Release - December 2024

Onboarding Bring Your Own Subscription (BYOS)

The onboarding of Bring Your Own Subscription (BYOS) allows customers to leverage their own Azure subscriptions for provisioning and managing CloudLabs VM labs. This model is ideal for organizations with special Microsoft pricing agreements or unique subscription requirements, providing greater control over resource usage, security, and cost tracking. The onboarding process involves entering SPN credentials, testing the subscription within the CloudLabs portal, adding or creating required resources such as VNets and gallery images, and ensuring sufficient VM quotas are available. Once verified, users can seamlessly integrate their own subscription into CloudLabs’ provisioning workflows for efficient lab management and operations.

Sync with Cloud

The "Sync with Cloud" feature allows users to synchronize their lab data with the current state of VMs deployed in Azure. When there are deployments in the lab, clicking the Sync with Cloud option ensures that the lab environment is updated to reflect the accurate status of the VMs. This action keeps the lab data in sync with the cloud, ensuring that users have the most up-to-date information about VM statuses, making lab management more efficient and accurate.

Use Custom DNS Servers

The "Utilize Custom DNS Servers" field allows specifying custom DNS server IP addresses for a virtual network, if required. By default, Azure uses its own DNS servers, which work for most scenarios. However, if a domain controller is configured as a DNS server or if an on-premises DNS server is required, users can enter custom DNS server addresses. This field supports multiple DNS servers and is optional; leaving it empty will default to Azure’s DNS servers. This ensures efficient communication within the virtual network based on the user's DNS preferences.

Idleness Tracker Health Status

The VM Idleness Tracker Health Status feature provides real-time monitoring of the idleness tracker installed on virtual machines to track their activity levels. During the initial VM deployment, the tracker status will appear as "Installation In-progress." Upon successful deployment, typically within 2-3 minutes, the status will change to "Installed." It’s important to note that not all virtual machine images support the installation of the idleness tracker. If a lab is configured with an unsupported image, the installation of the tracker will be marked as "Failed." This ensures that only valid and compatible VM images are used for activity tracking, preventing issues related to unsupported configurations.

Visibility of Custom Image Version

The platform provides enhanced visibility into the specific versions of custom images used for virtual machine deployments while creating labs. This feature ensures that users can easily identify and verify the selected image version during lab setup, improving accuracy and streamlining the configuration process.

Visibility of Subnet Name

The platform  displays the Subnet Name while creating labs if the Enable Advanced Networking option is selected. This enhancement ensures that users can easily identify and confirm the subnet assigned to their lab configurations, providing greater transparency and control over network settings during the setup process.