CloudLabs

What CloudLabs is

CloudLabs is a hands-on lab platform from Spektra Systems, whose address on the site is in Redmond, Washington. It gives software vendors, enterprises, schools and training companies real cloud and IT environments that learners open in a browser, so a course on a product, a cloud service or a security tool can include practice on live infrastructure instead of screenshots. The FAQ describes it as a platform "to build, deliver, and scale interactive multi-cloud-compatible labs for product demos, technical training, customer enablement, POCs, immersion workshops, and workforce upskilling."

For a customer education team, the use is direct: the training menu's first entry is customer training, "Help customers learn your product by doing," and the platform runs labs inside the vendor's own SaaS product as well as in the major clouds. The site states it is trusted by 500+ organizations across 30+ countries, and lists 10+ years of industry expertise, 5M+ labs provisioned, 1M+ participants upskilled, 50K+ events supported and 35,000+ labs every month, with a 4.8 out of 5 rating on G2.

Lab environments

The platform covers several kinds of environment:

• Cloud Labs on AWS, Azure, GCP or Oracle, run from one control plane; the FAQ adds private cloud environments.
• Cloud Sandbox, open cloud environments for POCs, experiments and hackathons.
• Your Product Labs, which run "inside your own SaaS" with the infrastructure the product needs, so a customer practices in the real product.
• VM Labs, positioned as the replacement for Azure Lab Services before its 2027 retirement.
• On-Prem IT Labs, simulated virtualization, compute and network scenarios.
• Cyber Range, attack and defense scenarios with full MITRE ATT&CK coverage.

The site says environments spin up in under 60 seconds and that the same engine powers "a one-hour demo and a 17,000-seat summit." Access is browser-based with zero installs. On cost, the FAQ lists automated provisioning, idle resource detection, scheduled resource management, storage optimization and pay-for-active-resource pricing.

Building and delivering training

Building labs. There are three routes. The AI Lab Builder (the FAQ calls it CloudLabs Cosmos AI Lab Builder) generates "a complete, auto-graded lab with infrastructure, guide, and validation scripts" from a description of a product or scenario. Pre-built labs offer "Hundreds of ready-to-launch labs" through the CloudLabs Store, and the Microsoft partner channel gets 1,000+ ready labs. Custom Labs are designed and built by the CloudLabs team.

Courses and certification. CloudLabs is more than a lab engine. Its Courses feature offers "Multi-month curriculum with in-built labs, content, quizzes, and certificates," and the training menu includes "Set up your own courses and cert programs." Self-paced learning paths sit alongside instructor-led training.

Instructor tools. Instructor Shadow gives a "Real-time over-the-shoulder view of any learner lab," and the trainer can "Annotate, intervene, and certify mid-session."

LMS integration. For companies that already run an LMS, the FAQ says CloudLabs supports LTI 1.1 and LTI 1.3, and the home page names Moodle and Canvas, so labs launch from inside existing courses while learner access and progress tracking stay simple.

Branding. Labs can be fully white-labeled, with the customer's branding and a custom domain, including a branded lab portal at an address such as labs.yourdomain.com. Branded registration pages and event operations come with event management.

Managed services. CloudLabs also runs lab programs on a customer's behalf through Managed Lab Services, and a Program and Budget Management layer covers governance, reporting and cost control.

Assessments

Lab-based assessments are a separate strength: "Score real work, not multiple-choice. For certification and partner readiness." Hands-on skill assessments are auto-graded in live environments, and the same approach supports recruitment screening, where candidates are tested "on real tasks, not quizzes." For a training team, that means a certification can rest on a learner actually configuring a service or fixing a fault rather than picking an answer.

Who it serves

The site organizes its offer by audience. For ISVs it covers customer enablement ("Turn new customers into power users"), partner enablement with sandbox labs, employee enablement, support engineering where teams reproduce customer issues in on-demand labs, and the sales side: demos, time-bound POCs, immersion workshops and self-paced trials with usage signals routed to the vendor's team. For enterprises and GSIs it covers internal upskilling, innovation hackathons, customer enablement and on-premises IT labs, with programs at "the scale of 40K+ participants." For education it offers labs for higher education, K-12 STEM and cloud environments, AI and ML curriculum labs, and EdTech labs embedded in an LMS. For cloud distributors it provides multi-cloud training, partner certifications and technical readiness for reseller networks. Hackathons run one day or several, with registration, coaching, judging and awards.

Named programs include Microsoft + CloudLabs, Check Point + CloudLabs (labs for CCSA, CCSE, CCTE and other Check Point courses), Databricks labs for academics and a CloudLabs Trainers Program for independent trainers. The logo wall includes Microsoft, Google, MIT, IBM, Accenture, Databricks, Check Point, Red Hat, Udacity and Simplilearn among others. Tal Ein-Habar of Check Point says the service allowed the company to "train our teams and partners over different products and cloud platforms," and Håkan Forsberg of Microsoft calls it "our go-to platform for any hands-on lab experiences for customer and partner technical trainings."

Security, support and buying

The security section states active compliance with GDPR, SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001:2022 and the Microsoft SSPA program, and also lists FERPA and COPPA compliance for student and young-user privacy. The FAQ mentions 24/7 support, and the home page promises "Support that answers in minutes, not days." The site is available in English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese and Japanese.

Labs can be bought directly from the CloudLabs Store or through the Microsoft and AWS marketplaces, and the home page offers "Try for Free" next to a demo booking, which runs as a 30-minute Microsoft Teams call. The home page shows no price list but links to a separate pricing page. For larger programs, the suggested start is a POC: CloudLabs helps configure the environment, run a pilot with selected users and check performance and integrations before rollout.

Who it suits

CloudLabs fits a software company whose customers and partners need to practice on the real product before they trust it, a cloud or security training provider that wants graded labs inside its courses, and an enterprise or university running cloud, AI or cybersecurity programs at scale. The combination of customer training, assessments, courses and LMS integration makes it a practical lab layer for an existing academy.

It is a specialist tool. Training that does not need a live technical environment, such as soft skills or policy courses, gets little from it, and a team that only wants a simple course builder will use a small part of a platform built around infrastructure.