1 Educators providing Inventory courses in Birmingham

Ansible for engineers training course description An introduction to automation using ansible. Ansible is a general purpose IT automation platform that can be use for a number of purposes. The course covers configuration management, cloud provisioning and application deployment with ansible. Hands on sessions follow all major sections. What will you learn Install ansible. Automate tasks with ansible. Write ansible playbooks. Ansible for engineers training course details Who will benefit: Administrators and developers automating tasks. Prerequisites: Linux administration skills Duration 3 days Ansible for engineers training course contents What is ansible? The language, the engine, the framework. Uses of ansible, orchestration. Hands on Installing ansible. Ansible architecture ible architecture Controlling machines, nodes, Agentless, SSH, modules, JSON protocol. Configuration management, inventories, playbooks, modules, roles. Hands on Getting started, running ad hoc commands. Ansible and Vagrant Prototyping and testing. Hands on Using ansible with Vagrant. Ad hoc commands Parallelism, shell commands, managing files and directories, file transfer, package management, manage user and groups, deploying applications, service management, background jobs, checking log files, managing cron jobs. Hands on Using ansible with Vagrant. Playbooks ansible-playbook, users, sudo, YAML, plays, tasks, handlers, modules. Hands on Running playbooks. More playbooks Handlers, variables, environmental variables, playbook variables, inventory variables, variable scope and precedence, accessing variables, facts, ansible vault. Conditionals, wait_for. Hands on Using variables and conditions in playbooks. Roles and includes Dynamic includes, Handler includes, playbook includes. Roles, role parts: handlers, files, templates, cross platform roles, ansible galaxy. Hands on includes example, building roles. Inventories /etc/ansible/hosts, inventory variables, static inventories, dynamic inventories. Hands on Inventories and variables. Miscellanea Individual server cookbooks, Main playbook for configuring all servers. Hands onPlaybooks.

Ansible training course description The course focusses on the use of ansible for network devices instead of its usual server use case. The course progresses from the basics of ansible and playbooks onto using network specific modules including NAPALM. The use Jinja2 templating with ansible is also studied. Hands on sessions with ansible configuring routers and switches follow all major sections. What will you learn Automate tasks with ansible. Write ansible playbooks. Configure network devices with ansible. Troubleshoot network devices with ansible. Use ansible network modules. Use jinja2 templates with ansible. Ansible training course details Who will benefit: Network engineers. Prerequisites: TCP/IP Foundation Duration 2 days Ansible training course contents What is ansible? The language, the engine, the framework. Uses of ansible, orchestration. Hands on Installing ansible, enabling SSH on network devices. Ansible architecture How ansible 'normally' works, Agentless, SSH, ansible and Python, modules, how ansible work on network devices, Configuration management, inventories, playbooks, modules, ansible.cfg. Hands on Getting started, running ad hoc commands. Playbooks ansible-playbook, users, YAML, plays, tasks, modules. ansible-vault. Hands on Running playbooks. More playbooks Handlers, variables, environmental variables, playbook variables, inventory variables, variable scope and precedence, accessing variables, facts, ansible vault. Conditionals, wait_for. Hands on Using variables and conditions in playbooks. Inventories /etc/ansible/hosts, inventory variables, static inventories, dynamic inventories. Hands on Inventories and variables. Ansible network modules Built in modules, custom modules, return values. ansible-doc -l. connection: local, Cisco modules, Juniper module, Hands on Using modules for your network devices. Ansible templatings The template module, the assemble module, jinja2 templates, for, if else. Hands on Configuring network devices from templates. Roles and includes Dynamic includes, Handler includes, playbook includes. Roles, role parts: handlers, files, templates, cross platform roles, ansible galaxy. Hands on includes example, building roles. Ansible and NAPALM Installation, napalm-ansible, NAPALM modules: napalm_diff-yang, napalm_get_facts, napalm_install_config, napalm_parse_yang, napalm_ping, napalm_translate_yang, napalm_validate. Hands on Using NAPALM modules in ansible.

