Empowering educators: How Innovation Sandbox on AWS accelerates learning objectives through secure, cost-effective, and recyclable sandbox management

While generative AI is revolutionizing the technology landscape, Amazon Web Services (AWS) education customers—such as universities and higher education institutions—are increasingly focused on equipping their students with sandbox environments to push the frontiers of innovation and develop the generative AI expertise that the industry demands. Experiential, hands-on learning through sandboxes improves skills acquisition and provides the freedom for the student community to test new ideas and experiment with AWS services.

However, creating and managing sandbox environments at scale for thousands of students can get challenging real fast. In this blog, we will explore how customers can use Innovation Sandbox on AWS to transform the management of temporary sandbox environments, so that they can focus on driving innovation, skill building, and developing the next big technological breakthrough. While the product is applicable for all AWS customers (including educational institutions and businesses of all sizes), we will focus on the point of view of educational institutions in this blog post.

Customer challenges

Cloud administrators—who are tasked with managing hundreds of sandbox environments at educational institutions—need to ensure that their sandboxes are configured to meet the institutional requirements pertaining to security, operational efficiency, cost management, and account reuse. Here are some of the common challenges voiced by customers:

• Configuration overhead: Managing sandbox environments at scale present significant configuration challenges, due to the vast array of AWS services and settings that need to be configured to mirror production environments accurately.
• Cost management: Sandbox users might inadvertently deploy costly resources or leave them running longer than needed, resulting in unplanned expenses. To combat this, cloud administrators need to implement continuous monitoring and cost control measures to govern sandbox use.
• Security and governance: Sandbox users need the flexibility to experiment, but granting broad access can result in misconfigurations, data leaks, or unauthorized access. This requires implementation of strict identity and access management (IAM) user access and enforcement of security policies at scale.
• Overhead with temporary use: Sandbox environments are often needed only for short-term use but it takes weeks of administration time to provision, configure, and eventually close sandbox accounts—diverting focus from more strategic tasks.

Innovation Sandbox on AWS: A game-changing solution for sandbox management

Innovation Sandbox on AWS is an AWS solution that empowers customers to accelerate their innovation journey on AWS. By enabling the management of temporary sandbox environments that are secure, cost effective, and recyclable, the solution minimizes the technical heavy-lifting and helps save weeks of administrative hours, while providing students, researchers, and faculty the freedom to innovate on AWS.

Built for customers with AWS Organizations enabled, this solution transforms how administrators set up and manage the complete lifecycle of their sandbox environments, by enabling the implementation of security policies, approval workflows, spend management mechanisms, and account recycling preferences, all through an intuitive user interface (UI). The solution is adaptable and can be used with your existing AWS Control Tower implementation and Landing Zone setups.

Common use cases for educational institutions

Common use cases for Innovation Sandbox on AWS include:

• Higher education training labs: Educators—such as heads of department, professors, and teachers at universities—who want to train students by creating and managing disposable cloud environments (classroom labs, exams, etc.).
• Research and development (R&D): Educators at universities, colleges, and high schools who would like to run cloud and generative AI research experiments in a controlled environment to verify their hypotheses.
• Hackathons: Department heads who want temporary sandbox environments to run hackathons for students.
• Staff onboarding and training: IT leaders at educational institutions who want to deliver hands-on learning and onboarding experiences to upskill their campus IT and academic staff—enabling them to explore AWS services, try new features, or prove out an approach before starting the build in their development or production environments.

