How ACG helps businesses experiment more, spend less learning cloud
Learning by doing is the key to upskilling your workforce. Here's how hands-on tools from ACG help businesses experiment more and spend less learning cloud.
Jun 08, 2023 • 3 Minute Read
The best way to upskill your workforce around cloud computing is to let them get hands on with cloud technology. But giving your people access to real environments and servers is far from simple.
- IT time and resources are required to provision training environments.
- Surprise bills from misconfigurations and resources left running are a common occurrence for learners.
- There’s a potential risk of a user breaking something in production.
For learning and development teams looking to let users get hands-on without jumping through countless hoops and creating headaches for everyone from IT to legal, ACG for Business offers hands-on, real-world learning tools that simplify the process.
ACG’s hands-on learning tools allow organizations to experiment and innovate while spending less. How much less? Funny you should ask…
Check out "Cloud skills development: online, instructor-led, or a blend?" for a look at picking the right approach to skills development for your organization.
The ROI of ACG’s hands-on learning
What’s the cost of experimenting in the cloud outside of a cloud sandbox environment? It can be a lot.
Tech horror stories abound of instances left running leading to a $1,500 bill overnight or getting a surprise bill for $3,700. You’ll even hear of people getting charged $60,000 for a few month’s worth of testing. That’s one expensive “oops.”
Fortunately, these slip-ups are so common that (typically) cloud provider customer support will regularly offer a break for first-time offenses. But when you’re talking about dozens or hundreds of people poking around in the cloud, the risk gets much more severe.
See how cloud skills generate real returns
Check out the Cloud Skills ROI Report and see an analysis of nearly 100 companies across 20 dimensions determining the impact of a commitment to cloud skills and cloud maturity.
Now, surprise bills aren’t always five-figures extreme. But talk to anyone who’s learned cloud outside the safety of a cloud sandbox, and you’re sure to hear so many tales of $30 or $100 bills while learning the ropes. You’ll begin to think they’re some rite of cloud learning passage.
For the sake of this post, let’s assume your learners only briefly forget to turn a resource off and get hit with a $30 bill.
Below are some of the real cost-savings that could be realized as you scale up the number of courses and hands-on activities completed.
ACG Cost Comparison
| Individuals Trained | 10 | 30 | 100 | 1,000 |
| Hands-on Labs + Cloud Playground Sessions | 50 | 150 | 500 | 5,000 |
| Lifetime Savings | $1,500 | $4,500 | $15,000 | $150,000 |
Hands-on skills development is a smart investment
To learn cloud, your people need to get hands-on with cloud. ACG gives your teams access to real AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud environments where they can hone skills without risk to your environment or unexpected costs.
- Cloud Playground lets users cloud along with our courses, test driving tech, try new things, and even break things — all with no surprise cost or risks.
- Hands-on Labs are objective-based, practical scenarios ranging from 15-minute labs for picking up new skills quickly to deep dives on building a whole application.
But the benefits go well beyond cost savings. With A Cloud Guru, your people get access to engaging hands-on content delivered exactly when and where learners need it. We also offer tools to help businesses curate, measure, and scale skills development.
Ready to get started? Check out our ACG for Business plans to see which is right for your organization.