Network DevOps course description This course is not a soft skills course covering the concepts of DevOps but instead concentrates on the technical side of tools and languages for network DevOps. Particular technologies focussed on are ansible, git and Python enabling delegates to leave the course ready to starting automating their network. Hands on sessions follow all major sections. More detailed courses on individual aspects of this course are available. What will you learn Evaluate network automation tools. Automate tasks with ansible. Use git for version control. Use Python to manage network devices. Use Python libraries for network devices. Network DevOps course details Who will benefit: Administrators automating tasks. Prerequisites: TCP/IP Foundation Duration 5 days Network DevOps course contents What is DevOps Programming and automating networks, networks and clouds, AWS, OpenStack, SDN, DevOps for network operations. Initial configuration Configuring SSH, ZTP, POAP. Hands on Initial lab configuration. Getting started with ansible The language, the engine, the framework. Uses of ansible, orchestration. The architecture, Controlling machines, nodes, Agentless, SSH, modules. Configuration management, inventories, playbooks, modules, roles. Hands on Installing ansible, running ad hoc commands. Ansible playbooks ansible-playbook, YAML, plays, tasks, handlers, modules. Playbook variables. Register module, debug module. Hands on Running playbooks. Ansible Inventories /etc/ansible/hosts, hosts, groups, static inventories, dynamic inventories. Inventory variables, external variables. Limiting hosts. Hands on Static inventories, variables in inventory files. Ansible modules for networking Built in modules, custom modules, return values. Core modules for network operations. Cisco and/or Juniper modules. ansible_connection. Ansible 2.6 CLI. Hands on Using modules. Ansible templating and roles aConfiguration management, full configurations, partial configurations. The template module, the assemble module, connection: local, Jinja2 templates, variables, if, for, roles. Hands on Generating multiple configurations from a template. Network programming and modules Why use Python? Why use ansible? alternatives, ansible tower, Linux network devices. Programming with Python Python programming Functions. Classes, objects and instances, modules, libraries, packages. Python strings, Python file handling, pip list, pip instal. Hands on Python programming with pyping. More Python programming Functions. Classes, objects and instances, modules, libraries, packages. Python strings, Python file handling, pip list, pip install. Hands on Python programming with pyping. Git Distributed version control, repositories, Git and GitHub, Alternatives to GitHub, Installing git, git workflows, creating repositories, adding and editing files, branching and merging, merge conflicts. Hands on working with Git. Python and networking APIs, Sockets, Telnetlib, pysnmp, ncclient, ciscoconfparse. Paramiko SSH and Netmiko Integrating Python and network devices using SSH. Netmiko, Netmiko methods. Hands on Netmiko. NAPALM What is NAPALM, NAPALM operations, getters, Replace, merge, compare, commit, discard. Hands on Configuration with NAPALM. Integrating ansible and NAPALM. Python and REST REST APIs, enabling the REST API. Accessing the REST API with a browser, cURL, Python and REST, the request library. Hands on Using a REST API with network devices.

Network automation course description This course is not a soft skills course covering the concepts of DevOps but instead concentrates on the technical side of tools and languages for network DevOps. Particular technologies focussed on are ansible, git and Python enabling delegates to leave the course ready to starting automating their network. Hands on sessions follow all major sections. More detailed courses on individual aspects of this course are available. What will you learn Evaluate network automation tools. Automate tasks with ansible. Use git for version control. Use Python to manage network devices. Use Python libraries for network devices. Network automation course details Who will benefit: Network engineers. Prerequisites: TCP/IP foundation for engineers. Duration 5 days Network automation course contents What is DevOps Programming and automating networks, networks and clouds, AWS, OpenStack, SDN, DevOps for network operations. Initial configuration Configuring SSH, ZTP, POAP. Hands on Initial lab configuration. Getting started with ansible The language, the engine, the framework. Uses of ansible, orchestration. The architecture, Controlling machines, nodes, Agentless, SSH, modules. Configuration management, inventories, playbooks, modules, roles. Hands on Installing ansible, running ad hoc commands. Ansible playbooks ansible-playbook, YAML, plays, tasks, handlers, modules. Playbook variables. Register module, debug module. Hands on Running playbooks. Ansible Inventories /etc/ansible/hosts, hosts, groups, static inventories, dynamic inventories. Inventory variables, external variables. Limiting hosts. Hands on Static inventories, variables in inventory files. Ansible modules for networking Built in modules, custom modules, return values. Core modules for network operations. Cisco and/ or Juniper modules. ansible_connection. Ansible 2.6 CLI. Hands on Using modules. Ansible templating and roles Configuration management, full configurations, partial configurations. The template module, the assemble module, connection: local, Jinja2 templates, variables, if, for, roles. Hands on Generating multiple configurations from a template. Network programming and modules Why use Python? Why use ansible? alternatives, ansible tower, Linux network devices. Programming with Python Scripting versus application development, Python interactive mode, Python scripts, Python 2.7 vs Python 3. A simple Python script. Variables, loops, control statements, operators. PEP style guide. Python IDEs. Hands on Simple Python programs. More Python programming Functions. Classes, objects and instances, modules, libraries, packages. Python strings, Python file handling, pip list, pip install, Hands on Python programming with pyping. Git Distributed version control, repositories, Git and GitHub, Alternatives to GitHub, Installing git, git workflows, creating repositories, adding and editing files, branching and merging, merge conflicts. Hands on working with Git. Python and networking APIs, Sockets, Telnetlib, pysnmp, ncclient, ciscoconfparse. Paramiko SSH and Netmiko Integrating Python and network devices using SSH. Netmiko, Netmiko methods. Hands on Netmiko. PyEZ Juniper, NETCONF, installing PyEZ, a first pyEZ script, pyEZ configuration management. Hands on Juniper configuration management with pyEZ. NAPALM What is NAPALM, NAPALM operations, getters, Replace, merge, compare, commit, discard. Hands on Configuration with NAPALM. Integrating ansible and NAPALM. Python and REST REST APIs, enabling the REST API. Accessing the REST API with a browser, cURL, Python and REST, the request library. Hands on Using a REST API with network devices.

