Dan Partelly, a heavy netlab user (and an active contributor), sent me this interesting perspective on how one might want to use netlab without ever building a lab with it. All I added was a bit of AI-assisted editing; my comments are on a grey background.

In all podcasts and interviews I listened to, netlab was referred to as a “lab management solution”. But this is misleading. It’s also a translator, due to its ability to abstract devices, and can easily generate perfectly usable configs for devices or technologies you have never worked on.

This is invaluable. It makes you money. I’m actually surprised that in all those podcasts, this aspect was never mentioned. They all miss the point. For example, do you speak Juniper? Not quite, but with those generated configs and your mind, you can feel confident taking a job.

Have doubts? Don’t worry; you can actually prove the configs work with Netlab validation tests. This can make you money today, instantly. And if you just need the configs, you don’t even need to spawn a VM or container. Of course, the rest is on you. Keep cool and do the job.