Personas and user workflow

Innovation Sandbox on AWS was designed for 3 key personas:

• • Cloud IT administrators: The solution eliminates weeks of manual configuration and operational overhead associated with managing sandbox environments for cloud administrators by automating the implementation of security policies, spend controls, and recycling mechanisms across all sandbox accounts. The administrator can get started by reviewing the prerequisites, deploying the solution’s AWS CloudFormation templates in their AWS Organization, configuring user access through AWS IAM Identity Center, and onboarding existing AWS accounts to create a sandbox account pool.
  • Academic staff: The solution revolutionizes how the academic staff deliver hands-on cloud learning experiences to students. The intuitive UI allows the academic staff to quickly create lease templates with spend and time limits, specify threshold-based actions (alert, freeze, clean up) and approval preferences. They have precise control over how students receive and interact with their sandbox leases and get complete oversight into monitoring the usage of spend and lease duration across all leases.
  • Students: The solution makes it easy for students to request new sandbox leases in a self-service manner by choosing from a collection of predefined lease templates. Upon approval of the lease request, students can quickly log in to their assigned lease of an AWS account and start conducting their innovation experiments right away. This hands-on experience with AWS services creates valuable portfolio material that students can showcase to potential employers, demonstrating practical cloud computing skills that are highly sought after in the job market. Students can monitor their budget and lease duration consumption patterns relative to established limits and get alerted, so that they use sandboxes responsibly. This experience with resource management and cloud cost optimization mirrors real-world business scenarios, further enhancing their employability and preparing them for roles in cloud-enabled organizations. The practical skills gained through sandbox experimentation serve as a powerful bridge between academic learning and professional practice, giving students a competitive edge in their career journey.

Figure 1: User workflows for Innovation Sandbox on AWS

Customer case studies

In this section, we will highlight how AWS customers are accelerating their innovation journey through Innovation Sandbox on AWS:

University of Sheffield, UK

Background

Founded in 1905, the University of Sheffield is a highly reputed, research-focused public institution based out of England, UK. The university consistently ranks in the top 100 universities worldwide and serves around 30,000 students. The university continues to make significant contributions across numerous fields, including engineering, science, and medicine.

Challenges

The University of Sheffield faced dual challenges with managing their AWS sandbox environments at scale. They faced inefficiencies in their existing sandbox account lifecycle management, resulting in many accounts going unused after allocation, creating waste and poor resource visibility. Additionally, their academic departments needed AWS environments for teaching and learning, but lacked the technical expertise to manage accounts with restricted security access and spend controls.

Solution

The university deployed Innovation Sandbox on AWS and transferred account allocation authority to their administrative and academic staff. To combat the first challenge of resource inefficiencies with sandbox use, the university used the solution to configure their account recycle preferences based on spend limits and course duration. The administrative and academic staff leveraged the UI to gain comprehensive visibility into spend and time usage across all sandboxes leases and report on it.

The university was able to use the security policies and cost controls that came out-of-the-box with the solution and configured it to suit their needs. They were able to quickly set up controlled AWS learning environments, with predefined security policies and budget controls, that seamlessly integrated with their teaching objectives and departmental requirements. They also developed an automated scheduling system for sandbox account allocation and de-allocation that accommodated both course schedules and staff project timelines.

Outcomes

The deployment of the Innovation Sandbox on AWS transformed IT efficiency and departmental autonomy:

• Optimized resource utilization: The solution streamlined administrative processes through automated account management, providing clear visibility into usage patterns across departments.
• Secured use of isolated sandboxes: The platform enabled non-technical staff and academic services to leverage AWS capabilities independently while improving security posture with minimal IT overhead.
• Established cost governance: The system facilitated the integration of AWS tools into teaching and learning activities while managing departmental budgets effectively.
• Self-service sandboxes: The implementation reduced IT department involvement through automated capabilities while maintaining robust security and governance standards.

Voice of the customer

“We had built a new course module to teach GenAI and get our students familiarized with the use of Amazon Bedrock. We were able to get this rolling quite quickly with Innovation Sandbox on AWS and managed to make Amazon Bedrock available to students in a controlled way, with security and cost controls in place. The module we introduced now enables a set of law students to build their own GenAI Law agent for their Law Advice clinic. Our vision is for the GenAI Law agent to be improved each semester by new students to eventually create an innovative agentic AI product that could be used by all law students within the university or even better, in the broader legal industry.“

— Ben Orza, former lead technology architect – IT Services, University of Sheffield

University of East London, UK

Background

The University of East London (UEL) is a top-ranked public educational institution in London, UK and has served over 40,000 students who represent over 160 nationalities. The university is focused on positively influencing society through higher education. They are on a mission to empower students to build successful careers and equip them with skills that are sought after by employers.

