Local Support with Hydra Proxy (Public Preview)
Figure 2 – Hydra Proxy Creates an Image on Azure Local in 20 minutes
The second major highlight of Hydra 2.1.0 is Hydra Proxy, a game-changing feature for Azure Local environments, now available in public preview.
Hydra Proxy extends Hydra’s capabilities into hybrid environments, allowing customers to create and manage images directly on Azure Local machines. This update is crucial for organizations leveraging hybrid or edge deployments where workloads run closer to users or on existing on-prem infrastructure but still need robust lifecycle management from Hydra.
This public preview release opens the door to greater flexibility and performance for hybrid Azure Local and AVD environments, and we’re excited to hear your feedback as we continue to evolve the feature.
Windows 365 User Settings and Migration Snapshots
In Hydra 2.1.0, we’re continuing to add to our support of Windows 365 Cloud PCs: the ability to configure Windows 365 User Settings, including the second phase of the Windows 365 Migration API.
Figure 3 – User setting configuration to use migration snapshot
Figure 4 – Cloud PC being provisioned from Migration Snapshot
In Hydra 2.0.0, we introduced the ability to create migration snapshots from AVD personal pool session hosts. With Hydra 2.1.0, we’ve taken this to the next level by enabling users to directly assign migration snapshots to Windows 365 users who have them. This integration simplifies the migration process, ensuring users have access to consistent, personalized settings across both AVD and Windows 365 environments.
For organizations using both AVD and Windows 365, this feature streamlines migration and ensures a smoother, more consistent experience when transitioning users between platforms.
Wrapping Up: What Else Is New in Hydra 2.1.0
In addition to these major updates, Hydra 2.1.0 also includes several quality-of-life improvements:
- Tenant filtering for easier multi-tenant configuration management
- Email subscription support for timely release updates
- Various performance improvements and bug fixes
Looking Ahead
Hydra 2.1.0 is all about giving you the tools you need to manage and scale your virtual desktop environment with ease. Whether you’re looking to optimize storage with Azure NetApp Files, simplify hybrid management with Hydra Proxy, or streamline your Windows 365 migration workflows, this release brings powerful new features that empower you to take your virtual desktop infrastructure to the next level.
We look forward to your feedback and can’t wait to see how Hydra 2.1.0 will help you achieve even greater success in managing your VDI and hybrid environments.
Stay tuned for more updates, and don’t forget to subscribe for notifications about new releases!
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