This page outlines a common deployment of Parallels Desktop as a Service (DaaS) for medium sized environments with 20 - 100 users in a multi-session configuration. It includes licensing and infrastructure requirements. This setup is scalable to larger teams as needed.
We recommend pairing Parallels DaaS with the Microsoft E3 license for its strong feature set the E3 license includes the desktop versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook as wel as 1TB of OneDrive storage space.
For cost saving you can leverage the Microsoft F3 (Frontline) license for its strong feature set and affordability, a combination with OneDrive is recommended as the F3 license does not include the desktop versions of Microsoft Office.
Each user requires the following:
Parallels DaaS License (Per named user)
Microsoft E3 or F3 License Includes:
Microsoft Office Online (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote)
Microsoft Teams (optional without Teams available)
Microsoft Windows OS
Microsoft Bookings
Microsoft 365 Groups
Windows Autopilot
Windows Universal Print
Power Automate for Microsoft 365
Microsoft To Do
Windows Hello
Microsoft Defender + Application Guard
BitLocker & BitLocker To Go
OneDrive
Microsoft Entra ID P1 (Conditional Access
Virtual machine (VM) sizing impacts cost and performance. Parallels DaaS automatically scales resources based on user demand. Typical VMs run ~200 hours/month using scaling.
D8s_v5 (Recommended)
8 vCPU / 32 GB RAM
~32 users
$119
$430
$257
$161
User density depends on workload. Heavy multitasking or conferencing video usage may reduce capacity.
For saving desktop items, user preferences, favorites, and files persistently across sessions, add:
Azure Storage Account + Azure File Share Used to store roaming user profiles.
Any of these licence sizes are required to unlock multi-session functionality:
Microsoft 365 E3, E5, A3, A5, F3, Business Premium, Student Use Benefit
Windows Enterprise E3, E5
Windows Education A3, A5
Windows VDA per user
Last updated
