Azure Lab Services is the speediest system you'll ever build!
Updated February 25, 2022
Azure Lab Services is the speediest system you'll ever build!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Azure Lab Services
Azure Lab Services is the solution to how do you provide higher power workloads to users without committing to high power devices that need to also support business functions such as email and other business level power workloads compared to running Adobe or Autodesk. Our organization needs to support a flexible number of users at a time and have run up against physical numbers of devices versus users. Azure Labs allows up to spin up another set of machines in moments if needed.
- 3d Graphics powered machines
- Ease of deployment
- Ease of Access
- Ease of Management
- Better organization integration
- improve integration with MECM/System Center/Intune
- Improve HTML5 interface
- 3d Enabled
- Ease of Deployment
- Software Licencing
- Reduced Capital Costs for 3d Workloads
- Ability to transition to Hybrid or Learn@Home and provide curriculum resources
- HTML FrontEnd provides ease of use from any HTML5 device
Azure Virtual Desktop is an excellent tool for extending your existing infrastructure to the cloud and providing the same experience to users in both on-premises and virtual environments. Azure Lab Services, with its quicker setup time, and lack of connection to existing domains provides the ability to quickly spin up virtual environments for use for experimentation, learning, or delivering production resources.
Do you think Azure Lab Services delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Azure Lab Services's feature set?
Yes
Did Azure Lab Services live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of Azure Lab Services go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy Azure Lab Services again?
Yes
Evaluating Azure Lab Services and Competitors
Yes - Azure Labs Services is envisioned as a potential replacement for our 3d card enabled desktops that are used for classes in Communication Technologies or the Manufacturing and associated technology classes, teaching the use of the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite or the Autodesk Suite of design products. The change from a capital cost of replacing a number of machines yearly versus the operational cost of using Azure VMs that can scale up or down based on the number of students enrolled in the classes would leave to a long term costs savings in terms of use and flexibility and response to fluctuations in class enrollments.
- Price
- Product Usability
Price is the single most important factor in the decision to use Azure Lab Services. Paying ~$2 dollars an hour for the use of 56 GB multi-core 3d card enabled system that is accessible from anywhere with internet access provides a large amount of savings compared to a $2000 desktop that is stuck in a lab and only usable during class or supervised time. The systems are full windows 10 desktops that provide the same usability as a desktop, so the interface is familliar with our users.
Azure Lab Services was compared with Azure Virtual Desktop, which is an extension of the enterprise environment to the cloud. Rather than having a single dedicated virtual machine per user, a large virtual server was setup and used for users. The breakdown in cost between the individual machines and the larger server let to specific use cases - to replace an entire schools expensive 3d card enabled labs cost about $3000 (CAD) for a 30 seat server running 24/7 for the month. For every 30 users, or roughly one class, another server would need to be spun up. Depending on the size of your environment it may be a more cost-effective solution.