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, cybersecurity, learning management systems, customer education, and more.
Originally a training tool exclusive to government agencies, cyber ranges have become a staple of virtual cybersecurity and IT training for businesses everywhere. The appeal behind cyber range training is allowing participants—be it employees, business partners, or even clients—to practice their knowledge in a virtual training environment. There are now services that offer online cyber…
There’s a lot on a developer’s plate when it comes to creating Android applications. While your current prototype might work well on a certain device, how do you ensure that it’s just as useful on another? Does your program scale well with a different screen size, resolution, or specifications? Google now allows developers to experiment…
Organizations, whether municipal or corporate, need virtual labs to test software and provide online training for staff and business partners. Many companies forgo the need for on-site server hardware by picking up various Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) products to offload the maintenance and updates to another company. But what happens when you’re dealing with multiple virtual machines,…
The cloud has proven itself to be an invaluable tool for modern organizations. While in-house servers are still around for many companies, the cloud has given businesses of all sizes and industries access to public computational resources that they otherwise could not afford. Cloud lab environments take advantage of off-site hardware to deliver simulated IT…
Cloud services are the backbone of modern businesses, offering an unparalleled degree of flexibility and cost-effectiveness for companies to carry out operations and workflows. A question these organizations must answer is whether to adopt a third-party cloud service or build and maintain a private cloud. Most turn to a third solution known as the hybrid…
If your company manufactures a product or service, how can you get it into the consumer’s hands as quickly and inexpensively as possible? You could invest in an in-house sales and marketing team, but that solution might be difficult to develop and scale, especially if you’re breaking into a new market. Instead, many organizations opt…
You’ve probably heard the term “agile learning design” before in a meeting once or during regular business communication. What does this term mean, and why are so many companies talking about it? Agile Learning Design (ADL) is an approach to the development of educational content that promotes speed, flexibility, and teamwork. The term is ubiquitous…
Providing access to education is no easy task. Knowledge is continually evolving, and designing the coursework in a way that’s most useful to the participants takes preparation, time, and a close analysis of what the goals of the training are. That’s why there’s an entire field of instructional design for corporate training. Instructional design shows…
Sales Enablement as a Service (SEaaS) is an umbrella term that encompasses all the services that a company’s sales team needs to provide an excellent impression and experience for the consumer. Many groups within the organization provide these aids, which include marketing, human resources, learning and development, and other aspects. Successful companies often choose a…
DEFINITION Adopted by most Fortune 1000 companies, Net Promoter Score gauges the loyalty of a business’s consumer base. Fred Reichheld originally introduced the concept in a 2003 copy of the Harvard Business Review. The “consumer base” could be anything from actual clients to partnering businesses. It can even encompass the company’s own employees in the…
DEFINITION Customers in the current age expect almost perfect communication, service, and responsiveness from the companies they interact with. The advent of the internet, social media, and IoT devices enables businesses to provide better customer experiences than ever before. Here’s a term modern B2B companies can’t afford to miss out on: customer enablement. It’s a…
DEFINITION A learning management system is a type of software that assists in delivering educational content. Let’s break down the three components of the definition for LMS: Learning involves taking all the online training materials and collecting them in one convenient digital spot for easy access. Management means you have control over the learning process. Adding participants and courses…
It goes by many names: training and development, human capital development, and human resource development. No matter what you call it, learning and development (L&D) is becoming an essential component of business strategy, not just a nice-to-have. L&D results in improvements in employee engagement, better operational efficiency, and higher overall revenue. As the skills required for the workforce…
DEFINITION 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. CloudShare virtual training lab environment – classroom What…
DEFINITION 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. Recent improvements in internet bandwidth technology have made Virtual Instructor-Led Training (VILT)…
DEFINITION 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…
DEFINITION The primary focus of sales enablement is the customer and finding the best ways to engage with them. A company must understand what their customers want and provide the sales team with the tools they need to fulfill those needs. The content provided as part of sales enablement should be easy to access, easy…
