* Microsoft Windows Server system hands-on labs
Microsoft has a couple of free one-day, hands-on labs coming to a town near you in the near future.
Training: It’s something you can never really get enough of. Free training, which sometimes is only worth the price you pay for it, can also be invaluable because of the topic, the method of instruction or the presenter. In the two examples I want to mention today, the topics are very important to some of you, the method is the best (in my estimation), and the presenter is Microsoft. Three out of three – only the Red Sox did better than that.
“Training” can mean a white paper, a book, a long magazine article, a seminar, a lecture, a “birds of a feather” session or, just occasionally, a hands-on training lab. When you get to learn, train and make mistakes on someone else’s computers – that’s a gigantic plus.
The person leading the training can have an enormous impact, also. Generally, product training backed by the product vendor is your best bet. This ensures at least the opportunity for inside information. You probably won’t hear about the drawbacks or downsides of the product, but reading a good review (such as the extensive tests done by Network World Test Labs) can point out those problems.
Then there’s the cost. The actual cost, in and of itself, isn’t an important factor in evaluating a training opportunity except as it becomes more or less possible to convince the bean counters that the expense is justified. What we should really be interested in is the value – the amount learned per dollar spent. When you spend no dollars, then anything you can learn makes it a great value.
Microsoft has a couple of free one-day, hands-on labs coming to a town near you in the near future.
Under the rubric “We know what you’re dealing with”, Microsoft is offering a series of sessions dealing, generally, with Microsoft’s Server systems. There are two, in particular, that I’d like to point out. They won’t be of interest to all of you directly. But some of you, or some of your staff, could probably benefit greatly from taking one or both of these sessions.
The first, Active Directory Fundamentals Hands-On Lab, is targeted at IT professionals who have experience with the day-to-day administration tasks in a network environment, but not necessarily with Active Directory. This lab will teach you the fundamentals of Active Directory and its capabilities.
The second is for those recalcitrant procrastinators out there (you know who you are) who keep finding reasons to put off migrating to a 21st century platform. Migrating from Windows NT 4.0 to Windows Server 2003 is aimed at those who have determined it is time to upgrade their NT 4.0 domain and are looking for more information and direction on how to upgrade. Using Virtual PC, students will upgrade an NT 4.0 domain, and migrate users and computers to an upgraded Windows Server 2003 domain with Active Directory installed. Like I said, isn’t it better to try this stuff out on some one else’s network first?
If you, or any of your staff, fit the target group for either of these sessions I’d suggest you go immediately to the link below and register while space is still available.
