Why enterprises are moving away from physical training labs

More and more enterprises are training IT staff with virtual labs. Find out why in our jargon-free guide.



One of the most exciting things about working in IT is the rate of change. Other kinds of change are often slow: social change, for example, or regulatory change. But cast your mind back over the last decade and you'll see just how rapidly IT moves.

To the person in the street, this might mean the rapid adoption of AI by tech companies worldwide. But for our money, the most radical change has happened almost without us noticing. It's the shift from on-site work to remote or hybrid work.

When we say "without us noticing", we obviously don't mean no one's realised they're now working from home or in a cafe. What we do mean is that the scale of the change has yet to be processed. We're not in Kansas anymore, but many of us still think we are.

Hybrid working was on the rise at the beginning of the 21st century before being sent into overdrive by the COVID-19 pandemic. Lockdown measures meant a new way of working – and the tech world responded with a rapid and wide-scale adoption of video conferencing software, SaaS solutions and remote training.

Let's put this into perspective. An article by Oxford College reports that "Online learning is the fastest-growing market in the education industry". So far, so what. But when the sentence goes on to mention "a 900% growth rate globally since the year 2000", the scale of the transformation comes across.

One area where this is apparent is the shift from physical training labs to online labs. Yes, these became more common because of COVID-19 restrictions. But in the years following the pandemic, the advantages of online labs have continued to be felt.

So, what are the benefits of non-physical training labs? Is it primarily a case of cutting costs, or are there educational and environmental benefits, too? Let's find out.

1. Cost-effectiveness

Online training labs share one thing with remote and hybrid working in general: it costs more to run an office than a scattered workforce connected to the internet.

In the case of training, it's not just that physical labs require substantial investment in hardware, the space itself and any related maintenance. It's also that instructors and attendees need to get to the site – something that eats into the budget and increases the carbon footprint.

2. Agility

In a physical training lab, all the students in the room need to be catered for simultaneously.

This can, of course, create valuable learning opportunities as students interact and learn together. But it can also lead to rigid schedules, undifferentiated tasks and one-size-fits-all learning programmes.

Online training labs, by contrast, enable employees to balance their training with day-to-day tasks. The remote nature of the training allows them to incorporate it into their working day and proceed at their own pace.

This self-directed pacing has another advantage: it can encourage learners to feel like they're in charge of their learning. For adults, this can be the difference between engagement and disengagement and is likely to translate into post-training performance.

3. Sustainability

"Sustainability" means different things to different people. But in the context of training, it primarily refers to the amount of energy consumed in the provision of a training course.

The stats are promising. Online learning, one article says, "reportedly reduces energy consumption by 90% compared to classroom learning".

So, as well as cutting costs, non-physical training labs cut carbon emissions: the ideal solution for an environmentally conscious business in the age of hybrid working.

4. Low maintenance

Physical machines have their advantages – but there's no denying they're a pain to update.

Many of you will remember the days of software updates that involved a day of downtime. Online training labs, by contrast, are maintained by the provider. That means course providers and learners don't have to put down their virtual pens when maintenance and troubleshooting are in progress.

The same goes for updates. With technology updating all the time, physical labs are hard to update in time. Virtual labs, by contrast, can be refreshed quickly and seamlessly.

5. Scalability

Every business wants to grow. But if you're overly reliant on physical spaces, scaling up can be hard. It involves literally moving operations from one place to another. This is as true of training as it is of workspaces.

Virtual training labs get around this problem by providing learning environments that can be scaled up and down on demand. This is ideal for a fluid, geographically dispersed or growing workforce.

6. Progress monitoring

Physical and virtual training labs have their advantages and disadvantages when it comes to progress monitoring. But one thing's for sure: in a virtual lab, assessment can be based solely on data, not on a trainer's individual judgment.

This focus on data can help in another way. It allows course providers to get granular insights into the success of their training programmes – and identify areas where there's room for improvement.

What is VEDP?

VEDP training refers to courses offered by a VMware Education Delivery Partner (VEDP). These are authorised third parties that provide expert-led training and certification programmes for VMware's suite of virtualisation products.

And crucially, these training programmes take place online in sandbox environments. This gives learners the chance to explore the products as though in real life – but with virtual guardrails in place to ensure their mistakes are educational, not disruptive.

VEDP training courses have all the advantages of online labs. They're cost-effective, scalable, agile and sustainable and combine expert guidance with self-directed learning.

Here at Ascend Cloud Solutions, we provide lab hosting services for VEDP training providers. This gives them the online foundation they need to bring training to life with highly secure, highly available labs.

Ascend Cloud Solutions provides technology solutions and cloud consultancy services to organisations around the globe. Need help navigating the cloud? Don't hesitate to get in touch.