Collab is a collaborative lab environment platform that lets teams work together on shared infrastructure in real time — perfect for workshops, instructor-led training, pair programming exercises and team upskilling sessions where everyone needs to see the same environment.
Traditional lab environments are individual — each student gets their own isolated machine. That's fine for solo learning, but breaks down completely for collaborative training scenarios: workshops where the instructor needs to demonstrate live on the same environment the students are using, pair programming exercises, incident response drills where teams need to work the same problem, and team upskilling sessions where shared context matters.
Collab solves this with a shared infrastructure model — one environment, multiple simultaneous users, real-time visibility of everything everyone is doing. The instructor can demonstrate, students can take over, and the whole group sees the same state at the same time.
Used by ZippyOPS Bootcamp instructors and corporate training teams who need genuine collaborative lab experiences, not just side-by-side solo environments.
Collab makes collaborative technical training feel natural — the same way Google Docs made collaborative writing feel natural.
Every participant sees the same terminal, the same Kubernetes dashboard, the same pipeline output — in real time. No more "can you share your screen" or "what do you see on yours?"
Instructors can take control of the shared environment to demonstrate, then hand it back to students for practice. Seamless handoffs without environment resets or reconnection delays.
Split the group into smaller teams, each with their own collaborative environment. Ideal for group exercises, problem-solving workshops and simulated incident response drills with multiple teams.
Every Collab session is recorded — terminal commands, file changes, pipeline runs — so participants can replay the full workshop later. Great for revision and for students who missed a session.
Access the full LabAsService template library — Kubernetes, Docker, CI/CD, Security, IaC, Observability and more — all available as shared collaborative environments, not just solo instances.
Instructors get full control. Students get scoped access. Observers can watch without interacting. Granular RBAC so every participant has exactly the right level of access for the session format.
Any training scenario where working together matters more than working in isolation.
ZippyOPS Bootcamp instructors use Collab for live demonstration sessions — showing complex Kubernetes deployments, CI/CD pipeline builds and Terraform apply runs in real time, with students watching and participating on the same environment.
SRE and on-call training where teams simulate responding to a live incident together — on the same broken environment, with the same alerts, working the same problem as a coordinated team. Exactly like a real incident, but in a controlled lab.
Internal engineering workshops where a senior engineer walks the team through a new tool, architecture pattern or security hardening process — with everyone able to follow along, ask questions and try things on the shared environment.
Remote pair programming sessions where both developers work the same environment — one driving, one navigating — without the lag and friction of screen-sharing over video calls.
Team sessions where architects and engineers explore a new technology together — spinning up a shared environment, trying different configurations and discussing trade-offs in real time with hands-on evidence.
Collab and LabAsService are complementary — not competitors. Most training programmes use both.
Each student gets their own isolated lab environment. Best for: self-paced learning, individual exercises, certification prep, ZOLS free learning tracks.
View LabAsService →Multiple users on the same shared environment. Best for: workshops, instructor demonstrations, incident response drills, team upskilling, pair programming.
Request Collab Access →Contact us to discuss your training use case and get access to Collab for your next bootcamp, workshop or team upskilling session.