A Qwiklab is an online learning environment along with a set of instructions to walk you through a live, real world and scenario-based use case. In a Lab you will have access to the actual environment you want to learn about, not a simulation or demo environment. You can access the Lab environment from anywhere on the Internet using a standard browser. Most Labs require credits to access (see below for credits details), but we do have variety of free Introductory Labs available as well.

1. Get started by either creating an account or signing in.
2. Find Labs by browsing the Qwiklabs Quests, searching, or clicking on the Lab Catalogue and then the lab tab. The lab tab lets you scroll through all of the available labs.
3. Read more about a Lab by clicking on the lab of your choice.
   • The lab page opens to the lab manual page.
   • The timer (located next to the Start Lab button) shows the total time that resources will be made available to take the lab. The lab will end after the timer finishes counting down.
4. To begin a Lab, click the 'Start Lab' button. The Lab will not start until you have selected the 'Start Lab' button and entered the appropriate credits or Token code (if credits are required).
5. The cost of a Lab is indicated in Credits. Some Labs are Free and require no credits. Each dollar spent buys 1 credit. Labs vary in the number of credits required. For more information about the prices please see the <a href="/payments/pricing">pricing page</a>.
6. When you are finished with the Lab, click the 'End Lab' button and leave a review.

All of the latest versions of the popular browsers are supported by Qwiklabs. However, for the best experience, we recommend Firefox or Chrome.

Qwiklabs Quests are introductory and advanced learning paths that consist of a collection of labs organized by technologies, specific cloud services and practical use cases.

Completion of the required labs that are part of Qwiklabs Quests will earn you badges that recognize your hands-on expertise. In order to receive your badge, all required labs in the Quest must be completed.

Yes, the successful completion of a Quest leads to a badge. We encourage you to visit our website periodically as we continue to add and update labs and Quests.

Yes, lab completion recognition is granted across all Qwiklabs Quests. For example, if you complete “Creating Cloud Instances for Windows” in one Quest, you will receive lab completion recognition for that same lab across all Qwiklabs Quests that contain the "Creating Cloud Instances for Windows" lab.

Your Qwiklabs Quest badges will be a permanent part of your Qwiklabs account and profile. Referencing your accomplishments can be a positive mark of distinction. You are encouraged to share your achievements on social media. For example, you could do this by adding a link on your LinkedIn profile, pointing to your badge.

Your subscription gets you access to every lab Qwiklabs offers, at any time. You can use this subscription to complete quests and earn badges, or pick and choose the topics you need.

Qwiklabs Advantage is the most cost-effective way to access hands-on lab content at your own pace. The cost of earning a single Quest badge is generally higher than 1 month’s subscription for access to *all* labs. Subscribe now to take full advantage of the hands-on lab experience you can’t get anywhere else.

Subscriptions are billed every month (30 or 31 days depending on the month) to your payment method on file. Each time your credit card is charged, you will receive a receipt email from Qwiklabs. You can change your payment method or cancel your subscription at any time here (you have to be signed into your account first).

Click the My Account icon and select 'Credits & Subscriptions'. The page shows the date when your subscription expires. While you have an active subscription, labs you take will not cost you credits.

When you launch a lab, you will be prompted to choose whether you want to use Qwiklabs Advantage, your credits, or a token.

You can cancel your subscription at any time here (you must be signed into your account before you click on the link). Cancellation takes effect when your current subscription runs out. You can use Qwiklabs Advantage until the current month's billing period ends. After it ends, Qwiklabs Advantage will not be renewed and you will not be charged again.

IMPORTANT: If you want to cancel your subscription, DO NOT delete or close your Qwiklabs account. Go here and unsubscribe.

*** CAUTION! *** If you delete or close your account, all information associated with your account, including lab and quest progress, class history, badges earned, etc. will be permanently destroyed.

Yes. Individual lab sessions will end when the lab’s access time expires. Your subscription lets you take a lab multiple times, but each time you re-take a lab you start over at the beginning.
Lab duration time is based on 4+ years of data tracking lab times, and we make constant adjustments as we see new data. Each lab gives you access to a real, live cloud console so we pay close attention to resource management and efficiency.

You can use any laptop or desktop computer with an internet connection and one of the supported browsers. Simply sign in with your user account. Tablets and phones are not currently supported due to lack of support in most Cloud consoles.

