IT People: I Has Free Training!! What do I Take?

Hi Folks.

It turns out that I am entitled to some free IT training through my employer. It is online and instructor led, so it should be good. The question is, what to take. Right now I am working as a VMware admin with a storage secondary focus. I really want to branch out into something that will keep me in demand in the future. What do you guys see as a big need out there? Here is the list of classes. What would you take?

Mondays / Wednesdays - From 6-10pm PST for 5 weeks: 10/22/12: CSP-PR Programming with C# 10/22/12: AND-PR1 Android Programming I 10/29/12: MSF-SA8 MS Windows Server 2008 Administration 10/29/12: DIS-R1 Disaster Recovery for Information Technology 11/05/12: CIS-ND2 Configuring Cisco Network Devices (ICND2) 11/05/12: MSF-EX10 MS Exchange Server 2010 Administration 11/05/12: LIN-SA1 Linux System Administration I 11/12/12: MSF-S12 MS Windows Server 2012 Administration

Tuesdays / Thursdays - From 6-10pm PST for 5 weeks: 10/23/12: PMT-TP SDLC Project Mgmt IV- PMP Test Preparation 10/25/12: SQL-TS1 Programming SQL Server 2008 with Transact SQL 10/30/12: IPH-PR1 Iphone Programming I

Seems like it's going to take more than a class to get anywhere meaningful with most of those topics. Is there any difference in your level of interest between them? Something you want an intro to before further study?

As a total non-staffing-expert, the SQL and Cisco classes are the first ones that grab my attention as being consistently in demand...

I keep hearing that Linux sysadmin pays well but don't see this from actually doing it. Now's a good time to take the Windows Server 2012 course. The more advanced MSSQL courses may be worth your time, but I hate MSSQL so much I'd hate to work with it more than I already do. The basics of SQL you could easily learn on your own, not worth doing a course for IMO.

I see SQL job postings everywhere so I would follow that route. That and Java, but that's in my area. I guess it all depends on what track you want to follow and I would stay concentrated in that area.

Free training is the best training so take all of it that you can get.

I like the disaster recovery course. I'd expect it to have lots of general concepts that should be applicable elsewhere. It's not resume padding like some of the others, but I think it has a good potential for expanding your quality of work.

IT worked for my cuz...

Mike wrote: I like the disaster recovery course. I'd expect it to have lots of general concepts that should be applicable elsewhere. It's not resume padding like some of the others, but I think it has a good potential for expanding your quality of work.

Quality of work doesn't count for E36 M3 sadly, broaden your skills or pad that resume - and broadening your skills only helps if it also pads your resume.

PMP prep, by a country mile. A good project manager with technical expertise is worth their weight in gold in the "line of business"...and can be compensated accordingly.

I do Linux and Cisco personally and that stuff seems to be pretty good to me. I would really look at stuff you are interested in because if you want to change directions make sure it is something you enjoy doing.

It does seem that you really need to focus in on one aspect of IT to be considered for anything. You use that "Jack of all trades" thing and it scares most employers off. Try explain to an employer that during your experience of being an automotive tech that you've had work with diagnosing IT issues and they will look at your crazy.

see what gigs are offered in your area, then get training in that.

^This . . . by a mile . . .

If it were me . . . I would look at the PMP stuff. All the other IT subject (MS, Linux, Cisco, et. al.) areas can be "self-learned" with a little bit of digging and time. The SQL stuff can be promising as well as the programmer piece. As most PMs will be on big data/application projects, you can leverage that to actually understand the DBAs and developers for assistance run a smooth project . . . IMHO

I have been mostly successful in dodging the ludicrous amount for $$$$ certs and still get "cert" specific jobs. I can usually run circles around the guys that have them . . . but YMMV

"It's not the fact that you have a best hammer ever produced . . . but knowing when and how well to use it is more important" - Some E36 M3 that people say

I do MSSQL Server 2K5 (mostly) fer bucks. Given your current background, I would suggest you consider the MS Windows Server 2012 Administration, maybe the network/router stuff.

Here's a good one: For ~5 years, after moving to a VM for one of our SQL Servers (think of the money we'll save), the "experts" finally fixed it so it wouldn't crash every week if you used it, with a registry hack. Yeah, seems that the VM's would corrupt the drives if you tried to access a large file. SQL Server uses large files. Some VM support guy found a registry hack to fix it. So we could get the DB's off the box to a new box that worked.

I'd go with the Cisco, Linux, and PMP Training in that order. Cisco's networking components are really solid, and they have a ton of market share. The vBlock that's put out by the VCE (VMware, Cisco, and EMC) is a combination of Cisco UCS Servers and top-of-rack networking components, EMC VNX or VMAX Storage, and VMware software. I had to opportunity to tour the plant up in Hopkington, MA, and it was pretty impressive. If I was designing a private cloud infrastructure from scratch, that's what I'd be going with. HP Blades are impressive servers, but HP's support and knowledge of their product (especially the fiber interconnects for the Blade Chassis) is awful.

Windows admins are pretty common, but finding a solid Linux admin is much harder. Linux support is also crucial to enterprise database platforms (such as Oracle), as well as enterprise apps like SAP.

Going the PMP route can open up more possibilities, but be careful not to lose your technical skills. Being a project manager is kind of like being in middle management, you can be replaced by another PM. As a PM, keeping up your technical skills will give you an edge over other PMs. PMs with an infrastructure background are rare, so there's definitely a good opportunity in that space.

You're actually positioned well for the growth in Cloud computing by having a background in VMware and Storage. If you can, I'd continue to focus on the storage side, as there are many opportunities in that area, as well.