When you have attended VMworld in the past you must have seen the hands on lab environment VMware has created there each year. The labs you can take there allow you to get introduced to VMware products that you haven't worked with yet and the labs allow you to learn more about products you already work with.
These labs are now available online for free
This is all part of VMware's Project nee: The Next generation Education Environment. It is targeted towards providing VMware customers with hands on labs and other new learning experiences.
The VMware Hands On Labs (HOL) Online allow anyone with an interest in VMware-software to login and work through the labs in his or her own pace. You can start a lab and finish it later if needed. There is a large number of labs to choose from. For the most current overview access the HOL-website at labs.hol.vmware.com.
You have to create an account to access the HOL-environment. Once you are logged in you can access the labs of your choice. The lab environment will be deployed on the fly for your personal use. This might take a few minutes depending on the lab of your choice. For some labs only one or two servers need to be deployed, for other labs some ten servers could be needed. In the image below you see an example of how the labs look like. There is a lab manual on the right that you can expand and collapse and there is a console to a Windows-environment that allows you to perform the lab activities.
