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Virtual training labs are based on the cloud, emphasizing online, fully managed, hands-on learning experiences over traditional classroom-based environments. An exact replica of any real-world environment – a business’s network or content management system, virtual labs are usually non-production-based duplicates of a system or software intended to help organizations train participants in a necessary use case.
These are easy to use, scalable, tailor-made, and available on the go, enabling a seamless L&D experience for companies seeking to invest in upscaling product knowledge and driving ROI growth through employee, sales team, and partner enablement/training programs.
These controlled learning environments help organizations immerse participants in their technology, service, tool, or software experiences over hands-on interactive “learn by doing” labs. Labs are intricately designed and focused on building user competency over practical scenarios relevant to real-world tasks.
Why Move Ahead with CloudLabs?
At CloudLabs, we have been empowering learning and skill enablement through modern immersive technology experiences in the form of fully managed tailor-made labs for the past 8 years. Top industry names, Microsoft and Check Point, have already trusted us with virtual training labs and hands-on learning experiences. Microsoft has also recommended CloudLabs as a trusted partner solution specializing in learning and training-focused services in its Azure Lab Services retirement guide.
Common Use Cases of Virtual Training Labs
In today’s fast-paced software landscape, empowering users (partners/clients and employees) to unlock the full potential of your company’s software is essential. Are you looking for the best way that you can rely on that is quick, engaging, and highly effective? The answer lies in virtual training labs! Continue in a blog to get a comprehensive overview of its use cases:
Employee Virtual IT Training
As per reports 50% of all corporate training is being anticipated to be delivered online by 2025. When compared to the traditional face-to-face mode of training, virtual training has turned out to be everyone’s favorite – proven they are scalable, agile, and flexible, meeting dedicated requirements.
At CloudLabs, we have just added a few more effective features that we think are essential, and voila, it has been 8 years of empowering virtual training through effective technology innovation. We offer cloud-hosted, fully managed labs with over-the-web access enabled. No need for any VPNs or special network configurations. Plus, the labs are completely scalable, LMS/CRM compliant, and secure. For an effective course commencement, we have our exclusive CloudLabs shadow VM lab monitoring and skill validation features. Experienced service providers ensure 24×7 support with all lab-related technicalities.
Certification Training
Certification training programs are designed to help individuals develop or strengthen specific career skills. These short-term courses help attendees stay updated with hands-on experiences, attracting the right set of opportunities for their company and designated job role.
CloudLabs eliminates the time and complexity involved in setting up hands-on labs for cloud certifications (Microsoft, Check Point, and other courses). Our labs come fully managed, inclusive of step-by-step guides, lab completion validation, and progress tracking. Also, pay for the time you use the lab environment – leverage our in-lab cost optimization tools and save more.
Hackathons
Hackathons have turned out to be a global favorite, bringing computer programmers and interested participants together and helping them upskill their technical knowledge. Backed by key Microsoft Cloud technologies – Azure, Power Platform, and M365, hackathons help students learn by doing, gaining practical hands-on knowledge.
CloudLabs is a one-stop solution that helps organizations across the globe host hackathon events successfully. Our careful planning, efficient controls, effective communication, and dedicated support by trained professionals assure ultimate success for both one-day and long-running events.
Partner Enablement
Partner enablement stands for a planned curriculum of equipping an organization’s channel sales partners with relevant resources, training and tools required to sell its services and products successfully. To run a successful partner program, an organization needs to create helpful content (sales scenarios and product overviews), offer access to rightfully equipped product labs, and share the necessary sales collateral.
Empower your partners with the right resources – pre-built demos and virtual POC environment – over scalable and fully managed labs by CloudLabs. Get the labs customized with your branding – facilitating the partners to sell more and attract meaningful growth for the company. Also, test for your partner’s technology team’s competency mapping with our effective skill validation feature available within the labs.
Sales Team Enablement
Sales enablement stands out for the content, knowledge, and tools an organization provides to its sales team. When focusing on sales enablement, training encompasses everything – from offering the right product information to the salespeople to curating custom training courses for them.
CloudLabs helps organizations empower their sales teams with state-of-the-art walkthrough demos and proof of concept (POC) environments. We let you design custom courses for employee training – that rightfully suit your specific requirements. You can upload your course content and integrate it with your labs or seek assistance from our SMEs. CloudLabs integrates with the Power BI tool to offer comprehensive reports on your labs. Track the total number of labs vs attended labs, deployment status per lab, leaderboard views, and voucher reports with ease.
Customer Enablement
Empower customers with access to product-centric resources. This can be carefully crafted Proof of Concepts (POCs) or simulated virtual environments where customers can try out everything themselves, gaining real-world-like experiences.
CloudLabs helps technology companies turn potential customers into loyal sales by providing access to product-specific, polished, and compelling hands-on labs, POCs, and demo experiences. They are based on a transparent pricing model – available remotely, attracting efficient sales that sell.
