The exponential growth in Apple Mac usage in the enterprise has led to a need for on-demand access to Macs. Increasingly, we’re seeing macOS application support becoming standard. Our enterprise customers have told us they want to be able to run macOS on the Heropa platform. Prior to now, it’s been difficult to provide on-demand access to this.
Cellebrite, a market leading provider of digital intelligence software, and a valued customer of ours, had come to us with the challenge of wanting to incorporate macOS application training within Heropa. When Amazon EC2 Mac instances became available, we knew we could find a way to use these to create macOS desktops on demand in Heropa. We worked closely with Cellebrite in the development of our solution.
What are macOS desktops on-demand?
macOS desktops on-demand are cloud-based macOS instances running on real Apple hardware. They are considered ‘on-demand’ because it’s easy to spin them up when they’re needed, and destroy them when they’re not. This is a huge advantage over traditional ways of providing access to macOS desktops which either involved physical Macbooks, or access to virtual macOS desktops that typically came with a fixed and expensive capacity commitment.
How do they work?
Heropa’s macOS desktops on-demand leverage Amazon EC2 Mac instances, located in AWS data centers globally. Many companies are using Amazon EC2 Mac instances for different purposes. However, Heropa is the first to take these and build upon them for the purposes of software training and sales.
How can cloud-based macOS desktops be used for training?
Software companies and training organizations can now easily stand up macOS environments for both instructor-led and self-paced training of macOS applications.
What’s more, training covering multiple operating systems can be easily created and delivered in the one course. Where Cellebrite had previously had different courses with different environments, they were now able to create one course containing both Windows and Mac in the same classroom environment, which has proven to be great for the learner experience.
And what about cloud-based macOS desktops for product demos and software sales?
Software companies with macOS versions of their application need to be able to easily demonstrate these in sales demos. Cybersecurity companies who need to demonstrate that their endpoints only work on Macs have also found our cloud-based macOS desktops to be a game-changer.
Another use case is software companies who need to demonstrate complex scenarios containing more than one operating system. For example, a cybersecurity customer of ours has developed a multi-OS cyberprotection agent software. They use Heropa to demonstrate Mac, Windows and Linux in the same environment. Finally, an easy way for vendors to show prospects how their software will work across operating systems.
To learn more about how Heropa can help with macOS desktops on-demand, speak to us today.
The rise of Virtual Instructor-led Training
Virtual training, and specifically virtual-instructor led training (VILT) has been on the rise, with COVID-19 removing the ability to hold events, conferences and training sessions in person.
What’s great about VILT is more participants can be reached in more locations than ever before. This means new customers and regions are now accessible in a way that they previously were not.
In line with this, there have been improvements in the technology that powers VILT and virtual events. Most platforms offer live stream and pre-recorded sessions, multimedia presentations, and virtual networking tools as standard.
VILT and Virtual IT labs
Companies that train or sell software know how important hands-on experience is. Running VILT with Virtual IT labs gives these companies exactly that. In a virtual classroom, each participant receives access to a virtual lab environment that replicates a real world environment.
Run Multi-region VILT
Instructors often run into challenges providing participants in different regions access to virtual labs. Sending invitations to participants is simple, since labs can be accessed from anywhere. However, when the infrastructure is in a different region to the participant, this can impact virtual lab performance.
As a result, instructors often set up separate events in different regions to optimise virtual lab performance. This results in additional administrative overhead that is inefficient.
Multi-region VILT from the same virtual classroom
Heropa allows VILT to be run across multiple regions simultaneously. Within a single virtual classroom, you can spin up environments in more than one region. This provides participants with a virtual lab environment that’s local to them.
This is more convenient for instructors, and also ensures participants get the hands-on experience with software they need. And what’s more, all the other VILT features such as over-the-shoulder assistance, integrated chat, video and screen sharing are available as well.
To learn more about how to set up multi-region VILT, speak to us today.
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