DTL - roadmap update Jun 2025

Author: RoseHJM

articles/devtest-labs/devtest-labs-roadmap.md

@@ -5,14 +5,14 @@ ms.service: azure-devtest-labs
 ms.topic: concept-article
 author: anishtrakru
 ms.author: anishtrakru
-ms.date: 09/30/2024
+ms.date: 06/24/2025
 
 #customer intent: As a customer, I want to understand upcoming features and enhancements in Azure DevTest Labs so that I can plan and optimize development and deployment strategies.
 
 ---
-# Azure DevTest Labs roadmap 
+# Azure DevTest Labs Roadmap 
 
-This roadmap presents a set of planned feature releases that underscores Microsoft's commitment to empowering enterprise development and testing teams. DevTest Labs enables development teams to self-serve customized, ready-to-test machines in the cloud, all while maintaining adherence to organizational governance policies. This feature list offers a glimpse into our plans for the next six months, highlighting key features we're developing. It isn't exhaustive but shows major investments. Some features might release as previews and evolve based on your feedback before becoming generally available. We always listen to your input, so the timing, design, and delivery of some features might change. 
+This roadmap outlines Microsoft's planned feature releases to support enterprise development and testing teams with Azure DevTest Labs. DevTest Labs enables teams to self-serve customized test machines in the Cloud while adhering to governance policies. This list highlights the key features we're developing over the next six months. Some might be previews and evolve based on feedback before general release. We always consider your input, so timing and priorities might change. 
 
 Key DevTest Labs deliverables can be grouped under the following themes: 
 
@@ -22,32 +22,33 @@ Key DevTest Labs deliverables can be grouped under the following themes:
 
 ## Ready-to-test virtual machines
 
-The fundamental goal of DevTest Labs is to provide a seamless, intuitive experience that empowers development and testing teams. DevTest Labs enables you to swiftly access ready-to-test machines for deploying and validating the latest versions or features of any version of your application. We're dedicated to advancing this vision by continuously investing in innovative technologies to enhance machine customization and optimize testing efficiency.  
+The fundamental goal of DevTest Labs is to provide a seamless, intuitive experience that empowers development and testing teams. DevTest Labs enables you to swiftly access ready-to-test machines for deploying and validating the latest versions or features of any version of your application. We're dedicated to advancing this vision by continuously listening to our customers and investing in innovative technologies to enhance machine customization and optimize testing efficiency. 
 
-- **Hibernate VM:** Hibernating a machine preserves its exact state upon resumption, allowing developers to effortlessly troubleshoot issues identified during testing. 
-- **Lab-level Secrets:** Platform engineers and dev managers will be able to set up centralized secrets accessible to the entire team, streamlining virtual machine creation and management. 
-- **Generation 2 VMs:** Generation 2 VMs will improve virtual machine boot and installation times and enable secure boot by default.  
+- **Lab-level Secrets:** This feature allows platform engineers to securely store and centrally manage sensitive information—like admin passwords or API keys—at the lab level. This enables teams to share secrets across VMs without hardcoding them, simplifies automation, and improves security and governance in multi-user labs. 
+
+- **Multiple Shared Image Galleries:** This feature allows lab owners to attach more than one shared image gallery (SIG) to a DevTest Lab, enabling platform engineering teams to better organize images by team, product, or specific use cases. It improves governance, simplifies image maintenance, and gives teams more flexibility in managing and accessing the right VM images for their workflows. 
+
+- **Modify VM expiration date in the Azure portal:** This feature will allow users to easily update the expiration date of their virtual machines directly from the Azure portal. While already supported via API, this enhancement brings a user-friendly interface to manage VM lifecycles more intuitively, helping teams reduce costs and clean up unused resources without needing manual API calls. 
+
+- **VM snapshots:** This feature will enable teams to preserve the exact state of a VM before critical changes or test runs, enabling faster recovery, easier rollback, and more efficient troubleshooting. 
 
 ## Enterprise management 
 
 DevTest Labs delivers a streamlined and optimized experience for end-users while also offering robust enterprise capabilities to enforce organizational governance, covering security, cost management, and monitoring. We're committed to enhancing these capabilities with upcoming features that will fortify the machines and help reduce costs. 
 
-- **Managed Identity and GitHub Apps:** To ensure secure connections to source control repositories and storage accounts, we'll introduce the ability to: 
-    - Attach Azure Repos repositories via managed identities 
-    - Attach GitHub repositories through GitHub Apps 
-    - Access lab storage accounts via managed identities 
-- **Trusted Launch:** Trusted launch will enhance protection for lab machines against advanced and persistent attacks by enabling features like secure boot, vTPM, virtualization-based security, and integration with Microsoft Defender for Cloud. 
-- **Spot VMs:** Spot VMs will lower test machine costs for workloads that can handle interruptions. 
-- **Standard Load Balancer:** Standard Load Balancer provides significant improvements over basic such as high performance, ultra-low latency, superior resilient load-balancing, and increased security by default. 
+- **Resource view for Lab owners:** A centralized dashboard for lab owners to view all virtual machines in their lab, including usage status (running, stopped, claimed), owner details, and activity. This feature will enhance visibility and governance, making it easier to identify idle or orphaned VMs and optimize resource management across the lab. 
+
+- **Custom roles:** This feature will allow platform engineering teams to define custom role definitions for lab virtual machines, beyond the current contributor or reader roles. This will enable more granular access control—such as restricting VM creation or deletion—tailored to specific team needs, improving governance and flexibility in multi-user lab environments. 
 
 ## Performance and Reliability 
 
 DevTest Labs aims to provide a seamless testing experience that is as responsive as a local machine, and we're consistently enhancing the reliability, speed, and performance of DevTest Labs through platform optimization. 
 
-**API and Portal Reliability:** We're continuing to invest in our API performance and aiming to attain higher reliability. 
+- **SDK Modernization:** An upcoming upgrade to the DevTest Labs SDK will improve telemetry, enhance integration with Azure-native services, and lay the groundwork for future extensibility. 
 
-This roadmap outlines our current priorities, and we remain flexible to adapt based on customer feedback. We invite you to share your thoughts and suggest other capabilities you would like to see. Your insights help us refine our focus and deliver even greater value. 
+- **API Refresh:** We're preparing to upgrade the DevTest Labs Rest APIs to the latest version, which will enable new capabilities in the portal and improve long-term maintainability. 
 
+This roadmap outlines our current priorities, and we remain flexible to adapt based on customer feedback. We invite you to share your thoughts and suggest other capabilities you would like to see. Your insights help us refine our focus and deliver even greater value. 
 
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