Microsoft has made its Linux Integration Services Au🗹tomation (LISA) tool available as a service to distro publishers, giving them a powerful tool to validate images fo🌺r Microsoft Azure.

Microsoft may be best known for its Windows, Office, Xbox, and its Azure cloud platform. What many may not realize, however, is that Microsoft is 🍌a powerful force within the Linux community. Gone are the days when Microsoft execs called Linux a cancer. The modern Microsoft has fully embraced Linux, has its oꦚwn Linux distro it runs on its cloud services, and is a large contributor to Linux kernel development.

The company’s LISA tool was already open source, but as , with the launch of Azure Image Testing for Linux (AITL), there is a new opportunity to expand LISA’s availability.

While the tool itself is open source, until recently the image testing service built on it to validate images for Microsoft Azure was internal-only. With the launch of Azure Image Testing for Linux (AITL), we are making LISA available as a service to distro publishers. I’m really excited about this move, as it promises to raise the quality bar across the industry.

In , the company explains how AITL works.

AITL is powered by LISA, which is a test framework and a comprehensive opensource tool contains 400+ test cases. AITL provides a simp♋le, ye🌠t powerful workflow run LISA test cases:

• Registration: Partners register their images in AITL’s validation framework.
• Automated Testing: AITL runs a suite of predefined validation tests using LISA.
• Detailed Reporting: Developers receive comprehensive results highlighting compliance, performance, and security areas. All test logs are available to access.
• Self-Service Fixes: Any detected issues can be addressed by the partner before submission, eliminating delays and back-and-forth communication.
• Final Sign-Off: Once tests pass, partners can confidently publish their images, knowing they meet Azure’s quality standards.

The blog goes on to highlight some use cases w♌here AITL will benefit developers and teams.

AITL designed to support a diverse set of users acros💝s the Linux ecosystem:

• Linux Distribution Partners: Organizations such as Canonical, Red Hat, and SUSE can validate their images prior to publishing on the Azure Marketplace, ensuring they meet Azure’s quality and compliance standards.
• Independent Software Vendors (ISVs): Companies providing custom Linux Images can verify that their custom Linux-based solutions are optimized for performance and reliability on Azure.
• Enterprise IT Teams: Businesses managing their own Linux images on Azure can use AITL to validate updates proactively, reducing risk and ensuring smooth production deployments.

AITL represents a forward-looking approach to Linux image validation bringing automation, scalabilit🔥y, and consisꦐtency to the forefront. By shifting validation earlier in the development cycle, AITL helps reduce risk, accelerate time to market, and ensure a reliable, high-quality Linux experience on Azure.

Whether you’re a developer, a Linux distribution partner, or an enterprise managing Linux workloads on Azure, AITL offers a powerful way to modernize and streamline your validation workflows.

AITL looks like a promising tool for L✨inux developers and distro maintainers. Those interesting in giving it a try 🦄can .