Use this glossary as a quick reference for CloudShare concepts and terms.
Experiences
A CloudShare experience (sometimes also called a class or session) provides participants with access to personal copies of a customized CloudShare environment at a pre-scheduled time.
CloudShare supports instructor-led and self-paced experiences:
- Instructor-led experiences: All participants join at the same time and work in parallel with one or more instructors during scheduled time periods.
- Self-paced experiences: Each participant starts at a time that is convenient for them and can continue using the experience until the configured end of the experience period.
An experience can be defined as either a training experience or a sales experience (for example, an instructional session or proof of concept).
- Training experiences are typically managed as classes, labs, or courses and may be repeated on a regular schedule. Training focuses on experiences, labs, or courses.
- Sales experiences are usually created on demand for specific prospects and focus on providing a fast hands-on product demo with minimal setup.
Account
A set of purchased CloudShare resources within which projects can be created.
Project
A defined set of resources (RAM and disk space) from which environments can be created, and users who can access those resources and perform actions permitted by their project role. Every blueprint, environment, and environment policy belongs to a project.
A project is a logical container in CloudShare for a related set of people, resources, and experiences. A project manages project members and their roles, policies and quotas, blueprints, environments and experiences, content such as guided journeys and other training or sales materials, and contextual analytics and reporting for that scope. Every blueprint, environment, experience, and environment policy belongs to a specific project, and usage and costs are tracked at the project level or the subscription level.
Best Practices – Projects
- Use Projects to Group Related Experiences and Users: A project is a container for CloudShare's Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), and provides a demarcation point for analytics. Use projects in order to group related experiences and the users who manage or deliver them.
- Understand the User Model and RBAC Controls: Once projects and channels are set up, access to CloudShare services can be enabled for team members and partners. Role-based access control makes it possible to define which actions participants can perform within their environments.
Access
Participant Viewer
A web-based interface that provides participants with access to their assigned environment and experience content through a single URL. The Participant Viewer is where participants connect to the session, work in their virtual machines and applications, follow guided journeys, and use any collaboration or supporting tools that have been enabled for the experience.
Permalink
A snapshot-specific permanent link that creates and opens a copy of an environment based on the snapshot and governed by a specified policy. A permalink can be sent to an unlimited number of project members and allows each to spin up their own copy of the environment.
Vanity URLs
Shorter, personalized, and easy-to-remember URLs are available when using CloudShare’s Web Access feature to access web applications.
Web Access
On-demand internet access to a web application running on virtual machines via a permanent web address, allowing access to the environment via HTTP/HTTPS at any time. When a web-driven application includes a web access feature, external parties can be given access to the application by sharing the Web Access URL. If the environment is suspended when accessed via Web Access, it is automatically resumed.
Invitation
A link to a personal copy of an environment, meaning to a CloudShare experience.
Infrastructure
Environment
An environment is a single entity that combines computing resources, networking, operating systems, software, and memory state into a manageable and easy-to-use unit. An environment consists of one or more virtual machines (VMs) connected by one or more virtual networks. CloudShare environment units are the primary building block of any experience.
Each CloudShare environment manages its own virtual machines, networks, and data, which are typically isolated from other environments to provide strong security and flexibility. When shared resources or shared environments are configured, selected components can be intentionally shared across environments while access and usage remain controlled by CloudShare. In addition, an environment’s lifetime and limitations are governed by an assigned policy.
CloudShare Cloud Environments vs Public (External) Cloud Environments
CloudShare Cloud Environment
A CloudShare cloud environment runs entirely on CloudShare’s private cloud infrastructure. Its virtual machines, networking, storage, and Cloud Folders are all hosted and managed inside CloudShare. The environment is defined by building a blueprint, taking snapshots, and then spinning up environments for participants directly from those snapshots. This option keeps everything inside the CloudShare cloud, simplifies setup, and is usually the right choice when you do not need tight technical integration with an external cloud provider.
Public Cloud Environment
A CloudShare public cloud environment uses CloudShare’s public external cloud resources capability to run environments on a designated public cloud provider such as AWS or Azure, while still using all of CloudShare’s virtual experience features. In this case, the environment is defined by creation scripts such as Terraform that describe the external cloud resources and services that are created when the environment starts. Participants still connect through CloudShare, but the compute, storage, and cloud services live in the external public cloud, which is useful when you need to reuse existing public cloud infrastructure or specific native cloud services.
