Acquire HP-UX best practices
June 23, 2006
Many an HP 3000 customer must migrate, at the direction of their application gurus or senior management. If Unix is your destination, you may be faced with training your HP 3000 staff in Unix administration. There are several ways to do this; the HP enterprise user group Encompass just added another.
Encompass is offering a one-day, 8:30-4 drill on HP-UX SysAdmin Best Practices on Sept. 17 in Houston, one day before this year's HP Technology Forum begins. The course's 6-plus hours are taught by Bill Hassell, the HP community's Unix guru formerly with HP (for more than two decades, include Response Center support service). Hassell is operating his own training company, Bill Hassell Consulting.
Hassell's training courses remain in the HP class lineup for Unix, too. Online HP-UX courses at the HP Education Web site, which we reviewed in the NewsWire back when they first appeared in 2003, include two modules credited to Hassell. HP's charging a total of just under $1,000 for taking those courses over the Internet. The cost for the Encompass course, in-person, is less than half that much, if you're a user group member. (Of course, you have to factor in the travel and time away from the IT shop, if you're estimating budget.)
The details on the Hassell course offered at the Tech Forum say that it is aimed at "System Administrators, IT Managers, or Database Administrators." The $450 charge for the course promises to deliver "timesaving techniques as well as security measures to prevent mistakes" and "many undocumented or obscure techniques for managing HP-UX."
The $450 rate is only available to Encompass members; that's a $90 charge, but it also earns the IT pro going to Houston a discount on the conference (list price is $1,195 for that event, separate from the cost for HP-UX SysAdmin Best Practices.)
Training has value, as does every kind of education; information from experienced trainers is rarely even close to free. HP offers those online courses for free since 2003. (A magic code HP distributed to every 3000 customer that HP could find earned free admission to the courses, as our reviewer John Burke noted back in 2003.)
HP-UX administration might be something your company is lucky enough to have on hand already. If not, a course like this is a good investment in your mission-critical business applications if you're migrating.