We are happy to announce that we are releasing a Public Repository of ARM templates for each lab that you can use to to create environments, without having to connect to an external GitHub source by yourself. The repository includes frequently used templates such as Azure Web Apps, Service Fabric Cluster and Dev SharePoint Farm Environment. This feature is similar to the public repository of artifacts that is included today for every lab that you create. The environment repository will allow you to quickly get started with pre-authored environment templates with minimum input parameters to provide you with a smooth getting started experience for PaaS resources within labs. Note that we will keep adding more templates to this repository to simplify environment creation. We would also like to inform you that this will be an open source repository that you can contribute into, to add frequently used and helpful ARM templates of your own. To contribute, simply submit a pull request to the repository at the DevTest Labs GitHub Repo and we will review it.

Configuring Public Environments

As a lab owner, you will be able to enable the public environment repository for your lab during lab creation. Upon selecting 'On', the repo will be enabled for your lab. Note that, for existing labs the public environment repository will be disabled. You will have to explicitly enable it to leverage the templates within. For labs created using ARM templates, the repository will be disabled by default as well.

You can manage access to these environments via the newly added Public Environments blade in labs. Not only will you be able to enable/disable these environments but also white-list the one's that interest you/your lab users the most. To access the blade, select ‘Configuration and policies’ option; under the ‘Virtual machine bases’ subsection select the ‘Public environments’ which will open the following blade.

Here, you will be able to enable the Public Environments repository using the Yes/No toggle. When the repository is enabled, you can white list individual environment templates by checking or un-checking them. This will create a policy that will only allow the checked environments to be available to your lab users in the environment creation flow.

Using Environment Templates

As a lab user, you can create a new environment from the enabled list of environment templates by simply selecting +Add from the lab tool bar. The list of bases will include the public environments templates enabled by your lab admin at the top of the list.

The list of public environments include:

• Service Fabric Lab Cluster
• SharePoint 2013 Development Farm
• Web App
• Web App with MySQL
• Web App with PostgreSQL
• Web App with SQL Database

We hope you find this feature useful!

Try it today and let us know what you think about it!

Got an idea to make it work better for you? Submit your feedback/ideas or vote for others at Azure DevTest Labs User Voice forum.

Have a question? Check out the answers or ask a new one at MSDN forum.