I was lucky enough this morning to attend a session by Joe Davies and Tom Shinder about an exciting new direction Microsoft is taking with new product learning – Test Lab Guides.
The basic concept seems to be a modular series of step by step guides, each building on the last to create a complex scenario. Once you have your complex scenario you are able to perform operations on a live demonstration network and witness first hand the effects of your operations.
I’m sure many IT professionals have already experimented with, or use on a regular basis the base configuration model. Whether it is a basic Sysprepped image with your companies regular tweaks/mods and a fully patched system, or the more complicated dual forest test labs that we might build to test different migration scenarios.
By breaking down complicated learning concepts into a series of manageable steps, each building on the last, and the use of snapshotting with your virtualization platform of choice, it’s easy to see a complex tree of scenarios can be built relatively quickly. This provides an excellent learning environment for your staff/self to actually perform tasks prior to letting them loose on a customers environment. There is simply no substitute for hands on learning in this fashion.
What I really like about the way these guys have approached the problem is that we are getting a consistent build environment based upon Microsoft Best Practices. Not only does this give us an excellent foundation for approaching an issue, it provides a great level of consistency.
If we add to the above, the concept of a TLG clearinghouse (via the TechNet Wiki) where user generated guides can be uploaded & peer reviewed, we start to see the potential. Rather than searching various technical sources to find an end to end scenario that closely resembles the problem you are trying to resolve, you can go to a single location and build the majority (or all) of the scenario you want to test. If a model doesn’t quite fit your needs, simply add modules as required to get you most of the way there.
Virtualization has made this type of lab work a no brainer for most companies and I know many have taken on similar internal test labs for just this reason. It’s great to see Microsoft embracing this methodology for hands on learning and it should lead to more rapid new technology updates amongst partners and technicians.
Tom has covered the above in significantly more detail and provides a great set of links on his technet blog, available here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/tomshinder/archive/2010/07/30/test-lab-guides-lead-the-way-to-solution-mastery.aspx
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