Before performing a failover test to a secondary region for Azure Virtual Desktop, what must be done first?

To perform a failover test to a secondary region for Azure Virtual Desktop, it is crucial to first end the user connections in the current region. This step ensures that there are no active sessions or data transactions occurring at the time of the failover. Ending user connections helps to maintain data integrity and prevents any lost work or session data, allowing for a seamless and reliable test of the failover process.

The failover test aims to simulate the switchover to an alternate region without impacting the users' business continuity or data. By first terminating active connections, you set up a controlled environment to better evaluate how well the failover mechanism works and to ensure that any data synchronization or recovery processes proceed without complications.

In contrast, creating a Recovery Service vault is an important part of Azure's disaster recovery strategy but is not the immediate prerequisite for initiating a failover test. Similarly, while a storage account is necessary for managing data in Azure, it is also not the first step in executing a failover test. Registering virtual machines manually in the secondary region might be part of the setup for disaster recovery, but it would typically follow the decision to perform a failover once connections have been ended.