Hybrid Cloud Environment
CloudShare can also provide hybrid environments that combine CloudShare cloud resources with public cloud resources in a single environment. In a hybrid setup, some virtual machines, networking, and storage run in CloudShare’s private cloud while others run in a public cloud provider such as AWS or Azure. Participants still access the environment through CloudShare, but behind the scenes both CloudShare infrastructure and public cloud infrastructure work together as one integrated experience.
Blueprint
A blueprint is a master or baseline template for CloudShare cloud environments. It can include virtual machines, storage, networking, preinstalled software, company branding, use case collateral, and content such as overview pages and resource links. A blueprint is the container that includes up to five snapshots of a CloudShare environment, and all CloudShare cloud environments are spun up from these snapshots as participants join an experience.
For public (external) cloud environments, CloudShare uses creation scripts (custom Terraform scripts), to define the resources and cloud services that are created when a Public cloud environment is spun up. In this case, the blueprint is associated with the relevant creation script. The configuration of public cloud creation scripts is described in Managing Creation Scripts.
Best Practices – Blueprints Can be Linked Across Projects
In many cases, it is useful to develop blueprints in a single project and then link them to other projects where they will be used, helping to reduce storage usage. Copies of blueprints can also be created when separate, independent versions are required.
Snapshot
A snapshot is a complete replica of an environment at a specific point in time. It captures everything in that environment at that moment, including all virtual machines, network configuration, users, installed software, documents, settings. The full disk state of each virtual machine is always saved. Depending on the configured resume type, the running RAM state can also be captured and restored, so services and applications can continue from where they were when the snapshot was taken.
Blueprints are created when taking snapshots. The blueprint is the container that includes the snapshots of an environment. It is from here that all environments are spun up as participants join an experience. This feature currently only applies to the CloudShare Cloud, and not to a Public (external) cloud.
CloudShare Environment Template
A pre-configured sample blueprint supplied by CloudShare to showcase some environments and best practices.
Policy
A policy is a set of rules that controls the lifecycle, state, and resource behavior of CloudShare environments and experiences. Policies define parameters such as experience duration, resource allocation, maximum run time, and what happens when an environment is idle. Policies also define whether an environment remains always on, when it is suspended after inactivity, how suspension and resume behavior works, when the environment is deleted, and how long it is retained after an experience ends. Any number of policies can be created as needed and applied to environments, POC invitations, training classes, and other experience types.
Runtime
Runtime refers to the total time that a virtual environment is actively running and consuming resources.
More specifically:
- Runtime begins when an environment is launched (meaning powered on).
- Runtime ends when the environment is suspended, stopped, or expires automatically due to a time policy.
- Runtime is tracked per user and per environment and is typically measured in User Hours, a key billing and usage metric in CloudShare.
This metric helps:
- Track usage for cost management and policy enforcement.
- Understand how much time participants spent in training or sales experiences.
- Control environment lifecycle (such as auto-suspend after X hours of runtime).
Region
Geographical locations hosting data centers that store blueprints, snapshots, and environments. CloudShare currently has three Data Centers (DC). The primary DC is in the US (Miami). There is also one in Europe (Amsterdam), and one in Asia (Singapore).
Best Practices – Miami is Our Primary Data Center
Blueprints should be built in Miami to avoid complications later on. Copying from Miami to Amsterdam or Singapore can be controlled directly within the platform, while copying from Amsterdam or Singapore back to Miami requires opening a support ticket. For more details, see Managing Snapshot Regions.
Cloud Folders
For a CloudShare cloud environment, a Cloud Folder is a cloud storage location that supports FTP upload and is accessible to CloudShare cloud environments. Cloud Folders can be mounted on virtual machines and are used for uploading software, documentation, training material, code, content, and configurations, meaning any files that need to be transferred to virtual machines in CloudShare cloud environments.
VM Import
CloudShare provides methods for importing Virtual Machine (VM) definitions. Upon importing a prepared template, the virtual machine is ready to be used in any CloudShare environment.
CloudShare Users
This section describes the main user roles in CloudShare, including participants, instructors, and project members who administer the platform.
Participants
People who attend CloudShare experiences are called participants. These are people that are invited to access an experience via the Participant Viewer. For example, a prospective customer or a student in a class.
A participant can access an environment using the Participant Viewer and cannot access the CloudShare Administration platform. This means that they can only participate in CloudShare experiences and cannot define them.