Build In-House or Continue with a Third-Party Virtual Lab Provider: Which is Better?
| Building In-House Lab | Trusting the CloudLabs Experience | |
|---|---|---|
| Engineering Hassles | Lack of exclusive technical knowledge can create possibilities for new hiring and further training. | ZERO engineering expenses! Our labs are fully managed. |
| Customization | Too much for the in-house team to look after and manage. | Build Custom Lab environment configurations through our Self-Service Portal. |
| Budget | Lab creation, management, and maintenance can lead to exceeding one’s primarily set budget. | Only pay for active lab environments. Use our built-in tools to schedule start, stop, and pause lab usage hours. |
| Time-to-Market | Building an in-house lab experience can take months, in some instances, even years. | Choose from our pre-configured lab catalog for Microsoft, Check Point, Azure Advanced Bootcamps, Cyber Security, SEED Labs, AI & Machine Learning Labs, and many more. |
| Flexibility & Support | Extra cost accumulation, too much hassle with hiring, training, and building up an internal support team. | Our labs are scalable, offering on-demand provisioning over ‘hot instances’ during peak hours. Dedicated CloudLab experts provide relevant support 24×7. |
Features and Capabilities to Consider While Choosing a Virtual Lab Provider
Lab providers claim to offer a myriad of features, ensuring seamless training experiences. However, when put to the test, not all lab providers tend to fulfil practical expectations in terms of scalability, ease of use, robustness, and features available. To make things easy and settle on common grounds without having to spend days in distress, we have listed out some essential facilities that are a must to consider before you say yes.
Completely Managed Labs
Look for a lab service provider offering fully managed service – that covers the deployment and management of lab infrastructure, with automation at scale. It is important to highlight your requirements and focus on the priorities to avoid last-minute problems.
Efficient Cost Controls
Settle for efficient cost controls and transparent pricing. Look out for dedicated lab start, stop, and pause VM buttons, auto-delete lab configuration settings, and prominent structuring in terms of lab creation and deployment. Go for the ones that allow on-demand provisioning to avoid extra charges on unused resources.
On-the-Go Lab Deployment (Environment Setup in Minutes, not Days)
You should be able to curate or clone an exact replica of your existing lab environment, showcasing its value – without having to worry about resource misplacement or long waiting hours that span across days and weeks.
LMS Integration
Being able to continue with your pre-existing setup should be a priority that you must never compromise with. If you are already using an LMS or CRM platform, look for a lab service provider that seamlessly integrates with your preferred choice or future goals of connecting with one.
Interactive Progress Monitoring
Evaluation and measurement are important aspects of any training process. But how does an organization understand if their learners are learning? Or identifying the areas that need more guidance or practice? The right lab service provider offering lab-specific in-depth reports can be of help. Look out for reports resonating the total number of labs vs attended labs, deployment status, voucher reports, etc. Consider validation test results and leaderboard views focusing on learner rankings based on their scores, completion time, or feedback ratings.
CloudLabs: Transforming IT Training Experiences! Trusted by Enterprises from All Over the World
Using CloudLabs for your company essentially saves cost, time, and labor. With remote access to all the necessary resources and quicker simulations made available in virtual environments, it all just gets easy. Further, there are dedicated CloudLabs tools that add to the seamlessness.
Direct Web Connect
At CloudLabs, you can access labs with ease by leveraging the direct web connect feature. Our labs are available over the web (via RDP/SSH through HTTP) from any browser of choice, offering greater flexibility and ease of access.
If you opt for an RDP connection in a Linux-based lab with us, the RDP port 3389 will be opened. You can manually install the RDP package available within the lab template over an SSH connection.
Simple Signup Process
Signing-up at CloudLabs is simple and easy; users can complete the signup process over a link and an activation code made available over email. Otherwise, lab instructors can choose to invite participants to a lab by sharing a direct link, eliminating manual signup requirements. Learners/participants can straightaway access the lab environment by clicking on the launch lab button.
With CloudLabs, you get multiple login options backed by SSO support for Azure AD, i.e., O365 accounts. Participants can log in using their Work or School Account, Microsoft, LinkedIn, or Google Account credentials.
Integration with Teams App
CloudLabs Teams app stands out as a certification readiness platform for Educational Institutions, Universities, Training Centers, and more. Allowing lab users to leverage various Microsoft Certified Curriculum practice questions directly within the Teams workspace.
Scroll through and select among the list of available practice tests displayed post completing the download and setting up of the Microsoft Teams App. Click on the practice test you wish to pursue to start with the test.
Custom Labs
Host your custom labs with CloudLabs! Get access to self-service capabilities necessary for building custom virtual labs leveraging our easy-to-use templates & integrated cloud integrations – Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Compute Engine making it all look seamless.
Additionally, with CloudLabs automation capabilities, you can combine necessary identity, compute, network, and operating systems or re-use your lab architecture for other courses with a click. Configure custom lab environments once and deploy thousands of unique environments on demand.
Secure Sandboxed Environments
‘Quality over quantity’ – At CloudLabs, we ensure complete security and a seamless user experience over compliance with global safety protocols. Our labs are Microsoft SSPA, SOC2 Type 2, GDPR, CCPA, FERPA, and COPPA certified.
Further, at CloudLabs, you get access to sandbox environments that are isolated and exclusive. Suitable for a wide range of use cases – testing new features, security testing and debugging of applications. You can trust us with a seamless testing process of new code or features without affecting the platform, provided our sandbox environment mimics the production environment with more power and flexibility added.
Learn more about the Importance of Sandbox Environments in IT education
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Amit Malik is the COO at Spektra Systems, known for his expertise in Microsoft Cloud and digital transformation. He drives strategic planning and operational initiatives, reshaping the cloud landscape to deliver superior business outcomes. He is a recognized thought leader and speaker on Cloud, AI, and IoT, and holds a position among the Leaders Excellence at Harvard Square.
