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Microsoft #Azure DevTest LAB is Great for #Education and #DevOps

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Azure DevTest Labs can be used to implement many key scenarios in addition to dev/test. One of those scenarios is to set up a lab for training. Azure DevTest Labs allows you to create a lab where you can provide custom templates that each trainee can use to create identical and isolated environments for training. You can apply policies to ensure that training environments are available to each trainee only when they need them and contain enough resources – such as virtual machines – required for the training. Finally, you can easily share the lab with trainees, which they can access in one click.

To Create your own DevTest Lab is easy in Microsoft Azure subscription :

Select Developer tools and then DevTest Labs

Give you DevTest Lab a Name and Resource

I already got it installed with some Virtual Machines.

When you go to Configuration and Policies you can configure your DevTest LAB for your Users.

From here you can manage and Configure your DevTest LAB.

Costs per Resource and who is the Owner

You can give your DevTest LAB Users full Control on Virtual Machine Sizes, but then you have to watch your Costs.
To keep you in Control you can decide which VM sizes can be selected by the DevTest LAB Users. From small standard A2 VM
or Powerful GS5 Virtual Machine.

Then you can select how much Virtual Machines can be selected by the DevTest LAB User or How Much Virtual Machines can be added to a Complete DevTest LAB :

Virtual Machines Per User

Virtual Machines per LAB

Here you can make a DevTest LAB Announcement for the Users.

To keep you Costs in a efficient way in Control, you can Auto Shutdown the Complete LAB and Start it with a Scheduler again.
Then you don’t pay for Compute when It’s not in use, this keeps your total costs low.

Auto Start

Auto Shutdown

Important for your Azure DevTest LAB are the Images form the Market Place but you can also upload your own custom images :

Azure Market Place

Of course you can add also Repositories to your Azure DevTest LAB :

When you installed this all, you can configure your Identity and Access Management for your Azure DevTest LAB Users.

I Gave Student01 the Role DevTest Lab User.

When you Login with the Azure DevTest LAB User you see your Resources and the LAB.

In the Activity Log you can see what is happening in your LAB.

For Teachers in Education is Microsoft Azure DevTest LAB a Great solution to work with IT Students and Develop or making there own Projects for School.

Here you see how easy you can role out a Kali-Linux Virtual Machine in your Azure DevTest LAB 

Select the Kali-Linux Image

Select your Virtual Machine Settings

Here you can select Artifacts for in your VM

You can download your JSON ARM Template here

Your Kali-Linux VM is Creating in your Azure DevTest LAB.

I like Microsoft Azure DevTest LAB a lot and I hope you too 🙂

More information about Microsoft Azure DevTest LAB is here on Docs

Author: James van den Berg

I'm Microsoft Architect and ICT Specialist and Microsoft MVP Cloud and Datacenter Management Microsoft MVP Windows Insider Microsoft Tech Community Insider Microsoft Azure Advisor

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