Hydra 2.9.0: Better Visibility from Images to User Experience
October 1, 2026
Hydra 2.9.0 is available September 30, 2026, with new image management capabilities, more detail in Hydra Lens, improvements to the self-service experience, and new options for service providers delivering Hydra to their customers.
This release also continues our work with Microsoft on AVD Hybrid. Support for AVD Hybrid with VMware vSphere is still open for private-preview registration (register here).
Get a Clear View of Your Azure Images with Image Inventory
Managing images across Azure environments gets difficult when they’re spread across subscriptions, galleries, and image definitions. Hydra 2.9.0 introduces the new Image Inventory page to bring that information together.
Figure 1 – Hydra’s new image inventory page
Image Inventory discovers Managed Images and Azure Compute Gallery image versions across supported Azure environments and presents them in a single place. Administrators can see what images exist and where they’re located without moving between Azure resources to piece together the inventory. This is the first step toward broader image management capabilities within Hydra, giving administrators better visibility into the images available for their AVD environments.
Because this is our first iteration, we especially want your feedback. Click that Feedback button and tell us what is useful, what is missing and what would help you solve problems faster. Customer requests continue to play a major role in how we prioritize Hydra development.
We’ve also expanded image publishing in this release. When creating a new image, Hydra can now publish it to a second Azure Compute Gallery image definition. This gives organizations more flexibility when the same image needs to be available through multiple image definitions.
The imaging workflow itself has also been improved. Hydra now uses the source VM’s disk SKU for the temporary VM used during image creation, helping maintain consistent disk performance throughout the process.
Network Performance by Location and User in Hydra Lens
Hydra Lens continues to expand the operational data available for troubleshooting AVD environments.
With 2.9.0, Network Performance by Client Location provides another way to understand the user experience by showing network performance from the perspective of where users are connecting.
Figure 2 – Network performance by Client location
We’ve also added more detail to Network Performance by User. Selecting a user record now opens a details dialog where administrators can review the individual connections for that user within the selected time period. This makes it easier to investigate users with multiple connections and understand the context behind the performance data.
Figure 3 – Network Performance by User
Session Host Details also gains optional columns for VM Size, Disk Size, FSLogix Version, and IP Address. Administrators can expose these columns when they need additional infrastructure and configuration information during troubleshooting.
Launch AVD Sessions with Windows App from the Self-Service Portal
The Hydra self-service portal now supports launching AVD sessions through Windows App.
Users can move directly from the resources presented in My Sessions & Hosts into their published AVD resource using Windows App, reducing the steps required to get into their desktop or application.
Figure 4 – Launch a session using Windows App
We’ve also improved the Sessions and Hosts tables in My Sessions & Hosts. Both now support pagination, sorting, and filtering, along with tenant-aware information that helps administrators and service providers work across multiple tenants.
White-Label Hydra for Your Managed Service
Organizations providing Hydra as part of their own managed service can now white-label the Hydra UI.
White-labeling applies to users other than Full Administrators, allowing service providers to present a cleaner experience aligned with their own service and customer relationships while retaining the complete Hydra administration experience for their internal Full Administrators.
Smarter Session Host Rollouts: See Most-Used VM Sizes
When selecting an instance type for a new session host rollout, Hydra now includes a Most Used by Other VMs section.
This gives administrators quick visibility into the VM sizes already commonly used in the environment. It can help teams identify established deployment patterns when adding capacity or creating new session hosts.
More Improvements Across Hydra 2.9.0
Hydra 2.9.0 includes several additional improvements throughout the product. The Image Builder Imaging Log has been moved to Hydra’s standard table component for a more consistent experience. The Host Pools with Diagnostic Logging KPI now shows enabled host pools over the total number of accessible host pools, making the metric easier to interpret.
We’ve also improved validation for duplicate RemoteApp application group names, expanded Session Host Details search to include Assigned User, strengthened validation around conflicting start, stop, and restart operations, and enhanced browser and web application security controls.
Try Hydra 2.9.0, explore what’s new, and let us know what you think.
Interested in what’s next for AVD Hybrid? Sign up for the VMware vSphere private preview and come build with us.
Have fun. Go Hydra!
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