Cybersecurity Labs Definition Cybersecurity training is an essential resource for those looking to protect commercial, municipal, or governmental organizations from cyber attacks. Private companies are becoming an increasingly common target for cybercrime, and since employees with weak cybersecurity knowledge are the main entry point for online fraud, viruses, and other threats, it makes sense that…
DEFINITION In the software market, companies often request a sales POC because they aren’t sure whether your concept will work for their purposes. Many of these businesses may not know what impact your idea will have on their workflow. Your main goal for a proof of concept is to validate that the main features of…
DEFINITION 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. However, not all virtual classroom platforms require instructors. Unsupervised virtual classrooms involve the…
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. This trait usually implies that all course materials and resources are available at the start of the course and that all assignments and tests…
DEFINITION 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…
DEFINITION Nested virtualization is a complex process that involves running virtual machines within virtual machines. This process is made possible through the use of hypervisors, which are specialized software programs that manage the operating systems needed within virtual environments. Hypervisors are responsible for allocating essential resources like processing power, memory, and other resources that your…
DEFINITION 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…
Did you know that worldwide cybercrime will result in over $6 trillion in damages by the year 2021? Victims of cybercrime range from large enterprises to small businesses, with the latter covering over half of the registered incidents according to Verizon’s 2018 Data Breach Report. Digital integrity is a top priority for any modern business,…
Sales are the lifeblood of business. But finding ways to attract new customers is becoming increasingly difficult. The strategies that we’ve relied on for decades don’t always work in hyper-technological industries. Businesses operating in highly technical fields have a challenging dichotomy to deal with regarding sales. They sell sophisticated technologies to relatively general audiences. Translating…
DEFINITION IT training is a broad phrase that covers a variety of industries, technical information, and other aspects related to the internal processes that a business relies on to function. Technical IT training encompasses many skill sets. Knowing exactly what it means to your company will help you the next time you’re looking for training…
The IT market has seen a high demand for testing services, which is why terms like “software as a service,” “platform as a service,” “infrastructure as a service,” and “testing as a service” are so popular in the industry. What these sandbox virtual environments have in common is their capitalization on the benefits of cloud…
Cybersecurity training is something that all companies require. In recent years, large enterprises such as Yahoo!, Capital One, Target, and Equifax have all experienced major data breaches. With the amount of consumer and confidential data lost to cyber criminals every year, business executives are always worried that they will be the next target. An entire…
Your organization spends several months or years developing a product or service. The internal team knows everything about its inner workings and how to get the most value out of it. But when your customers first use the product, how can you ensure they have the knowledge to maximize the benefit they receive? Proper customer…
DEFINITION The market has referred to it by many names: e-learning, virtual training, internet-based learning (IBT), or distance learning. No matter how you’ve heard of it, web-based training (WBT) is a recognizable form of learning in the tech world. Web-based training is a form of online instruction that companies use to deliver on-demand training to…
DEFINITION Revenue Operations (RevOps) is an approach that aligns operations across marketing, sales, and customer success along the full customer lifecycle to ensure all teams are kept accountable to the organization’s revenue and breaks the silos between these teams. This is done by ensuring the organization has agreement on metrics, lead process, and tech stack….
Everyone who’s been through school knows how classrooms work. You listen to the lectures, take notes, and complete exercises from home. This traditional model has been the standard in education for centuries. The introduction of computers and the internet has changed that trend. Online classes are becoming more and more popular with schools and businesses,…
The demand for education extends beyond high school and college. Businesses always need a way to put new employees, business partners, and clients up to speed with industry developments. Adult education is a focal point for many managers. You’ve probably heard the term “blended learning” before. It’s a modern approach to professional training and development…
When you have multiple employees working at your company, coordinating their work can prove to be a challenge. How do you ensure your sales team can communicate with your engineers on product features and improvements? How do you focus your projects toward the consumers’ needs and generate conversions effectively? In order to drive sales, one…
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