Challenges

Academic departments at UEL—particularly within Engineering & Computing—initially leveraged AWS Academy to provide foundational cloud education. AWS Academy proved effective in introducing students to cloud fundamentals and sparking interest in cloud technologies. However, as UEL’s curriculum evolved to emphasize more advanced cloud-native and AI skills, the university recognized the need for a more comprehensive experiential learning environment.

Students required more isolated environments to develop and maintain long-term projects for the duration of the semester and educators sought greater flexibility to embed cloud technologies deeply into their module designs. Additionally, as the demand for practical experience with advanced AWS services grew, UEL needed a solution that could provide broader access to these tools without compromising security or increasing the operational burden on central IT.

UEL’s goal was to build upon the solid foundation provided by AWS Academy and create a more scalable, flexible, and autonomous AWS environment. This environment would need to support both students and teaching staff effectively, allowing for real-world learning experiences that align closely with industry practices and emerging technologies.

Solution

After exploring various options, UEL adopted Innovation Sandbox on AWS to address their cloud education challenges. The solution provided students and academic teams with on-demand access to full-featured, time-bound AWS accounts. The university’s IT Services team deployed the solution and quickly onboarded over 330 sandbox accounts to support hundreds of students across various disciplines, offering a comprehensive and flexible learning environment.

The solution’s self-service portal allowed students to request a lease of an AWS account in minutes, streamlining the onboarding process. Predefined lease templates came with built-in controls for approval, duration, and cleanup—enabling efficient resource management. Academic and IT staff benefited from an intuitive UI, enabling centralized monitoring of accounts and leases without needing to manage any technical overhead. The academic staff were able to leverage the solution’s integration with AWS IAM Identity Center to manage student access for module delivery, assignments, and assessments. Furthermore, it provided support for advanced services like Amazon Bedrock, enabling hands-on exploration of cutting-edge technologies such as generative AI.

This transition has empowered teaching teams to design real-world learning experiences that extend far beyond a single login session. The Innovation Sandbox on AWS has effectively transformed UEL’s approach to cloud education, providing a more robust, flexible, and engaging platform for both students and educators.

Outcomes

The deployment of the Innovation Sandbox on AWS transformed UEL’s educational infrastructure and student experience:

• Persistent learning environments: Students keep their AWS environment for the full duration of their lease, supporting long-term projects and iterative development.
• Greater flexibility for educators: Cloud services can now be embedded into a broader range of modules, including optional and cross-disciplinary offerings.
• Support for advanced services: Academic staff can expose students to tools like Amazon Bedrock, Amazon SageMaker, or AWS Lambda without IT intervention.
• Improved student engagement: Students gain real autonomy and see the direct application of cloud technology in coursework and research.
• Scalable and secure: With automated cleanup, account recycling, and guardrails in place, the solution supports large student cohorts without risk or manual overhead.

Voice of the customer

“Innovation Sandbox on AWS has reduced operational burden for our AWS admins by streamlining the management of sandbox environments for students and staff to experiment with. We manage over 330 sandbox accounts through this product and it has simplified our sandbox lifecycle management, enabling me to spend more time on the academic objectives—to create various environments that students need for their learning requirements.”

— Jordan Richards, AWS solutions architect – IT Services, University of East London

“With Innovation Sandbox on AWS, I can create learning environments that mirror real industry use cases—like serverless apps, AI agents, and microservices. I don’t need to involve IT for every change. Students can now approach a cloud environment not just for completing coursework—but as a platform for experimentation, innovation, research and even entrepreneurship.”