You can use any number of devices, but you can only run one lab at a time with your Advantage subscription.

Qwiklabs Advantage is available worldwide, with the exception of China.

A Qwiklabs Advantage subscription can only be used by one person. Your Qwiklabs account is used to validate the badges you earn, your Quest progress, and your lab completion stats. Sharing account access and Qwiklabs Advantage subscriptions is not possible at this time and if attempted will be considered a violation of terms of service.

Qwiklabs Advantage can only be used by individuals. Subscriptions do not work with share groups. Please contact us here with inquiries about bulk subscription purchases.

No, refunds are not available for Qwiklabs Advantage.

Qwiklabs credits are purchased to gain access to a lab. Each dollar spent adds 1 credit to your Qwiklabs account. For example, $8 equals 8 credits. Labs require different amounts of credits. Once purchased, Qwiklabs credits are held in your Qwiklabs wallet (found in your Account details page). When you select a lab, credits will be taken from your account to authorize one-time access to the lab you have selected.
Alternatively, you can purchase a subscription that gives you access to all labs.

Log into run.qwiklab.com, select the lab you want to take, and then click Start Lab. A pop-up screen opens, showing you the number of Qwiklabs credits required to take the lab, the number of Qwiklabs credits already available in your wallet, or the number of Qwiklabs credits you need to purchase for the lab. If you have enough Qwiklabs credits in your wallet you can choose to launch the lab. If you do not have enough Qwiklabs credits, you will be prompted to buy the required amount.

You might be given tokens/access codes in certain cases, for example at an event like Google Cloud Next or AWS re:Invent or NVIDIA GTC. These tokens will work the same as they have in the past as one-time use on any lab. With an event token you can start any lab regardless of how many credits that lab requires. When you start a lab, in the pop-up screen, select whether you want to use tokens/access codes instead of your credits to get access to the lab.

You can buy Qwiklabs credits one lab at a time as described in the "How do I use Qwiklabs credits?" section. You can also buy preset Qwiklabs credit bundles by clicking on the “buy Qwiklabs credits” link in the Qwiklabs banner. Purchasing Qwiklabs credits in bulk provides volume discounts. You also may enter any number of credits you want to purchase for your transaction by using the “Number of Lab Credits” box.

After the payment transaction is complete you will then be directed to your Qwiklabs Account details page where you will see available credits and payment history. You will also find the “share credits” bar where you are able to create Credit Sharing groups for the sharing of credits with your friends and colleagues.

Finally, click on the Qwiklabs logo or the Dashboard link on banner to return to the main dashboard, select the Lab you want to take, and then click Start Lab. The pop-up screen will display your credits. Click on “launch with xx credits” to start the lab.

Once your payment transaction is successful, Qwiklabs will send you an email receipt.

Using Qwiklabs credits provides you with one-time access to a lab. After you start a lab, the Qwiklabs credits apply for the duration of the lab. If you end the lab within less than 3 minutes (i.e., the “grace period”), or the lab has an error when starting, you will automatically be refunded your Qwiklabs credits.

You cannot take a break from a lab or pause a lab. Your Qwiklabs credits are valid for the duration of the lab after you click START LAB. Qwiklabs credits expire when the lab is ended by the user or automatically at the end of posted lab access time. We recommend that you plan to have a block of time set aside to complete a lab before you click START LAB.

If you end the lab within the grace period (less than 3 minutes), you are automatically refunded your Qwiklabs credits.

Yes, Qwiklabs credits are required each time you start a lab. Qwiklabs credits are good for single use.

No, Qwiklabs credits are consumed once you start a lab. You need additional credits to start additional labs.

Unused Qwiklabs credits expire 6 months after the date of purchase. Qwiklabs will send you an email when your Qwiklabs credits are about to expire.

No. Qwiklabs credits cannot be re-used.

No, refunds are not available for unused Qwiklabs credits. We recommend that you share Qwiklabs credits with others before they expire.

You can allocate your Qwiklabs credits to be shared with a person or with a group. To do this, you create the group, and then allocate credits and assign users to the group.

