As a lab owner, you can now set a list of mandatory artifacts that will be applied on every machine created within your lab. Imagine a scenario where you want each machine in your lab to be connected to your corporate network. In this case each lab user would have to add a domain join artifact during virtual machine creation to make sure their machine is connected to the corporate domain. In other words, lab users would essentially have to re-create a machine in case they forget to apply such 'must have' artifacts on their machine. Mandatory artifacts will save your lab users the effort of adding such artifacts on a lab machine.
As a lab owner you would make the domain join artifact as a mandatory artifact in your lab, thus making sure that each machine is connected to the corporate network and saving the time and effort for your lab users. Other mandatory artifacts could include a common tool that your team uses, a platform related security pack that each machine needs to have by default etc. In short any common software that every machine in your lab needs to have can become a mandatory artifact.
Note that only artifacts that have no parameters are supported as mandatory ones. This aligns with our aim of not having the lab user to enter additional parameters during lab creation and thus making the process of VM creation a simple one.
To configure mandatory artifacts for your lab, you can find the 'Mandatory artifacts' option under 'External Resources in 'Configuration and policies'.
You can then select the mandatory artifacts for Windows and Linux machines separately by clicking on the Edit button. The Edit experience is very similar to configuring artifacts during the virtual machine creation flow, so no surprises there. Note that you can also reorder these artifacts depending on the order in which you would like them to applied. Once you are done configuring the artifacts, click save and that should update the mandatory artifacts for your lab.
Now, as a lab user you can view the list of mandatory artifacts during the virtual machine creation flow. This is aimed at helping you make an informed decision on the artifacts you would like to apply on top of the mandatory ones. Note that you will not be able to edit or delete mandatory artifacts set by your lab admin.
We hope you find this new feature useful!
Got an idea to make it work better for you? Submit your feedback/ideas or vote for others at Azure DevTest Labs UserVoice forum.
Have a question? Check out the answers or ask a new one at MSDN forum.