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For Education

RosettaCloud: virtual labs at scale with institutional guardrails.

Overview

RosettaCloud enables universities and training programmes to deliver cloud-based lab environments to hundreds of students without manual provisioning. Students never need to see a cloud console, create cloud credentials, or understand infrastructure. Instructors create a formation once; students launch it with a single click. Budget controls, SSO integration, and spot instance support keep costs predictable and administration minimal.

The RosettaCloud handles all the underlying complexity (provisioning instances, configuring networking, managing credentials, mounting storage) so that both instructors and students can focus entirely on teaching and learning.

RosettaHub has been serving universities since 2016.

Migrating from Azure Lab Services?

Microsoft is retiring Azure Lab Services on June 28, 2027. RosettaHub is a purpose-built alternative with more flexibility, lower costs, and multi-cloud support. See the migration guide.

Key Capabilities

Virtual Labs at Scale

Deliver consistent, pre-configured environments to every student in a course. Labs launch immediately: there is no publishing step or image creation delay. Supported lab types include:

Lab Type Description
Jupyter Notebook Python, R, Julia data science environments
RStudio Statistical computing and visualization
VS Code Browser-based development environment
Linux Desktop Full graphical desktop via browser (Virtual Lab formation)
Windows Desktop Windows applications accessible through the browser
Docker Formation Custom containerized applications and toolchains
Big Data Cluster Spark and Hadoop on AWS EMR or GCP Dataproc
HPC Cluster High-performance computing with AWS ParallelCluster
Kubernetes Cluster Container orchestration for advanced courses

Each lab type is backed by a Formation: a cloud-agnostic template that deploys identically on AWS, Azure, GCP, or any other connected provider.

Full Cloud Flexibility

Unlike managed lab services that restrict users to a handful of fixed configurations, RosettaHub gives educators the full flexibility of the underlying cloud providers:

Capability What This Means
Any instance type Choose from the complete catalog of any cloud provider, not a limited set of 4-8 options
Any image size No artificial cap on disk size
Any cloud provider AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and Alibaba Cloud from one platform
Stop and restart Students can stop VMs and restart them later without losing work: no forced termination
Billing at cloud rates Pay your provider's own rates for the time a machine runs, with no margin on infrastructure
IDE and notebook support All IDEs and notebooks are supported, including Jupyter, RStudio, Zeppelin, and VS Code

Container-Based Labs

Start labs from pre-built container images with popular tools ready to use:

  • Jupyter notebooks with Python, R, and Julia kernels
  • RStudio with R packages pre-installed
  • VS Code in the browser via code-server
  • Custom Docker images: build your own and share across courses

Container-based labs use Docker Formations and launch in seconds. Instructors can customize container images, add packages, and share the result with students: no image publishing required.

One-Click Student Experience

Students receive a self-service portal scoped to their course. They do not need cloud accounts, CLI tools, or infrastructure knowledge.

  1. Student logs in via institutional SSO
  2. Pre-approved formations appear in their dashboard
  3. Student clicks Launch: the environment is ready in minutes
  4. Work is persisted through snapshots and shared storage

Dedicated Storage per Student

Each student can have a dedicated cloud storage (object storage or file system) automatically mounted to their lab environment. This ensures student work is saved independently of the VM lifecycle: even if a spot instance is reclaimed or a VM is deleted, the student's files are preserved on their personal storage.

Formation Templates for Instructors

Instructors follow a straightforward workflow:

  1. Create or clone a formation with the required software stack
  2. Test the environment
  3. Share with the course organization: all enrolled students gain access
  4. Optionally use Launch on Sharees to deploy environments for the entire class in one action

Labs can be launched immediately after creation: no publishing step or image baking required. Instructors can also share formation templates with colleagues across departments or institutions.

Batch Operations

Formation batch actions (Launch on Sharees, Stop on Sharees, Delete on Sharees) allow instructors to manage an entire class of environments from a single menu.

Real-Time Collaboration

RosettaHub makes collaboration a first-class capability:

  • Share formations with individual users, groups, or entire organizations
  • Share lab templates between instructors across departments
  • Share images: students and instructors can share customized environments
  • Cross-institutional sharing: collaborate across organizational boundaries via URLs or marketplaces

Budget Controls

Spending is governed at every level of the organization hierarchy:

Scope Example
Department Computer Science: $10,000 per semester
Course CS 301 Machine Learning: $2,000
Student Individual allocation: $50

Budgets are enforced in real time. When a student's allocation is exhausted, new launches are blocked: no surprise bills at semester end.

Cost Optimization

Billing at Cloud Rates

You pay your provider's own rates for the time a machine runs: by the second for most machines on AWS and Google Cloud, by the minute on Azure. Unlike managed lab services that charge bundled lab prices above infrastructure cost, there is no margin on top.

Spot Instances

Spot and preemptible instances provide savings of up to 90% on compute. RosettaHub handles spot interruptions automatically:

  • Snapshot on Termination: student work is preserved if a spot instance is reclaimed
  • Hibernate: suspend instances and resume later without re-provisioning
  • Auto-replace: automatically launch a replacement VM with similar characteristics
  • Fallback to On-Demand: critical lab sessions can automatically switch to standard pricing

Automated Shutdowns

  • Scheduled shutdowns: automatically stop all labs at the end of a class period
  • Idle VM shutdown: stop VMs that have been idle for a configurable period

Dedicated Cloud Accounts

Each user operates within a dedicated cloud account (AWS sub-account, Azure resource group, or GCP project) with its own budget and RosettaHub limits on machine numbers and sizes. On AWS and Google Cloud each account also has its own provider quotas, so a large class does not hit a shared limit. On Azure the account is a resource group, and provider quotas apply per subscription.

Direct Cloud Access for Cloud Learners

RosettaCloud simplifies cloud access for students who don't need to learn infrastructure. But for cloud computing courses where students need to learn AWS, GCP, or Azure directly, RosettaOps provides federated cloud console access: students get direct access to native cloud consoles within their sandboxed accounts.

This is essential for:

  • Cloud certification courses: students work in the real AWS/GCP/Azure console, not a simulation
  • AI and ML courses: students access native services like SageMaker, Bedrock, Vertex AI, and Azure OpenAI directly
  • DevOps and platform engineering: students learn real IAM, networking, and infrastructure tools
  • Data engineering: students use native services like Athena, BigQuery, and Redshift

RosettaOps ensures students cannot exceed their budget or escape their sandbox, even with full native console access. Educators get the governance guardrails; students get the real cloud experience.

Single Management Portal

Instructors and administrators manage everything from one portal: no switching between separate consoles for lab plans, lab creation, user management, and billing. Organization hierarchy, budgets, formations, machines, and users are all accessible from the same interface.

SSO Integration

Connect your institutional identity provider for seamless access:

  • SAML 2.0: Shibboleth, ADFS, Azure AD
  • LDAP: Active Directory, OpenLDAP
  • OAuth: Google Workspace, GitHub, custom providers

Next Steps