1. Click the My Account icon and select Credits & Subscriptions. The page shows your total number of credits.
2. Click the Share Your Credits with Friends link, and on the Share Credits page, click the Create a Share Group button.
3. Type a group name and description, and click the Update button.
4. On the Share Credits page, click the new share group name to open its Manage GroupName page.
5. Indicate the number of Qwiklabs credits for the group to share, and click Share Credits. Then add members to the group. You can add users individually by email address, or by email domain.

NOTE: The credits you designate to the share group are subtracted from the total credits that are available for you to use. If you want to be able to use the credits that you put in the share group, you must explicitly add yourself as a member of the share group.

Blacklist emails are users who cannot use credits that are allocated to the group. This pertains to all emails in the blacklist, even if those emails are also in the list of allowed emails as individual users or as members of a domain.

Example:

• In your sharegroup GroupABC, you added an entire domain for the AcmeCorp company (@acmecorp.com) to the share group's allowed access list.


• At AcmeCorp, an employee named jsmith has just left the company. You want to prevent jsmith from using GroupABC's Qwiklabs credits. To do this, you enter jsmith's email address into the Blacklist Emails list (jsmith@acmecorp.com).


• When user jsmith@acmecorp.com signs in to Qwiklabs, the credits from GroupABC are not listed in jsmith@acmecorp.com's wallet (on jsmith's My Account > Credits & Subscriptions page), and the group name does not appear in the details.

NOTE: Being listed in a sharegroup's blacklist does not prevent a user from signing in to Qwiklabs, or from taking labs with a subscription or credits obtained by other means. It only prevents the user from using credits that are allotted to that share group.

All members of the group share the total number of Qwiklabs credits that you allocated to the group. This means that one user could potentially use all of the group's Qwiklabs credits. If you want to restrict credits by user, create a separate share group for each user.

That depends on the way you add users to the group. On the Manage GroupName page:

• If you add users by typing individual email addresses, the system sends each user an email with the subject line "Welcome to YourName's share group". The email tells users how to access Qwiklabs and what to do if they don't have a Qwiklabs account. (On the Manage GroupName page you can add additional text to the email.)


• If you add a domain to the share group, the system does not send a notice to any domain members. You need to explicitly send email or otherwise notify people about the sharegroup and Qwiklabs.

Users can find out how many Qwiklabs credits are available to them by going to their My Account page and selecting Credits & Subscriptions.

1. Click the My Account icon and select Credits & Subscriptions.
2. Click Share Your Credits with Friends.
3. On the Share Credits page, click the name of the share group (first column in table).
4. Add new email addresses to the field and click the Add email filters button.

If another user (such as your instructor or employer) added you to their share group by your individual email address, you receive a "noreply" email with the subject line "Welcome to (share-group-owner's) share group".

If your entire domain was added to a share group, your share group owner should have sent you an email about the share group.

To see how many credits are available to you, go to your My Account page and click Credits & Subscriptions. The page lists your total number of credits (that is, any you have purchased, plus any that have been given to you via a share group).

A cloud account/project ID (when applicable), your lab user ID and password are all available on the Qwiklabs resources panel. All of these can be copied and pasted into the cloud console log in page which opens in a separate window.

Consult the specific instructions for the lab you are running. If you still have trouble, click the yellow support button on the Qwiklabs lab page, or you can email us at support@qwiklabs.com

If your computer is subject to a corporate firewall, your corporate security might prevent you from starting up resources/VMs. In this situation, you can typically sign in to Qwiklabs, start the lab, and log in to the Console, but you cannot continue.

To run labs in Qwiklabs from within a corporate firewall, you need access to the ports listed below. Contact your IT or Tech Support department.

Required access to:

• Ports 80 and 443 for Qwiklabs and the Google Cloud Console
• Port 22 for SSH (used by Cloud Shell)
• Port 3389 for RDP (to sign in to Windows VMs)
• Port 3306 for MySQL (to sign in to the database)

The posted duration time for self-paced labs is the average time that it takes to finish the lab. Access time posted is the amount of time lab resources are available to the student. Access time is generally 2x minutes the duration time. The access timer begins when the student hits the start lab button. The lab will end when the access timer clocks down to 0 seconds.

You cannot pause a lab after you have clicked Start Lab. You have until the timer runs out to finish the lab.

