A virtual IT lab is a real computing environment, delivered remotely, where a learner practices technical skills: configuring a router, hardening a Linux server, analyzing a packet capture, investigating a disk image. The machines are virtual, but the software is real. The learner works in an actual operating system, against actual tools, and the environment resets cleanly for the next person.
This post covers how virtual labs work, how they differ from simulations and screenshots, and the two delivery models organizations choose between.
How does a virtual lab work?
A virtual lab runs on a hypervisor, software that hosts many isolated virtual machines (VMs) on shared server hardware. A lab exercise defines a small network of these VMs (for example, a Linux client, a firewall, and a server) called a pod or topology. When a learner starts the lab:
- The platform assigns them their own copy of the pod, isolated from every other learner.
- They connect to the machines through a browser: a terminal, a desktop, or a network device console.
- They work through the exercise, making real changes with real consequences inside the sandbox.
- When the session ends, the pod resets to a clean state for the next reservation.
Because each pod is isolated, learners can do things that would be reckless on a shared network: misconfigure routing, run exploits against a vulnerable target, delete the wrong partition. Breaking things safely is most of the point.
Virtual lab vs simulation: what's the difference?
A simulation imitates a system's behavior; a virtual lab runs the system itself.
Simulations have a place. They are cheap to scale and useful for drilling isolated concepts. But they only respond in the ways their authors anticipated. A real system responds the way real systems do: a typo in a config file produces a real error message, a service fails to start for the actual reason, and the fix requires the same troubleshooting an administrator does on the job.
That difference matters for skill transfer. A learner who has configured VLANs on real switch software, or written firewall rules on a real PAN-OS interface, has done the task, not a rehearsal of it. Performance-based certification exams like Red Hat's RHCSA test on live systems for the same reason.
What runs in a virtual lab?
Anything that runs on a server. Across NDG's platforms, labs cover:
- Networking: Cisco routing and switching, network troubleshooting, packet analysis with Wireshark
- Cybersecurity: ethical hacking with Metasploit and Nmap, security monitoring, incident response
- Linux: command line, system administration, shell scripting on real distributions
- Virtualization: installing and clustering Proxmox VE hosts, managing VMs and containers
- Digital forensics: investigating disk images and artifacts with Autopsy and ExifTool
Two delivery models
Organizations get virtual labs in two ways, and the choice shapes cost and control.
Cloud-hosted labs run on a provider's infrastructure. NDG Online works this way: courses and labs run on NDG's cloud, learners need only a browser, and pricing is per learner. There is nothing to install and no system to administer, which suits individual learners, pilots, and programs without lab infrastructure.
Self-hosted lab platforms run on the organization's own servers. NETLAB+ works this way: the organization installs the platform, owns the hardware, and shares one pool of lab resources across many classes. The tradeoff is administration effort in exchange for control of the catalog, custom pod designs, and a fixed cost that favors large recurring programs.
The decision guide comparing NETLAB+ and NDG Online walks through choosing between them.
Why virtual labs instead of physical lab rooms?
A physical lab room serves one class at a time, in one place, during building hours. The same equipment behind a lab platform serves every class, remotely, around the clock, with scheduling and clean resets handled by software. Programs that moved to virtual labs kept the equipment investment and dropped the constraints: no re-imaging machines between classes, no learners waiting for a seat, no snow days lost.
NDG has delivered labs this way since 1999, serving more than 15 million learners across 1,000+ organizations.