Practice-IT was setup at the end of 2006 but the concept for Practice-Labs was thought of in 2006 while working as IT consultants. We (Ricky Doyle and Mark Jeggo) noticed the distinct lack of practical learning given to IT staff while attending and after their IT training courses. This coupled with the well publicised UK’s IT skills shortage prompted the idea Practice-Labs, a solution to this problem.

We also saw the need for organisations and IT departments to have access to test or technology labs to develop their own skills and solutions. Business IT departments are notoriously under resourced and under financed so the thought of having something accessible online without having to build, host, maintain and license really appealed to us and the people we spoke to.

It took around a year to complete the full working technical solution for the product. The development work was undertaken in spare time and weekends which impacted the product development life cycle but enabled us to finance the solution ourselves. Like any successful startup we ran the beta from a garage much to the delight of the neighbours.

Our initial product launch was not very successful as we were still working full time so the business lacked a little direction until November 2007. This is when we decided to give up corporate life and become full time entrepreneurs. We started to dedicate 110% of our efforts to running and developing our business.

The first job was to get our business in order, we knew we had a great solution but we needed to understand how to sell and market the product successfully.

The technical IT training market seemed like the right market to concentrate on at first, with a bit of luck and hard work we managed to sign our first deal with a online training company in December 2007. Since then we have increased our client base and are speaking to more and more training companies who can see the benefits a Practice-Lab bundled with their courses.

The next stop on the bumpy ride is to sell Technology/Test labs to IT departments. Having worked in IT for many years ourselves we believe that this certainly is a tool that will benefit both the IT personnel and organisations collectively.

I fell into IT at the end of the 90's, Y2K seemed a good time to get started. I Worked my way up the IT ranks from the support desk to Technical IT Consultant. Having worked for a range of different companies and roles I have gained a very diverse skill set ranging from firewall technologies to server backups.

I have always been interested in keeping my skills up to date but it was not always easy to do so. When we came up with the idea of having the ability to gain access to an environment online to develop skills in I got very excited.

The underlying benefit of Practice-Labs whether you are someone in IT or wanting to get into IT is to develop or gain skills which helps you progress in your career or helps you get in to the IT field.

Now I am focused on developing the necessary business skills to make Practice-IT a success. We are always learning new things and trying to implement them in the business.

If you have any comments, issues or just want to run something by me please fell free to email me or phone on 0845 389 2153.

I have over 10 years experience in the IT field having worked for a number of corporates and investment banks in the city of London. I have a wealth of strong networking and firewall skills and I even passed my Checkpoint certification using Practice-Labs!

"Many companies just don’t have test labs or when they do, you find that half of the equipment is missing or cables not present etc because they have been used to repair issues in the production environment” Practice-Labs gives us the ability to easily get access to a clean working environment without the hassle and time consuming process of cabling up equipment yourself. Perfect!

"Quite often I use the labs to test out my own theories or test that commands and features are available on the different Cisco code versions. I find they are an excellent way to reassure myself that a change control will go smoothly or reconfiguration will go without hitch (well hopefully!)"

I always enjoy a challenge and love to get feedback on new features that could be implemented in the service.

"I want the service to be a tool IT professionals and beginners alike can use as an aid to further their career".

Drop me an email and let me know if you have any ideas!