Instructors
Instructors are CloudShare users that lead and manage CloudShare experiences. They may be trainers, demo leaders, sales engineers, or other staff members who have access to the CloudShare platform. They prepare environments and experiences in advance, invite participants, and are responsible for running sessions so that participants can complete the required labs, demos, or classes.
During a live experience session, an instructor works mainly with the Instructor Console, which provides a real time view of each participant and their environment. From the Instructor Console, an instructor can monitor activity, guide participants through the lab, help them when they get stuck, control and troubleshoot environments, and manage time and resources for the session.
Project Members
Project members (also called administrators) are CloudShare users who have been added to one or more projects so that they can set up and manage the CloudShare platform by configuring infrastructure, creating and running environments, managing blueprints, and preparing experiences for instructors and participants. In many companies, project members include technical owners, budget or operations owners, content leaders, and IT or DevOps staff.
A project member may have any of three user roles: Project Manager, Team Manager, or Team Member.
- Project Manager: A user role. Project managers are administrators for an entire project. They can view and manage permissions for all users in the project, add new project users, create environments, manage and publish blueprints, and publish snapshots.
- Team: A subgroup of users within a project.
- Team Manager: A user role. A team manager is the head of a team and can add and modify team members. A Team Manager has visibility into all Participants they invite to an Experience, as well as all Team Members in their Team and that Team Member’s Participants.
- Team Member: A user role. A team member is a user who belongs to a team. A Team Member has visibility in all Participants in their Experiences.
CloudShare Users
CloudShare users are all the people who work with CloudShare environments and experiences. This includes project members who set up and manage the platform, instructors who run training or sales sessions, and participants who attend experiences as students, trainees, customers, or prospects. A single person can be a CloudShare user in more than one role, for example a project member who also participates in a class as a student.
In billing and analytics, CloudShare usage is often measured in User Hours. One User Hour is defined as one user running one environment for one hour of runtime. Runtime is tracked per user and per environment, regardless of whether that user is acting as a blueprint builder, instructor, or participant in a training or sales experience. This metric is used to understand how much time users actually spend working in environments and to manage policies, resource usage, and costs across the account.
CloudShare User Interface Workspaces
The following describes the main user interfaces with which users interact in order to set up, run, and attend experiences, such as the Participant Viewer, Instructor Console, Experience Editor, and the main CloudShare pages.
Participant Viewer
The Participant Viewer is a web-based workspace where participants join and work inside a CloudShare experience. Participants receive an invitation email or click an access link to log into the Participant Viewer.
The Participant Viewer provides CloudShare experience participants with access to a personal copy of the running environment over the cloud. The Participant Viewer gives participants direct access to virtual machines, training content, environment tools, and collaboration features in a single web browser tab so that they can interact with the applications/tools/data in the environment, perform hands-on tasks, follow instructions, and interact with the instructor and other participants in real time. The Participant Viewer can be accessed directly in a web browser, with no additional applications or add-ons required.
CloudShare administrators can use the Experience Editor to customize the Participant Viewer for each experience.
For detailed instructions on how to use the Participant Viewer, refer to Participant Viewer.
Participant Viewer Content
CloudShare enables an instructor to add various types of content to appear in the Participant Viewer. Each Content item may appear as an option in the side menu and/or as a tab across the top of the Participant Viewer.
The following types of content may appear, as defined in the Experience Editor:
- Overview: Introduces the experience and provides information, tasks, instructions, and/or context.
- Guided Journey: An interactive step-by-step pane that walks participants through specific actions, features, or workflows in the environment.
- External URL: A link to an external website or web application.
- Resource: A downloadable file, such as a PDF or document, available for viewing within the Participant Viewer.
- Public Clouds: This item is displayed when external resources are being used in the environment. It provides access to the external Public cloud’s log for the current experience and also displays any available credentials for the cloud resources currently in use.
Multiple Overviews, External URLs and/or Resources can appear in the Participant Viewer, as defined in the Experience Editor. Only a single Guided Journey can appear.
Instructor Console
The Instructor Console enables instructors to manage live or self-paced experiences by providing a real-time view of who has joined, what each participant is doing in their environment, and how engaged participants are overall, and by allowing them to interact instantly with any participant whenever needed. Instructors can also zoom in on a participant, open or share environments with participants, take over a participant’s virtual machine to demonstrate or troubleshoot, and use built-in tools such as metrics, user management, chat, analytics, and external resources to monitor and control the experience from a single console.
