Introduction to Custom Cloud Labs

Introduction

Custom Cloud Labs known in Skillable as Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC) enables Hands-on Labs for an external cloud platform or web application, beyond the native Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) integrations that Skillable provides today. Depending on the cloud application's capabilities, it is possible to unleash the full capabilities of the Skillable platform for the skilling of users. This capability has the potential to be used for any skilling journey from introductory hands-on training to proctor-based certification with the use of an Exam Delivery Partner.

Skillable Features

Within the Skillable platform there are a couple of features that play a critical role in enabling a Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC) solution (referred to as the external platform going forward). These are:

• Life Cycle Actions

• Automated Activities

• Custom Start Page

There are also other features within Skillable that play important roles as well depending on the external platform and the objectives of the Lab. These features are:

• Virtual Machines

• Integrated Browser

• Cloud Credential Pool

• @lab Replacement Token/Variables

External Platform Requirements

When building a lab using an external platform service, the lab developer will need to either have extensive knowledge of that external platform or require a Subject Matter Expert (SME) to assist. Between the lab developer and/or the SME they will work out how the external platform will be used, and resources will be recycled for use within labs. This process is generally unique for each external platform as this will be highly dependent on the features and capabilities of the external platform and Application Programing Interfaces (APIs) available. For a full working example see the Salesforce solution included in this documentation.
Building the workflow
When reviewing the workflow for building labs using any external platform, the following lab phases need to be considered. The lab developer will need to understand if they are applicable and if they are, how can they be achieved with the external platforms API's:

• Lab startup

  • Tenant and User access provisioning

  • Resource and data provisioning

  • Permissions and security

  • Grant user access to resources

• Lab duration

  • Automated Activities - user task validation

• Lab End

  • Automated Activities for task scoring

  • User account permission removal

  • User account deletion

  • Resource deletion (Resource/User/Tenant)