Testing new software and updates is an indispensable part of the development process. However, it’s often a struggle to provide the computing resources necessary to do this essential work.
It may be that you do have a lab, but its availability is limited. Or you worry that even if you build a testing lab, you won’t be able to provide resources for your entire team. Lab as a Service (LaaS) is a concept designed to solve these challenges. It’s a type of cloud computing that provides on-demand access to a shared pool of configurable resources, including computing, storage, and networking.
At Equus, we’re always looking for ways to enhance our partner’s computing capabilities. With this goal in mind, we recently built a LaaS lab. Let’s consider a few ways this will benefit our partners.
Building Lab as a Service From the Ground Up
Lab as a Service provides a few advantages over on-premise data centers. By leveraging the cloud and virtualization technology, teams can access lab services from anywhere and simulate any hardware environment needed for their workload. Since Equus provides end-to-end hardware management for our partners, anything we can do to simplify, enhance, or streamline their hardware experience is a natural fit. The desire to expand our hardware management experience was a principal motivation behind building the LaaS lab. What will this new resource provide?
We built our LaaS lab to provide the necessary infrastructure for hosting current and future lab hardware, and associated applications. Leveraging this resource enables partners to reduce the cost and time associated with validating hardware and the client’s software stack. This lab also allows for remote operational qualification, which lowers shipping costs and speeds up proof-of-concept engagement, deployment, validation, and image and driver management.
We’re excited to continue expanding our LaaS capabilities as we learn more about the needs of our customers. The physical setup of our current lab is a small data center that will be supported and managed internally to provide the customers with hands-on support with drive imaging, firmware updates, application analysis, data collection, and more.
How Can You Use Lab as a Service in Your Business?
Lab as a Service is an incredibly versatile tool. One way businesses are using it is to test products before releasing them to the public. By creating a virtual prototype of the product, they’re able to simulate real-world conditions and check for major flaws.
Another common use case is analyzing customer data. By collecting customer behavior and preference data and then applying relevant algorithms, it’s possible to detect and learn from patterns — using the insights to create more appealing products and services. The sky is the limit for LaaS uses. If you can imagine a useful scenario for cloud-based lab hardware, then the service will likely have business benefits.
At Equus, we have over 30 years of experience designing, deploying, and supporting high-performance computing infrastructure. This expertise has helped us design a lab that combines balanced power and performance with minimal cooling needs. If you’d like to learn more about how Lab as a Service could benefit your company, let’s talk.
