I am the project lead for the Bay Area Community College Consortium (BACCC) shared NETLAB+ datacenter, at Cabrillo College, which provides lab technology providing remote access for ICT students to hands-on training in industry hardware and software. BACCC supports 28 greater San Francisco Bay Area community colleges.
Pros
Shared resources
Only requires a browser and Internet for access
Scheduling
Cons
Supporting graphic intensive applications like Adobe CS and Autodesk.
Likelihood to Recommend
NETLAB+ is an excellent, versatile solution for facilitating IT training in a variety of disciplines, including networking, virtualization, storage, and cybersecurity.
<div>I am currently in my last quarter as a Bachelor student for IT, Networking and Securities. Since entering into the program in Jan 2017, we have used NETLAB+ for almost every class I have taken. We have a simulated environment to complete penetration testing, network setup, and configuration, etc. All of the I.T. branches (Securities, Programming, Software Development, and Computer Sciences) use NETLAB.</div><div>
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Pros
I really like the way that the lab documents are set up. Sometimes there is overkill on the explanation, but I have come to appreciate the repetition, because with the long term use and repetitions, I have gotten very comfortable in a virtual environment.
The topology set up is usually very easy to follow, and very clear as far as what is where and how to find what I need to find. There are a few things that typically have to be adjusted to fit our class need or learning objective, but NETLAB is very adaptable in that sense.
I like software/programs that can be accessed from the internet rather than an app or installation on one certain machine. This makes it very accessible, at any time of the day or night. If it were an actual live server access portal, this helps increase the security of the company, by having access lists, etc set up. NETLAB has all these capabilities as well, and accessibility is important to my industry
Cons
The inability to save progress! :-) As we go through the labs, time can be a very stressful aspect if I don't allow for enough in the beginning or underestimated the time it would take to complete.
Likelihood to Recommend
For the classes throughout my degree program, this has been one of the most helpful tools that are available to us. The detailed explanations along with the screenshots of the tasks I am working on, have given me a comfortable learning environment where I am confident in a "real" network setting, the processes will come at ease.