The VAST Data Labs gives our entire community remote access to our data infrastructure platform for hands-on exploration and testing. The lab environment is a practical way to get familiar with VAST systems, try out different configurations, and build automation workflows - all without needing your own hardware setup.
How the Labs Work
We’ve organized the labs into two tracks that work well together, depending on whether you prefer clicking through interfaces or writing code:
GUI-Based Labs
These walk you through the VAST Management System interface with interactive exercises covering the key administrative tasks:
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Introduction to the VAST Management System - Get oriented with basic navigation and system overview
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Introduction to Views - Learn how to organize data and manage views
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Networking in the VMS - Work with network configuration and management
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User Provider Management - Handle authentication and authorization workflows
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System Overview and Capacity Management - Monitor systems, check metrics, and plan capacity
Infrastructure Automation with Python and the VAST API
Our VAST Data Code Labs are now open!
Head over to https://connect.thecosmoslabs.com/cosmos-labs to get started
If you’re comfortable with Python and want to learn how to automate your data platform usage and management, check out our scenario-based labs at github.com/vast-data/cosmos-labs. These use the vastpy and vastdb modules to show you how to automate and interact with VAST systems programmatically.
The code labs follow Orbital Dynamics, a fictional company, through realistic scenarios like:
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Automating configuration management
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Setting up monitoring and alerts
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Managing data lifecycle operations
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Building integration workflows
The labs are read-only (for now), and in our GitHub repo there’s also a workshop outline, participant guide and much more that can help guide you through the examples and labs. Detailed documentation and the Orbital Dynamics stories are inside each lab folder, make sure to check them out too!
Just remember to test and verify everything in your own environment first - don’t run untested code against production systems.
Getting Started
The labs are self-service, so you can jump in whenever and whenever you’re ready. Each lab guide covers what you need to know upfront, including any prerequisites. For the GUI labs, you just need browser access to the lab environment. For code labs, you’ll want Python 3.9-3.12 and the ability to install the required Python modules.
What to Expect
Our remote lab infrastructure gives you access to actual VAST clusters set up for testing and learning. Each session is isolated and gets reset between uses, so feel free to experiment without worrying about breaking anything for other users.
The two lab tracks complement each other well: GUI labs help you understand how things work operationally, while code labs show you how to automate those same tasks. You can work through either track on its own or mix and match based on what you want to learn.
Enjoy, and let me know if you need any assistance, either here or on our Discord!