About the END LAB button:

• If you are still within the "grace period" (less than 3 minutes) and you click End Lab, the lab closes, and the Qwiklabs credits are refunded to you. The lab will not be listed on your My Learning page.


• If the grace period has passed, and you click End Lab before you are finished, you lose all your work for this lab, the Qwiklabs credits expire, and the lab is listed on your My Learning page as Incomplete.


• If you finish the lab before the timer runs out, you can click End Lab.

We recommend that you read through the lab instructions before you click Start Lab.

Lab instructions are tested frequently. Often, issues arise when the instructions are not followed very carefully, so please try the sequence of steps again, being sure to take all the necessary steps and use the specific commands and punctuation. If you still encounter issues, please submit a detailed description of your lab and the error messages by emailing us at support@qwiklabs.com, or by creating a support ticket (click the yellow support button on the Qwiklabs lab page).

Frequently the cut and paste operation will not reproduce the commands exactly, due to hidden characters in the instruction manual. This sometimes results in extra characters or spaces added which will cause commands not to work. Most Labs now include a command file in plain text which will give the best results when cutting and pasting. To minimize errors you may get by cutting and pasting from the instructions, Qwiklabs has cutting and pasting from instructions disabled.

Sometimes the links in PDF documents incorrectly embed spaces, especially around line breaks, which prevent the URLs from resolving correctly. Check to see if there are embedded spaces, and remove them. If this does not resolve your issue, please let us know by emailing us at support@qwiklabs.com or by creating a support ticket (click the yellow support button on the Qwiklabs lab page) and we will resolve the issue.

On the Qwiklabs lab page, click the yellow support button to submit a support ticket. Please include a detailed description of your lab and the error messages, including the severity level of the issue your have encountered.

Occasionally labs are made inactive while being updated or undergoing other maintenance. If you want to be notified when an inactive lab is made active again, please email us at support@qwiklabs.com or create a support ticket by clicking the yellow support button on the Qwiklabs lab page.

Mobile devices are not recommended due to limitations in the display, using multiple windows, and keyboard. Labs involving a Cloud console may not work at all. Best to run the labs from a laptop or desktop computer.

Instructions are usually in Adobe PDF format, and should be viewable from within the browser. You may need to enable PDF viewing in your browser settings. Occasionally with older browsers or out-of-date Adobe software, PDFs are not visible and you will get a message requiring you to install or update your Adobe PDF viewing software.

A browser privacy setting is blocking the document from loading. To change the setting, go to browser preferences and allow 3rd party cookies. For example in Safari, go to preferences and click on the privacy tab under "Block cookies and other website data". Click "Never" and then load the page. After the cookie is set you can move this setting to the default value and it will continue to work. This process also works with other non-Safari browsers.

Labs are set up and tested with an Access time sufficient to read and complete all the instructions. Please allow yourself enough time to complete your Lab. After the lab has completed, the resources will be recycled, and if you want to redo the lab you will need to start from the beginning.

Some complex labs take time to set up completely. Check the Setup Time on the Lab information page. If the lab is taking much longer than expected, please email us at support@qwiklabs.com or create a support ticket by clicking the yellow support button on the Qwiklabs lab page.

You can change your password by clicking on your name in the upper right hand corner of the main screen. This will take you to the Edit User form where you can change your password.

New accounts or password changes need to be confirmed via email, which has been sent to the email address you used to create the account. Please click on the confirmation link in your email. Note that sometimes confirmation emails land in spam filters or are blocked by firewalls. If you still have difficulties, create a support ticket by clicking the support button and we can confirm your new account.

If you took an instructor-led class, you can access the course materials for two years after the date you finished the course. Go to the Qwiklabs deployment where you took your course, and sign in. On the left side of the page, click the My Learning icon (it looks like a timer/clock). Scroll down to the Completed Labs section and click the lab name. The lab opens; you can view the lab manual and other class resources.

Visit this link and tell us how to contact you to discuss.

Email us at support@qwiklabs.com or create a support ticket by clicking the yellow support button on the Qwiklabs lab page.

If you delete your account, ALL information associated with your account, including lab and quest progress, class history, badges earned, etc. will be permanently destroyed.

Note that you can keep your account open even if you do not have a current subscription, have cancelled a subscription, or have used all of your credits.