Virtual IT Labs are an important component for a broad range of use cases, verticals, and markets. This glossary will cover key terms related to virtual training, proofs-of-concept and demos, sales enablement, cyber security, learning management systems, customer education, and more.

 

What Are Virtual Training Labs?

Virtual training labs are cloud-based training environments that emphasize an online, hands-on learning experience over a passive classroom-based one. A relatively recent innovation, virtual training platforms have become increasingly popular in the tech industry to train both employees and clients on the complexities of new software.

Virtual Instructor-led Training (VILT)

Virtual instructor-led training, or VILT, is an online classroom where the student and instructor are in different locations and communicate entirely through the cloud. Through this simulated learning experience, students have the benefit of a hands-on learning experience that improves knowledge retention.

What Is a PoC Environment?

A proof of concept, or PoC, is an experiment intended to show that a program, product, or system can be successfully deployed in the real world. PoCs are a critical part of IT development that differ from prototypes based on the fact that no final products are immediately produced until the concept itself has been validated.

What is Sales Enablement?

Sales are a crucial aspect of any successful business. Your company’s marketing teams spend countless hours driving leads to your company so your sales department can close deals. Sales enablement is the overall environment that a company creates to generate sales. Proper adoption of the concept can result in higher revenue and better consumer engagement.

What Are Cybersecurity Labs?

Cybersecurity threats are on the rise. Proactive companies are already developing new strategies to deal with these threats. But it’s not always as easy to deliver the necessary training to ensure that your teams are up to speed on the latest hacks, software, and strategies to combat them. Cybersecurity practice labs are one method that many companies are using to improve cybersecurity training and certifications by making this critical training more accessible.

What Is a Sales PoC?

When you have a new idea for a software solution, you want to convince potential buyers that your core concept is feasible in a real-world environment before committing to the development process. The proof of concept (PoC) is an experiment generally lasting a few months that fulfills the role of demonstrating the viability of an individual feature or a larger idea.

What Is a Virtual Classroom?

A virtual classroom is a learning environment in which students (customers, partners, or any third-party) engage with the lesson material online. Information is often conveyed through voice or video conferencing with several participants and instructors connected to the same chat interface.

What Is Self-Paced Training?

Self-paced learning is significantly different from the instructor-focused learning methods most students are familiar with. Self-paced training does not follow a predetermined schedule, but rather progresses according to the learner’s preferences.

What Is a Sandbox Environment?

Sandboxing solutions provide companies with virtual environments that they can use to build, test, and deploy software. They have grown in popularity due to how accessible they are, the flexibility they provide, and the significant cost savings a company can realize by using them. There are many applications for virtual sandbox environments. Depending on your company’s goals, they can be used to improve the development process, identify and fix bugs, to test patches, or as a working directory.

What Is Nested Virtualization?

Cloud technology has led to a substantial increase in software as a service (SaaS) solutions that are geared towards helping companies meet their needs through non-localized solutions. While customers benefit from a seamless experience, providers rely on sophisticated architectures to make all of this possible. Many companies are now turning to nested virtualization to further augment their development and testing processes, devops, sales, and other departments.

What Is a Cyber Range?

A cyber range is a virtual environment that companies can use for cyber warfare training and software development. These complex IT environments allow companies to practice handling specific real-world scenarios, train employees and customers on the latest threats, and they are essential for combating modern cybercrime. Cyber ranges are being actively used by the military and government agencies, private corporations (software development and in cybersecurity), and other private entities with a focus on cybersecurity.

 

  • " With CloudShare, we have scaled the business without having to give another thought to the platform we’re running on. "

    Kevin Streater - ForgeRock
    VP ForgeRock University

  • " Despite the ever-increasing scope of our training operations, I still don't need a separate manager for CloudShare. I think that speaks volumes for the way they work, as well as the functionality and scalability of their solution. "

    Robert Bleeker - Atlassian
    Education Manager

  • " CloudShare provides Check Point’s global pre-sales community with a cloud-based system to deliver engaging product demonstrations to our customers and partners. The system enables our sales engineers to demonstrate how the full set of Check Point’s Gen V technologies operate in multiple use cases – network, cloud, endpoint and mobile – with nothing more than a simple laptop and Internet connection. "

    Avi Rembaum - Check Point Software Technologies
    VP Security Solutions

  • " We started using CloudShare for our dev environments, and now we use them for our QA labs as well. We have all the resources we need – whenever we need them. "

    Amit Lohogaonkar - Alliance Life Sciences
    Lead Architect

  • " We spin up environments on CloudShare to perform regression and ongoing tests. With the API, we’ve been able to automate much of what we used to do manually. "

    Steve Rice - Smart Logic
    Senior Technical Consultant

  • " With CloudShare, we spin up ready-made templates in minutes. We are able to meet our customers’ needs more efficiently and we’ve cut our troubleshooting time by over 20%. "

    Avi Karnon - MuleSoft
    VP Global Support

  • " We can now confidently use an environment that stimulates a company with multiple sites, multiple separate networks at each site, and redundant internet connections. "

    Robert Lillywhite - Sophos
    Global Technical Enablement Manager

  • " The fact that students can access their environments during instructor-led training and on their own, has made for an effective learning experience for students and educators. "

    Shaundra Bruvall - InnoTech College
    Program Delivery Coordinator

  • " Given the global nature of Atlassian's customer base, our finite training resources and need for scalability, the decision to use a cloud-based virtual training lab solution was a no-brainer. "

    Robert Bleeker - Atlassian
    Education Manager

  • " We passionately believe that practical hands-on experience is vital to aiding understanding and retention of the material by learners. I would go as far as to say that the vast majority of learners taking technical training require practical hands-on activities to form a cler understanding of a topic. "

    Robert Lillywhite - Sophos
    Global Technical Enablement Manager

  • " CloudShare is a game changer when it comes to saving time and overhead costs for class setup. I have one central administrator account from which I can add users and take care of any issue, as well as get usage reports for any student. "

    Shaundra Bruvall - InnoTech College
    Program Delivery Coordinator

  • " As we continue to move more and more to the cloud, it’s partnering with innovative companies like CloudShare that will get us where we need to go. "

    Alan Boehme - Innovation P&G
    Global Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Information Technology

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