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WAN/LAN/VoIP Training Other than Cisco?
skeezix-the-cat asks: "After 9/11, the economy tanked, and a lot of state budgets shrank drastically, especially IT budgets. I work for a NOC for a western state with a population as sparse as Wyoming, but not nearly as well connected that was particularly hard hit by the recession. Training money at our agency has been scant, almost non-existent since 2001. Security has seen some bucks, and Windows/Microsoft training of course for the LAN team but general WAN training has suffered. Cisco VoIP training would be swell, and it's everywhere (but in our state). I have one shot at top-shelf training, a week, maybe two. What else is out there as far as LAN/WAN/VoIP training that would cover VoIP and related in a non-Cisco format that still would translate into my Cisco environment?"
"Even with the lack of training, we do ok -- Cisco TAC is nothing to sneeze at, Qwest carrier services techs are available and (IMHO) second to none, and our WAN team is blessedly a talented bunch of self starters. We route, switch, tunnel and bridge just about any whacked out architecture you can think of (but no MPLS yet.....). Our WAN is insane --multi-vendor frame, ATM, private DSL, private-line, lashed to a Sonet-MGX core (among other aggregation schemes), you name it we do it.
It has come to pass that I have a rare opportunity for some honest-to-god paid-for training, and w/ VoIP barreling down on everyone, this is where i'm looking to throw myself with this chance. We are pretty much a Cisco shop, but some agencies are prevailing on non-Cisco VoIP solutions. I have CBWFQ successfully making VoIP work --VoIP 'trunking' switch-attached phones between multi-cloud-connected sites w/ ATM-- across select backwaters of our network, I grok the basics and can even make it work.
I'm no expert, but I'm to the point, having made it work in one or two locations, that I have some nuanced, technique questions even (queueing, etc). If the Cisco training is all that's realistically available, I'll take it and be grateful, be it Cisco VoIP offerings or (jeepers) CIT would be fantastic...arguably better/more useful than the VoIP stuff, per se.
Is anyone out there prevailing on any great WAN/routing/QoS/troubleshooting training that *isn't* Cisco? Management wants me to tell them what I want, and tell them soon as in within the week --before the money evaporates."
It has come to pass that I have a rare opportunity for some honest-to-god paid-for training, and w/ VoIP barreling down on everyone, this is where i'm looking to throw myself with this chance. We are pretty much a Cisco shop, but some agencies are prevailing on non-Cisco VoIP solutions. I have CBWFQ successfully making VoIP work --VoIP 'trunking' switch-attached phones between multi-cloud-connected sites w/ ATM-- across select backwaters of our network, I grok the basics and can even make it work.
I'm no expert, but I'm to the point, having made it work in one or two locations, that I have some nuanced, technique questions even (queueing, etc). If the Cisco training is all that's realistically available, I'll take it and be grateful, be it Cisco VoIP offerings or (jeepers) CIT would be fantastic...arguably better/more useful than the VoIP stuff, per se.
Is anyone out there prevailing on any great WAN/routing/QoS/troubleshooting training that *isn't* Cisco? Management wants me to tell them what I want, and tell them soon as in within the week --before the money evaporates."
has some certs other than that you are looking at proprietary certs for a particular product.
YDI (DC based, I think) offers training seminars/conferences. I've sent some employees there and have been reasonably satisfied with the results. Here's their info page: http://www.ydi.com/support/training.php
caritj.org
New Kinetics http://newkinetics.com/ offer VoIP training, primarily focused on European clients for their VoIP courses, though they do perform in house training in the US too.
Buy the Cisco Press books then take the certification test. Then pass the books on to the next person in your department. Easy as pie. Those classes are usually hard to learn anything concrete from anyway.
Avaya has a very strong presence in the VoIP world. They offer training all over so check them out. Will it carry over? It depends. All of the management and software is different between vendors. Sure, some of the underlying stuff is the same, but anything you usually mess with is different.
Get FreeSCO (http://www.freesco.org/) and download FAQs and stuff. Even the "cheap" training places don't offer their product for free, and you can at least nail the concepts down with books and Internet-provided information. I work for a $4 billion pharmaceutical and am allowed exactly one training course per year.
I understand you want to get some formalized training while the getting is good. Don't blame you there.
But, honestly, the absolute best way to learn something like this is to do it. Download asterisk and start playing. You can even connect a free soft-phone (SIP) to it so there is really no up front cost.
IMHO, formalized training is only useful *after* you have already learned a good deal about the subject matter. It gives you a chance to organize all you thoughts that have been plaguing you, and have a compentent teacher answer them for you.
Going in cold to VOIP lab, when you leave you will understand some jargon - but most of the deep concepts will escape you.
You don't need a training class. If you go through the Cisco web site, you'll see that all of the manuals are right there. While lengthy, those manuals provide very comprehensive discussion around the specific commands/steps to implement the concepts. If you look at the tech notes, you'll find all sorts of information on the theory. Together, you get a comprehensive picture of both the high-level concepts and the low-level commands.
I just went through a CallManager/CRS installation, and spent most of my time reading the Admin Guides and the System Guides, and spent some quality time with the VoIP-specific IOS guides to setup my gateways. Really, look in the manual, and you'll see: Step 1: bla, Step 2: bla, To Verify Setup: bla. No training, no certification, just a working system. Those manuals are great, and TAC will help you out on the rare occasion you get stuck.
From your question, it really looks like you've figured out the CallManager stuff, and are now just optimizing your network. The thing to keep in mind about VoIP is that it's oIP. All of the knowledge that you already have about traffic optimization applies directly to the voice traffic.
Spend your training bucks elsewhere, preferably at a conference that takes you to Tahiti.
Well, there are a few standards in the area of VoIP so, your request shouldn't be out-of-line. But, the fact is that the two biggest players in the VoIP arena are Cisco and Nortel. They both claim to follow the standards but, they also both have enough of their own proprietary stuff in there to make them non-standard. Cisco waffles on about H323 and SIP, Nortel does too but, both prefer their own signaling system.
Your employer, a government agency, is unlikely to implement any of the lessor vendor's products. Furthermore, you will never see the likes of Asterisk or Skype while employed there. This all means that you should get vendor training from whomever your employer is most likely to implement. On the surface, it sounds like that would be Cisco but, check the telephone on your desk. If it is a Nortel phone, then there is a good chance that your state may implement a Nortel VoIP solution.
sorry, this is what I meant to type in . . http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-VoIP+Training Asterisk is worth looking into - install if you like. It is compatible with sip and cisco's "skinny" protocol and works with cisco phones as well as many others. It also does h.323 (if you like pain), iax2 (used by some big companies such as VoicePulse), adsi, sip, etc. http://www.voip-info.org/tiki-index.php?page=Aster isk
You can download an iso and install it from the iso or run from a live cd:
http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Asterisk+installatio n+tips
all above are from http://wwww.voip-info.org/