Forum Discussion
Suggestions for a replacement solution
We are a small UK provider delivering IT apprenticeships and "Free Courses For Jobs". We have been using Azure Labs for a number of years to host instructional labs for our learners. We have found it...
We have had a similar issue with providing practical IT training in a controlled environment. One thing that helped us was looking for platforms that allow you to create temporary lab environments and automatically shut them down after a set period, rather than paying for a VM to stay available all the time.
The important part for us was being able to give learners enough hands-on time without giving them unrestricted access. I would also compare the total cost based on actual learner hours rather than just the monthly VM price.
Hopefully Microsoft or one of the partners eventually offers a smaller-provider option, because the use case for training providers seems quite different from a typical business deployment.