Choosing a Cloud for Training: General Purpose or Specialized?

In recent years, advances in technology have radicallyaltered the potential scope and scale of online education. Where once companiesthat provided software training had to be in the same physical location astheir students, cloud-based training means students can learn from anywherewith an internet connection.

Providers of online training are generally faced with twobroad cloud options when deciding how to deliver hands-on training labs fortheir classes. They can choose to use one of the major generic public cloudservices (such as Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure) and build their ownonline training environment. Alternatively, they can opt for a specialist cloudservice that provides an environment built specially for the needs of trainingorganizations.

On the face of it, the solution may be immediately obvious—toopt for a specialist training environment. However, there are arguments againstgoing for the “specialist” option and taking a more generalist route. While thereare some cases where a generalist option may, in fact, be the better choice, inthe majority of cases the specialist option may be the most appropriatesolution for online training providers.

Here are some reasons that might lead to the choice of eachapproach:

Generalist provider

• Your requirements for hands-on training arelimited and straightforward
• You only need to provide a simple environmentfor training
• You do not need specialist training features
• You have the time and IT resources to build specializedtraining features yourself

Specialist provider

• You want features designed specifically for thetraining and learning experience
• You have a need for specialized trainingfeatures and you want to kick off your cloud-based labs as soon as possible
• Your students need to train on highly complex networksthat are difficult or impossible to replicate on general cloud providers
• You want to devote your limited resources toimproving your training content rather than on IT and administrativerequirements
• You want a clear cost structure and built-incost-control features such as auto-suspend that shuts down your machinesautomatically when not in use

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is a key driver behindthe growth in online IT training, because it enables organizations to access infrastructureon a subscription model—from virtual desktops to virtual server farms—and usethese for training end users and IT professionals.

For example, if your business provides training on how todevelop custom workflows in SharePoint 2016, IaaS allows you to instantlycreate a virtual server with SharePoint 2016 pre-installed. Students in yourclass can then easily log in to the environment via the cloud and beginfollowing your instructions. Crucially, you can design their iteration ofSharePoint 2016 to work, look, and feel exactly as you want it. The student canbegin using a brand-new iteration of the platform that has never beenpreviously used or one that has been preconfigured in some form. This approachis far easier for educators. They don’t need to set up the environment everytime they use it, and they don’t need to manually wipe a physical server.Instead, they have immediate access to infrastructure on demand.

A specialized training environment will provide rapid accessto many features that are highly useful to both students and teachers. But whatif you want to use your cloud environment for other activities besides training?You may also be justifiably concerned about the risk of moving all yourtraining materials and business model to a relatively new form of technology.

To make this decision, here are some questions to help guideyou.

A framework for decision making

• Whatlevel of interaction do you require between student and teacher?

This is an important distinctionbetween “self-service” style online learning and more “value-added” teaching.For basic training, you can simply provide students with an “automated”walk-through. Alternatively, you might want to provide close, one-to-onetraining or classroom environments in which the teacher is available to answerstudent questions and interact closely with them.

Investing in a specialized trainingplatform only to use it for simple walkthroughs is potentially wasteful. Itmight be easier to use a public cloud provider for simple, automated training.By contrast, if you want to enable interaction between students and teachers, aswell as enable instructors to take control of a student’s machine, aspecialized solution is really the way to go. Whether it’s the ability to answerquestions and provide clarifications in real time or the option to offeradvanced mentoring, a specialized solution will undoubtedly give yourorganization the edge.

• Howcomplex are your training environments and how realistic do you want them tobe?

With any virtual trainingenvironment, the instructor is required to virtualize their machine or farm andthen replicate that environment to all the students who will be attending theclass. You therefore need to be able to ensure that the solution you choose hasthe ability to do this rapidly and securely.

For simple, non-complexenvironments, a public cloud will usually be acceptable. If you are providing hands-ontraining on basic aspects of, say, a human resources management tool, you won’tnecessarily require a specialized cloud provider. By contrast, if you need toreplicate a highly complex network, such as an on-premises cybersecurityproduct to offer technical training to your customers, specialized providers maybe the only option that lets you do so without modifying your product. This isbecause the large general cloud providers do not support many complex networkfeatures, thus requiring you to truncate features or re-architect your productto bring your environment to the cloud.

• What areyour growth plans?

Part of the appeal of cloud-basededucation tools is the extent of elasticity they offer. In this regard, thefundamental question is how far you plan to grow your business. For certaincompanies, the aim will be to grow the number of students attending classesfocused on one product or another. For other businesses, the aim will be toexpand the diversity of courses they offer.

If your plan is simply to grow thenumber of students attending your lessons on a limited number of products, andyou have IT resources available, it may be sufficient to simply build a verytargeted training module in the public cloud. By contrast, if your goal is toexpand the range and diversity of courses you offer and be fast off the blocks indoing so, it would probably be more appropriate to opt for a specializededucation provider. This allows you to take advantage of prebuilt instructorconsoles and customizable student consoles. You can also add new environmentblueprints quickly and efficiently without having to reinvent the wheel eachtime you add a new course. By providing specialized training features out ofthe box, a specialized training lab provider allows you to focus your limitedresources on new course content rather than on IT and administrative needs.

• What areyour budgeting needs?

If you do not need specializedtraining features, surely general cloud providers are your less expensiveoption. However, if you want to have specialized training features, then youneed to do a more detailed cost comparison, including the cost of your own ITresources to build, test, and maintain the specialized training features youdesire.

In addition, if clear visibilityinto your training lab costs is important, then specialized cloud providers canoffer an advantage, especially if they offer an auto-suspend feature that stopsbilling after no usage is detected after a preset period of time. Not only dogeneral clouds require you manually turn off environments to avoid beingcharged, they also charge for additional line items that you may not haveexpected such as Disk IOPS, Data-Transfer, or Elastic IP addresses. Therefore,if you need a clear handle on your monthly expenses, a specialty cloud provideris more likely to be your best choice.

Summary

It is important to reiterate that you can, technically, do manyof the activities outlined above using either “general” IaaS providers orspecialized training solutions. However, creating a complex, highly interactiveenvironment with a general provider will require extensive and costlydevelopment, so for businesses wanting to provide more sophisticated trainingwithout going over budget, a specialized training solution will usually be thebest option.

When it comes to providing cloud-based training,specialized tools are generally the preferable option. They give instructors agreat degree of flexibility, scalability, and cost effectiveness. By cuttingout the requirement to build your own custom-built virtual machines fortraining, you save yourself hundreds of hours building a bespoke trainingenvironment in the cloud.