Few questions for best Azure + Configuration Manager +/- onprem design decisions

Question

Hello,

I was wondering few things and I would like to understand what are best practices now, that are not only looking good on paper, but also working in modern world.

I didn't see any customer using full cloud yet, but I know there are such, so all these thoughts are based on my private experience.

1. Can anyone tell me why would someone even consider going fully cloud in terms of device management? I am deadly sure Intune is way back behind ConfigMgr and if it will reach the same point, it will be a long time due to how vast ConfigMGR possibilities are, so what I've saw is always a Hybrid with ConfigMgr and Intune, however ConfigMgr was always on prem (with CMG in addition to that).

Next thing concerning this - Is it even recommended to, while being fully in cloud, use ConfigMGR infrastructure there, with cloud DPs? My first thought here is - is data transfer fine or costs would be a killer? ConfigMgr in cloud sounds great for me, especially that if people would use fully WVD, they wouldn't pay for transferring the whole data from Azure, back to on prem, this sounds like killer to bills as ConfigMgr processes a lot of data ( not even speaking about deployments)

2. This leads me to this question - Is express route really worth it if you use configMGR? I still think that transfer cost for data gathering or software deployments from Cloud DP to on prem machines would be...huge

Why I ask those questions, I would like to understand what are the best ways to optimize a company. Understand when to say - We should go full cloud - Or - I think that we can't use cloud DP due to data transfer costs, lets set up a on prem DP without a server to minimize costs etc.

At the moment, I see the cloud as good way to use the Intune for MDM and MAM...but can't really find anything that is more supreme to on prem solutions with a hybrid environment. Can anyone provide me some good pros and cons and ways to do such things that would actually work in modern companies, not just look good in theory?

In example - If abandoning the idea of having Hybrid and use only WVD + cloud ConfigMgr and use laptops to only connect to WVD, that sounds like it could save some money on the data transfer cloud>on prem. But is buying laptops to connect + having to pay for upkeeping them in cloud worth it?

Thank you!

Answer 1

I won't address the full question here (and haven't read the whole thing) but I will say our recommended strategy and path for Intune and ConfigMgr is "Better Together". MEM is a suite of products and services that are all being built to be fully complementary and used in conjunction.

As for "full cloud", that's the wrong question to ask as you can certainly host ConfigMgr in Azure IaaS -- we really don't care where you host the product at and from a capability perspective, there's no benefit to the location you've hosted it at. The right question is whether you want to manage from the cloud using a cloud service? The answer here is yes and ConfigMgr, using a CMG, 100% meets this criterion. This, combined with the additional capabilities of the MEM suite give you a solid foundation to move into "modern" management and the modern desktop.