topic Re: Building our own eLearning Labs/Classes within a VMware environment. in VMware Education Services Discussions

Building our own eLearning Labs/Classes within a VMware environment.

swinster — Sat, 17 Jun 2017 18:56:00 GMT

Hi all,

I have been pondering this for some time and honestly have no clue which forum I could post this into. I'm not looking at the VMware training offering, but how to create something similar for our own students.

We currently run a relatively large VMware based data centre and utilise part of that for classroom based labs when people are learning to deploy and configure our system. These are relatively simple, and involve students going through the process of setting up our system in the virtual world - all pretty straightforward. What I want to do is take this to a new level, create a pre-defined lab comprising of multiple systems to replicate a real-world environment, but allow us to step through different "snapshots" of the various systems at different points, so I can roll to the next scenario. I can then deliver small sections of content (say certificate authentication), then roll the lab to that scenario and get the students to work through the various potential errors at that point. Once done we move onto the next section and scenario. Finally, I can revert to the original lab settings. I would also want to replicate the entire lab for different students.

I suppose I could build the different systems as I would build any system, then configure them to create an issue, and then snapshot the system. The students could simply select the correct snapshot of the different system and we could continue, however, this seems a little haphazard, and it would be nice if the students could just roll the whole thing on to the next scenario, especially if multiple systems need to be changed.

Anyhow, any pointers are welcome - even if it is just that this is not the correct forum

Cheers

Re: Building our own eLearning Labs/Classes within a VMware environment.

scott28tt — Sat, 17 Jun 2017 22:35:12 GMT

The main options are: scripts, snapshots, templates, cloning, some form of automation solution, or a combination of these.

I've previously used those sort of methods to deploy labs for official VMware classes, back in my instructor days.

Re: Building our own eLearning Labs/Classes within a VMware environment.

swinster — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 17:35:05 GMT

Hi Scott,

Thanks for this, although I'm surprised there isn't something a little slicker in VMware. I uncovered Ravello Systems: Virtual Labs Using Nested Virtualization just after I posted this that actuall seem ideal for the task..

Cheers.

Chris

Re: Building our own eLearning Labs/Classes within a VMware environment.

scott28tt — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 17:39:56 GMT

There is if you are an official education partner.

There are also guided labs for many VMware technologies if you're a customer or just interested party.