Source Solutions

How & Why We Built Microsoft UC Administration Training

While Source Solutions offers IT training on a wide range of Microsoft products, communication servers are both my area of specialty and a great area of interest. When it comes down to it, one of the most important uses of technology is helping us communicate with one another.

Which is why I’m so excited about launching Source Solutions’ newly developed Microsoft Unified Communications Administration Course. We designed the course to fill the gap between the training that currently exists for the folks who install the server‑-training we also teach–and the realities of day-to-day UC administration. Too often, organizations are left with a perfectly installed server – but no idea what to do when something goes wrong down the line.

To develop the course, we sat down with some of the leading technologists and UC deployment experts in the nation and asked them, “What do your clients need after you’ve left?” The result is the most comprehensive Microsoft UC administration course on the market. 

We are offering open enrollment UC courses around the country this fall and can bring the course to you through a custom on-site deployment. Call me at 866.323.8073.

We Update our Training Frequently. As Everyone Should.

The problem with most official curriculum material that comes from Microsoft (and other “standard” vendors) is that it is quickly out of date.  It takes them many months to publish a class in the first place and then it is, for the most part, forgotten.  Technology, however, is never stagnant.  New tools, enhancements, add-ons and versions are continually being released that can render a class stale, if not completely out of date.  Course attendees expect, and deserve, the latest and most relevant information for their money.

Our courses are constantly updated to respond not only to new technological developments, but also to your needs. On many levels, each course we deliver is unique. (Last time I checked, each of our clients are unique, too. See a connection?). As relevant developments enhance the product, we quickly incorporate into our training. 

Case in point: the DPM Management Pack team just yesterday released the new System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 Management Pack for monitoring with Operations Manager.  What DPM 2010 administration course would be complete without including up-to-date information on monitoring?  So we have already started the evaluation process and begun to incorporate this into our course.  You can find a nice introduction to it at this TechNet Blog.  You can find our course outline here.

We’ve also already updated our Microsoft Unified Communications (UC) course to be focused on Lync Server and Exchange 2010, though the Lync software won’t officially be released for at least another month.  Why wait?  It will likely be many more months before the Microsoft official curriculum on Lync releases.  Yet isn’t this the time most enterprises need the training–as they prepare for the upgrade or actually start implementing?  When choosing a training vendor, make sure your training is as current as the software. And that your training vendor is as flexible as your business is unique.

To give you a chance to experience us in action, we’re offering 25% off all courses between now and the end of the year if you register by Thanksgiving 2010.

Lync Server 2010 Training Course

Several months ago we introduced our Microsoft Unified Communications course. The aim of the course was to focus on the administration and support of both Office Communications Server (OCS) and Exchange Unified Messaging. With the recent RTM of the newly branded Lync Server 2010 we are happy to announce that the course has been upgraded to cover Lync Server instead of OCS. We have also added Lync implementation/deployment to the course outline. Check out the course outline and schedule and call us if you are interested in a variation of the training for on-site private delivery. Please check out our course catalog for additional courses that we teach.

Advanced SCOM 2007 Training Course

I recently taught the Advanced System Center Operations Manager (50216B) course from the Microsoft Courseware Library. As those who are using it know, SCOM is a powerful cross-platform data center management system, but it can be quite overwhelming to fine tune properly.

I have taught this Microsoft official curriculum course many times. When you glance at the course outline, it seems ideal for the experienced SCOM admin. But when you get into the actual training, it is about a day and half’s worth of content—advertised and sold by Microsoft as a three-day course.  This kind of “standard curriculum” shortcoming is exactly where the value of an experienced and intuitive trainer makes all the difference. When I teach 50216B, I use the room that the curriculum provides to make specific applications to clients’ installations and spend time problem solving.

I find this class to be most successful when we are brought on-site to a company that has SCOM and needs help getting the product fine-tuned and/or under control. The attendees are often from various teams—everything from SQL admins to Exchange and SharePoint admins, etc.—and want to customize their alerts, notifications, reports and monitors so SCOM is relevant for them. This is my favorite sort of audience because the class becomes a blend of training and consulting.

When we are on-site, we can use your existing infrastructure to work through specific, relevant examples and teach to your actual problems. The aim is that you come out the other end of training not only having solved some of the problems that plague you, but also having learned how to continue making the solution work for you. We train you to work through the solutions—as opposed to a consultant who does all the work for you or a typical trainer who teaches only from the canned labs. When you work with a Source Solutions trainer, you get the best learning solution available. Other training companies can find you a teacher. We can meet your needs and equip you to be more efficient moving forward.

Microsoft Office Courses in Tampa, FL

We are proud to now be offering best-in-class Microsoft Office 2010 training courses in our Tampa, FL location. If you haven’t seen it yet, check out our new training factility here. We run these Office classes at a very convenient location right across the water from downtown Tampa in the Westin Harbour Island. Tons of parking and easy access.

We are now offering a full open enrollment schedule of Micorosoft Office 2010 courses on the following topics:

• Excel 2010 Courses
• Access 2010 Courses
• PowerPoint 2010 Courses
• Outlook 2010 Courses
• Word 2010 Courses

You can find the outlines and schedule for these classes by clicking here.

Give us a call if you would prefer to have us come to your location to do more customized, targeted training for your employees.

866.323.8073

System Center 2012 Operations Manager Training

It has been difficult for most companies to find good Operations Manager 2012 training, until now. Our SCOM 2012 training course is designed for admins and operators and will take you through everything from design and deployment to fine tuning alerts and custom management packs. We have been running this class now for over a year and have evolved and added to it, for instance as SP1 released. Other training vendors have been limited to using the Microsoft Private Cloud courses, which only touch briefly on SCOM and do not go into the depth necessary to make it really work for your enterprise.  Check it out here!

This courseware is also available for sale with lab images and setup support. Call us if you are a training vendor with clients who need real Operations Manager 2012 training.  Contact Us.