FAQ
Reception and minor emergencies
Duration, data, tags, peering, sharing, extensions: short answers, no ticket and no waiting room. Truly serious cases are referred to the right department.
Just want a lab? The whole journey fits on one page: create my lab. Can’t find your answer here: lab@qiminfo.ch.
What sets a lab apart from a production environment?
Section titled “What sets a lab apart from a production environment?”A lab is temporary (3 months maximum), comes with no backup guarantee, and is meant for training, experimentation, a POC or a demo. Production, critical or long-term use is never allowed, on either platform. Such a need goes through the company’s standard infrastructure processes.
Can I store customer data in a lab, even temporarily?
Section titled “Can I store customer data in a lab, even temporarily?”No. No real customer, personal or sensitive data, on Azure or Proxmox, not even temporarily. A need that requires this kind of data is outside the Lab scope: talk to the governance lead.
What happens if my lab runs past 3 months?
Section titled “What happens if my lab runs past 3 months?”Contact the administrators before the expiry date to get an extension approved. Without explicit approval, running past it counts as long-term use, and therefore falls outside the Lab scope. Notifications go out at D-14 and D-7, and deletion happens on D-day.
How do I choose between an Azure Lab and a Proxmox Lab?
Section titled “How do I choose between an Azure Lab and a Proxmox Lab?”The decision assistant starts by asking what you need: if the answer is an identity, a shared space, a Kubernetes test or a model to try, it stops right there and sends you to the right place, no lab involved. For a resource need, five more questions follow (data, goal, managed services, on-premise constraint, duration), and it recommends a platform or flags a need as out of scope. The comparison says the same thing in a table.
In short: Azure for managed services and shared labs, Proxmox for on-premise, the internal network or data sovereignty.
I want to try Kubernetes: do I need to create a lab with AKS?
Section titled “I want to try Kubernetes: do I need to create a lab with AKS?”No. A shared Kubernetes cluster is already in place, with its Ingress and automatic certificates: nothing to create, nothing to declare, no cost. You sign in with your Qim info account and deploy into your namespace. See the Kubernetes lab.
You still need an Azure lab if the thing you’re testing is AKS itself, its node pools or its Entra ID integration. In that case there’s a cost trade-off to weigh before creating it: see Costs.
I want to try an AI model: do I need a lab?
Section titled “I want to try an AI model: do I need a lab?”No. A shared Azure AI Foundry resource is already in place: you open the portal with your Qim info account, try a model in the playground, and create your own project once you want to call it from your code. See the AI lab.
One difference from the Kubernetes lab: here, usage is billed per token. Nothing to switch off at night, but a provisioned deployment or a test loop left running does cost money. See Costs.
And don’t mix up the two services: the AI assistant answers questions about labs, the AI lab is for testing models.
Is peering between two labs allowed?
Section titled “Is peering between two labs allowed?”Yes, on Azure, peering between two lab VNets is possible. What’s forbidden is peering a lab VNet with a production VNet. No network link of any kind is allowed between the lab subscriptions and a production subscription.
What happens if my tags aren’t compliant?
Section titled “What happens if my tags aren’t compliant?”On Azure, owner, projectName and creationDate are blocking: creation is refused if any of the three is
missing. The expirationDate tag isn’t blocking, but its absence is audited, and Client is optional. On
Proxmox, the lab, owner-{'{trigramme}'} and env-lab tags are required.
Providing a correct, up-to-date value remains your responsibility. A tag that’s present but wrong passes the technical checks and will be flagged during the monthly review. Details in naming and tags.
Who creates the Azure Resource Group or the Proxmox Pool/VLAN?
Section titled “Who creates the Azure Resource Group or the Proxmox Pool/VLAN?”That’s the main difference between the two platforms.
- Azure: you. You have the rights to create your Resource Group in the tenant dedicated to labs, and you then declare the lab by e-mail.
- Proxmox: the administrators. They create the Pool, the dedicated VLAN and the initial permissions once they receive your request.
The two paths: create an Azure lab and request a Proxmox lab.
Do I have to wait for approval before creating my Azure lab?
Section titled “Do I have to wait for approval before creating my Azure lab?”No. The Azure e-mail is a declaration, not a request for permission. You create your Resource Group and get started. The declaration is used for tracking, the monthly review and expiry reminders.
The flip side: no human checks anything before you do. Tags, region, duration and the absence of sensitive data are all on you. On Proxmox, you do have to wait for the Pool and VLAN to be created.
I just need a test user or a shared space: do I have to request a lab?
Section titled “I just need a test user or a shared space: do I have to request a lab?”No, creation is open to everyone, with no cost, no quota, no request and no e-mail:
- users, groups and app registrations in Entra ID
- sites, lists and libraries in SharePoint
A lab is only needed for resources (VM, AKS, database, network). The flip side: nothing expires automatically, so deleting or archiving is up to you.
Who should I send my declaration or request to?
Section titled “Who should I send my declaration or request to?”To lab@qiminfo.ch. It’s the single entry point for every Azure lab declaration, Proxmox lab request, governance question, extension or incident. The create an Azure lab and request a Proxmox lab pages draft the e-mail for you, subject and body included.
The only exceptions: Entra ID objects and SharePoint spaces, which don’t need any e-mail.
Can I share my lab with several colleagues?
Section titled “Can I share my lab with several colleagues?”Yes. A lab can be shared between several people on the same assignment, with a single owner: the sender of the declaration or request.
Access doesn’t need to be declared upfront. On Azure, you own the Resource Group and grant access yourself. On Proxmox, ask the administrators to add people once the Pool has been created.