This document defines labs in Cloud Academy and links to descriptions of the specific kinds of labs. This feature is available to personal and enterprise Cloud Academy accounts at no extra cost and is included in your subscription. 

Important: Some labs may not be available during the free trial period.

What Are Labs

Labs are Cloud Academy's interactive learning tool. While tutorials may tell you or show you information, labs offer you practical, hands-on experience. Our labs integrate with live cloud environments, like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.

You do not need your own account credentials for the cloud environments to use the labs. When you start a lab, Cloud Academy provisions temporary accounts for the software that you need for the lab, saving you the time, risk, and expense of setting up your own testing accounts.

Cloud Academy offers different types of labs that provide different levels of guidance:

• Playground labs give you access to a cloud environment to explore and experiment. The lab doesn't include any objectives. Instead, it lets you explore your own ideas, follow along with Cloud Academy courses, or answer your own questions.
• Hands-on labs also give you access to a cloud environment, but go further. Hands-on labs provide instructions to take you through a set of steps to demonstrate the functionality of the cloud environment. 
• Lab challenges set up a scenario and challenge you to solve a problem. While the other lab types are about getting to know an environment, the lab challenges are about testing your knowledge and putting it into practice.

See our Hands-on Labs Terms of Use for more information on requirements for using labs.

How to Get Help With Labs

If you're having trouble, make sure to read our Lab System Requirements or take a look at our Lab Guides for common concerns from students! You can also email our support team by emailing support@cloudacademy.com or using the Submit a Request button at the top of this page.