— Gaurav Malik, director of education and experience – Department of Engineering & Computing, University of East London

Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Vietnam

Background

Hanoi University of Science and Technology (HUST), established in 1956, is Vietnam’s first multidisciplinary technical university. With a long-standing reputation for excellence in research, science, and engineering, HUST has been at the forefront of driving the country’s industrial and technological advancement. Today, the university is home to around 40,000 students and is implementing a forward-looking development strategy focused on internationalization, innovation, digital transformation, and establishing itself as a “shared digital university.”

Challenge

As part of its innovation agenda, HUST launched HACK TOGETHER 2025, a national hackathon aimed at improving user experience in the banking sector. The event attracted multidisciplinary teams comprising students, developers, data scientists, and finance professionals. With 24 teams expected to build and prototype technical solutions in just two weeks, HUST faced several challenges:

• Infrastructure setup: Providing each team with a secure, isolated environment to build and test solutions without risk to core systems.
• Scalability and governance: Managing multiple cloud accounts with appropriate security guardrails and usage policies in place.
• Cost control: Ensuring budget predictability and avoiding runaway cloud usage costs.
• Operational overhead: Reducing time spent managing infrastructure so HUST staff could focus on mentoring and innovation enablement.

Solution

To address these challenges, HUST partnered with AWS to implement Innovation Sandbox on AWS, a solution designed to simplify the creation, governance, and automatic recycling of sandbox environments, with features such as:

• Self-service portal for users to request AWS accounts
• Automated sandbox lease management with built-in security and usage controls
• Spending caps and monitoring to enable cost transparency
• Scheduled lease expiration to clean up unnecessary resources and reduce waste

Working with AWS, the HUST IT team was able to onboard 24 hackathon teams to their own isolated AWS accounts within days. These environments were configured with automated governance and guardrails, giving participants freedom to innovate without the burden of managing infrastructure or worrying about security and budget.

Outcome

The deployment of the Innovation Sandbox on AWS transformed HUST’s hackathon execution:

• Faster onboarding: 24 teams were onboarded in days, with zero manual provisioning.
• Secure experimentation: Teams built, tested, and deployed innovative solutions in isolated environments.
• Focus on innovation: Participants spent time solving real banking UX challenges, not dealing with cloud setup or permissions.
• Cost and risk mitigation: Automated guardrails and cost controls prevented overages and policy violations.
• Scalable model: HUST now has a repeatable model to support future innovation initiatives on AWS.

Voice of the customer

“The Innovation Sandbox on AWS was instrumental in enabling us to host HACK TOGETHER 2025 at scale and onboard 24 hackathon teams in just a few days. By providing secure and isolated environments, the solution empowered our hackathon teams to experiment freely, while giving us the peace of mind through built-in governance and cost controls. This solution aligned perfectly with our digital transformation strategy and helped us create a truly innovative and hands-on experience for all participants.”

— Nguyen Binh Minh, associate professor and dean, Institute for Digital Technology and Economy, Hanoi University of Science and Technology

Ready to accelerate your cloud innovation journey?

Innovation Sandbox on AWS offers a powerful solution for AWS customers to streamline their sandbox environment management while maintaining security, improving cost management, and ensuring recyclability. Whether you’re an educational institution looking to enhance student learning experiences, an enterprise focusing on developer productivity, or an organization driving innovation initiatives, getting started is simple.

Visit the AWS Solutions Library today to deploy Innovation Sandbox and start transforming how your organization approaches cloud experimentation. To learn more:

• Explore the detailed implementation guide in our documentation and get started with deploying the solution
• Check out the solution’s GitHub repo
• Connect with an AWS solutions architect to discuss your specific needs

Don’t let complex sandbox management hold back your innovation. Take the first step toward simplified, secure, and cost-effective cloud experimentation with Innovation Sandbox on AWS today.