The Instructor Console also provides real-time analytics and insights into participation, engagement, collaboration, and progress, enabling instructors to make informed decisions during an experience.
The Instructor Console is accessed directly through a web browser, with no additional applications or add-ons required.
To access the Instructor Console, see Accessing the Instructor Console.
For detailed instructions on how to use the Instructor Console, refer to Instructor Console.
CloudShare Main Page (Home and Experience)
The CloudShare home page and Experience Details page serve as the main hub for CloudShare administrators and instructors to get started with CloudShare. This is where training and sales experiences are created, set up and managed.
CloudShare Home Page
The center of the CloudShare home page shows the list of Training experiences created in CloudShare. Training focuses on classes, labs, and courses. This list is empty for a new CloudShare account.
Clicking the Sales button in the top left corner displays a list of previously created Sales experiences. Sales focuses on demo and proof-of-concept experiences to deliver to prospects and customers.
Note: Clicking an experience name in this list opens the Experience Details page for that experience.Note: Clicking the CloudShare logo in the top-left corner of each page opens the CloudShare Home page.- The Infrastructure button in the top left corner opens the CloudShare Infrastructure page, which enables the definition and management of the underlying building blocks of the experiences, such as environments, virtual machines, storage, and networking. That is where the technical side of what later becomes a training or sales experience is defined.
- The Integrations button in the top left corner opens the CloudShare Integration page which enables the creation of a seamless flow of data between CloudShare and an external platform. For example, in order to run quick custom analyses and make data-informed decisions.
- The Settings button at the bottom left opens the Settings page for the CloudShare account, where CloudShare platform settings can be configured, including projects, users, roles, security, and account-level preferences that apply across projects and experiences.
- The + Create New button in the upper right corner enables the creation of a new training experience (or a new sales experience). This involves selecting the project and blueprint, defining basic settings, such as the experience type and scheduling, and then configuring the experience before inviting participants.
Experience Details Page
The Experience Details page opens when a Training experience or Sales experience name is clicked on the CloudShare home page. This page focuses on the people who are part of the selected experience and their current status.
The center of the page shows the list of users of the selected training experience. Each row represents one experience user. A user can be an instructor, a participant, or an unassigned placeholder that reserves a seat for a future participant.
The Users tab at the top of the table is selected by default and shows all users in the experience.
- The Details tab (next to the Users tab described above) provides high-level information about the experience itself, including the schedule, description, and blueprint.
- The Console button in the top right corner opens the Instructor Console for this experience. In the Instructor Console, instructors monitor participants during a live experience, view their environments, take control when needed, guide them through the lab, and track progress in real time. See A Quick Tour of the Instructor Console for more information.
- The Editor button in the top right corner opens the Experience Editor. In the Experience Editor, instructors configure the content, functionality and look-and-feel of the experience itself. See Customizing the Viewer for more information.
- The Add users button in the upper-right area of the table enables adding users to the experience (such as instructors, participants, or unassigned participant placeholders) and sending invitations so they can join the experience.
Experience Editor
The CloudShare Experience Editor is the CloudShare admin tool for designing how an experience looks and behaves in the Participant Viewer. In the Editor, project members customize the participant’s workspace: they choose which VM tabs and content tabs appear at the top, adjust virtual machine settings, decide whether to show the virtual machine list, and add content items such as overview pages, external URLs, resources and Guided Journeys. They also control the appearance of the experience, including branding, participant login behavior, and collaboration tools such as class chat, instructor chat, Assist Me, and video conferencing.
Each experience has its own set of Participant Viewer customizations, which are initially inherited from the blueprint or from the experience it was duplicated from. Changes made in the Experience Editor affect only that specific experience and are not written back to the blueprint.
This section will help project members get started with the Participant Viewer customizations and maximize its features.
To start, click on an experience in the list, and then click the Editor button at the top right.
The following is displayed:
For detailed instructions on how to use the Experience Editor, refer to Customizing the Viewer.
Instructor/Experience Manager
An experience (also called a class or a session) will always have a lead instructor/manager. All environments created for the experience, as well as usage analytics, will be assigned to the lead instructor. However, by default, all the instructors of an experience can perform the same activities for that experience, including:
- Viewing and editing the Details page for the experience
- Customizing the Participant Viewer
- Accessing the Instructor Console for the experience
- Creating, viewing and sharing instructor environments for the experience (when enabled)
- Chatting with other instructors during the experience
- Zooming in to a participant’s environment during the experience
- Using participant collaboration features.