Weekend AIX Training

[KPKIND]

Hi All,

In the current circumstances, where people are looking to switch profiles (to AIX) and finding it difficult to foot the massive bill of IBM training costs, I am trying to understand if there is an appetite for Weekend Training in AIX in UK from AIX Professionals with years of real time experience.

Ofcourse at a fraction of cost and with much more real time touch than the IBM trainers who in some cases have lost touch with the real world and still continue to train people. Added to all these advantages people interested need not loose their working days and still be equipped with much better skill set that what they usually get from IBM.

All Comments welcome..

Cheers

 

[xwb]

AIX is basically IBM's version of Unix. If you have a spare PC, just stick one of the many variants of Linux on it. Alternatively, you could do it as a VM using VMWare player. You can get Linux either by downloading the ISO or picking up a Linux magazine with a DVD from your local newsagent or from one of the for Dummies books.

Installing a Linux environment is almost the same as installing a Windows environment. If you have a choice of Gnome or KDE, choose KDE. KDE is closest to CDE used by AIX. If you do this as a VM, keep a spare copy. If you mess up, just reload the spare copy and you're back at square one in the time it took you to copy the VM (5-10 minutes).

Once you have installed it and logged in, pop up a terminal (cmd prompt in Windows) and have a look at what is available. Whether you've installed Gnome or KDE, on the command line, all commands behave the same. Try setting your preferred shell to kornshell so you can get used to the idiosyncracies of kornshell. It is slightly different from bash which is the Linux default. Unlike DOS, Unix shellscript like a programming language. It can do switch statements, inputs etc. It can also be incorporated into GUIs like zenity.

Unix has several editors: vi, emacs and gedit. vi is worth learning as it is the only one that is guaranteed to exist on almost every Unix system. emacs just eats memory and gedit is like notepad. vi variants like vim and elvis do syntax highlighting.

The fun tools are grep (= MS findstr), sed, awk and find. There are also lots of scripting languages for all sorts. Depends on which direction you wish to go. The for dummies books will take you quite a long way.

Once you have gotten used to those, have a look in /etc. This is the equivalent of %windir% and the windows registry. Only difference is that most of them are configurable text files. Networks, services etc are all in there. You might need a book to help you navigate /etc.

Once you've gotten used to all the trivial stuff, then start looking at courses in specific areas like MQ Series etc. No point paying over the top for something you can easily learn by yourself.

 

[strongm]

Er ... I think KPKIND is floating the idea of offering cheap AIX training, not wanting to know how they might learn Linux ...

 

[KPKIND]

I agree with what xwb is saying in regards to self learning and this sort of learning can be done with pretty much most of the subjects in IT, not just with Unix. So if that is the case why are there so many people registering for trainings given by the vendor by paying so much money.

Self learning might not be very helpful in all cases, specially when people are coming from a diff background.

Moreover I would like to let you know that although AIX is a variant of Unix, it has its own differences in the way it is configured and managed. A person who is familiar with Linux might have some clue of how things work on AIX ,but there are some major differences (say in LVM,ODM) in basics of how AIX works and Linux works.

From what I can think of, some of the advantages of getting trained by vendor or by any professional with real time experience is as below

1.Explanation of concepts with their application in real time
2.Issues that are encountered in real time (Not all vendor trainers have up to date info on such things)
3.Challenges we have in terms of change management/ITIL practices while carrying out these activities(Not all vendor trainers have up to date info on such things)

Cheers
Praveen

 

[KPKIND]

strongm..that's exactly what I am trying to offer.

Of late I have been interviewing candidates who have said they have completed training from vendors but were not up to scratch. Hence this idea of providing a much more realistic training that will help people get the launch pad required to get in to a real time role.

Cheers

 

[strongm]

>why are there so many people registering for trainings given by the vendor by paying so much money

And here's the crux of the matter - it is mainly so that they can get a certificate recognized by the industry which thus improves salary or employment choice.

 

[KPKIND]

I agree but don't you think there is much more value if they get a certification rather than just a training completion certificate.

I would say this certification can be achieved most effectively by attending a training given by people who are in the bussines using their skills day-in day-out, rather than by going through self learning or vendor training.