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What Would You Recommend for IT Training?
ITPhantom wonders: "It is that time again and my supervisor has been coming around and asking what training and conferences I would like to attend in the upcoming year. I have recently been put in charge of the management and security of a few dozen machines in our department, and our internal network (simple as it may be). While most of the machines that I am responsible for are running Windows, there are a few Linux machines in the mix. I am fairly proficient with Windows, but have not had any real experience managing Linux machines, though I have been a casual user for about a year. With all of the options available, from online training to extensive boot camps and seminars, what would you recommend for training in the areas above?"
Just RTFM, it's the Linux Way®
I've been a general programmer for 10+ years. I didn't think I'd get much out of a CCNA class but I really enjoyed it. Many things that were hazy before (subnet masks, switches vs routers, etc) are now crystal clear.
I'm now using my new knowledge of the UDP protocol to do some cool broadcasting stuff in some of my client-server apps.
$7.95/mo, 200 GB disk, 2TBxfer, MySQL, PHP, RoR.
I don't know about the rest of the slashdotters, but from the experience i got from college i would get some books on the matter before attending any kind of training. I know this is not the quickest way out, but is the thorough way, and believe me sometimes in IT doing it right is much more important than doing it quickly.
There's so much good stuff available for free on the internet that i can't even point out where exactly you can start, that depends on what you want to learn first
But, anyhow, if budget is not a problem in your job, as it is in my, you could still benefit from some by-yourself studying before you face some formal training.
What is best in life? To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations of their women.
...classes in Indian and Chinese. Pretty sure those skills will pay off big in the next 20 years or so.
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
I would sign up for a subscription to the safari bookshelf service from o'reilly being able to search such a large library can be very valuable for things you have little experience with. I come from the dev. side so I dont know of many sys admin specific "classroom" type stuff, but I have always got alot out of SD Expo and the many break out session esp. the birds of a feather after hours "tech chat over beers" meetings (It hasnt been as good since y2k but still valuable).
I'm assuming you're more then capable in the desktop support arena. The above recommendations are things I've had to relearn over the past 10 years in managing a system that started with 50 and has since grown to 5500 nodes. The more adaptable you build your fledgling network today, the more you'll thank me down the line.
If you're half as beautiful naked, you'd be 4 times as beautiful with twice as many clothes on.
What most programmers would like:
Give each programmer a $500 per annum budget they can spend on tech books, let them keep the books, bring em home, read in their own time.
Total cost: $500 each for any employee who actually bothers.
What most managers do:
Spend $3000 per head on a 3 day seminar, send several employee costing the company 3 days work from each person.
Total cost: $3500+ per employee whether they bother paying attention or not.