FULL Sail University is set to open the IBM Cyber Defense Range powered by AWS and Cloud Range on campus, with the opening scheduled for April 2026. The facility, housed within the university’s Emerging Tech Wing, will provide live attack-and-defence exercises, incident response practice, and realistic simulations to mirror evolving cybersecurity scenarios, including an operational Security Operations Center training environment.
The range features a 1,463+ square-foot learning area, 107.8 square feet of Absen 136" screens, and 28 stations equipped with 27-inch HP monitors, HP Elite desktops and Thunderbolt hubs, enabling connections to student laptops. It will use IBM’s range of technologies, powered by AWS and Cloud Range, to monitor, detect and mitigate threats in simulated enterprise and cloud environments, with team-based exercises and malware analysis, threat hunting, and digital forensics simulations.
The project was announced by Full Sail and includes comments from Rene Plasencia of IBM, Faisal Hanafi of AWS, and Debbie Gordon of Cloud Range, emphasising the collaboration to strengthen Florida’s talent pipeline. A ribbon-cutting ceremony and official opening are currently scheduled for 16 April 2026, according to Dark Reading.