AppV content store?

[IAmATeaf]

Is it possible to use a server less content store for AppV. I know that I could use Azure Files to share and store and then use PowerShell locally on the client to install and publish but what if I want to still use the functionality of AppV Infrastructure but for Azure VDI clients have them pull the packages from Azure Files?

I know I could stand up a server and configure it as a publishing server and point the content store to Azure Files but I was wondering if this could be done without the server?

Hope that makes some sense.

So essentially, I want to host the AppV content store in Azure Files but don't really want to standup a publishing server in the cloud but without a server I can't see how it can be done or would work.

 

[IAmATeaf]

To answer my own question in case it helps others

There are possibly 2 ways of doing this:

1) Use a combination of Sites and Services, DFS and DNS. You can stand up a Publishing server in Azure if you want to minimise traffic/comms back to on prem but will work without it. DFS will effectively take care of presenting the client with their closest/nearest content store share.

2) Use a feature of AppV 5 called Shared Content Store. With this you simply stand up a share in Azure using Azure Files, copy the content to the share and then configure your clients to use Shared Content Store. The clients will still talk to the on prem AppV infrastructure but when pulling content will use the Shared Content Store instead. The only real issue with this is that a specific client GPO would need to be applied and the clients will stream the packages from Azure Files, so the AppV packages are never installed locally and always streamed. For us this is fine as the plan is to use this with non persistent VDIs, we'll make sure we use the high speed network when the clients talk to the Shared Content Store.

All of the above is just theory at the moment but hopefully over the next few days Azure Files will be stood up so that I can then have a play.