This course will provide the key to successful inventory management, by combining practical inventory control techniques with sound procurement practice, to produce a solid foundation to enable your supply chain to meet customer expectations at the lowest possible cost. PARTICIPANTS WILL LEARN HOW TO: • Understand the role of inventory in an effective supply chain. • Understand categories of stock and how to tailor stockholdings. • Learn how to utilize key concepts, variables and metrics that allow for effective management of inventory. • Understand how product demand and product lifecycle are connected to inventory management. COURSE TOPICS INCLUDE: • Demand Characteristics and the Product Life Cycle • Push and pull systems • Demand forecasting • Categorisation of stock • ABC Analysis • Economic order quantity and minimum order quantity • Safety stock and stock cover • Materials requirements planning (MRP) • Stock replenishment systems • The cost of managing stock

Microsoft security training course description A hands on training course focusing on security in the Microsoft environment. The course progresses from patch management onto the use of Microsoft security tools. Then server, desktop and network security are studied in the Microsoft environment. What will you learn Use Microsoft security tools. Secure Microsoft servers. Secure Microsoft desktops. Secure Microsoft networks. Microsoft security training course details Who will benefit: Technical server support staff. Technical desktop support staff. Technical network staff. Technical security staff. Prerequisites: Supporting Windows server 2016 Networking Microsoft systems. Duration 3 days Microsoft security training course contents Introduction Security threats, Microsoft defaults, admin accounts, security patches, patch management, patch tools. Hands on: Studying Microsoft defaults, applying security patches. Microsoft security tools Microsoft updates, WSUS, Inventory tool, baseline security analyser, URLscan, EventCombMT, Cipher security tool, Port reporter, PortQry. Tools hackers use. Hands on: Using Microsoft security tools. Server security Checklists, core server security, AD, Member server security, Domain controller security, Specific roles. Hands on Hardening Microsoft servers, security templates. Active Directory Admin authority in AD, group policy, trust and authentication. Desktop security Checklists, core client security, anti virus software, anti spyware software, firewalls, securing clients with AD, securing clients with group policy, software restriction policies. Hands on Securing Microsoft desktops. Network security Checklist, IP security, VPNs, PKI, certificate authorities, RAS, RRAS, IAS. Hands on: VPN configuration, IAS configuration. Monitoring Auditing, authorisation and logons, tracking, system monitoring, detecting attacks. Hands on: Monitoring Microsoft systems. Summary Microsoft security response centre, security advisories.

Portfolio Management Skills: In-House Training The main purpose of this workshop is to equip and enable people in a portfolio management office and PMO to effectively and efficiently support the Executive Leadership and Operational Management to plan, implement, manage, and evolve portfolio management in their organization. There is a deliberate focus on preparing you to become a strong and effective change advocate for meaningful portfolio management that delivers objective measurements of benefit contribution towards the strategic objectives to lead, manage, and continuously improve portfolio management governance, processes, and frameworks with and through the direction of a portfolio practice, principles, and delivery boards. What you Will Learn At the end of this program, you will be able to: Articulate the benefits of portfolio management Link the initiatives in an organization with its strategic objectives Participate in the introduction of portfolio management in an organization Create or improve the portfolio governance structure Lead the inventory of ongoing and new initiatives Assist the executives in the prioritization of initiatives through the use of Multi-criteria Analysis and other selection tools Support the executives in balancing the portfolio based on the optimal use of resources and priorities Create a portfolio delivery plan Define thresholds and variance reporting criteria Assist the executives and the financial team in the definition of Stage Gate Funding Lead the Stage Gate reviews Analyze the benefits that are being realized by the initiatives Foundation Concepts Definitions Benefits of Portfolio Management Objectives of Portfolio Management Portfolio Life Cycles Governing the Portfolio Portfolio Governance structure Roles and responsibilities Initial activities when starting portfolio management Prioritizing Initiatives Prioritize purpose Multi-Criteria Analysis Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) Strategic alignment Balancing the Portfolio Allocating resources and budgets Communicating decisions of initiatives status Planning the Portfolio Planning review cycles Using Stage Gate Funding Setting thresholds and variance reporting Tool examples Managing the Portfolio Delivery Project and Program Life Cycles Stage Gate Reviews Loop back to Prioritize, Balance and Plan Interaction with the Portfolio Delivery Board Project, Program and Functional Managers' roles and responsibilities

Python training course description This Python course focusses on teaching Python for use in network automation and network DevOps. We focus on getting delegates up and running with Python and network automation as quickly as possible rather than making them great programmers. In other words we concentrate on enabling delegates to use network automation libraries such as netmiko, NAPALM and Nornir, and APIs such as NETCONF and RESTCONF rather than enabling delegates to produce object oriented programs. Hands on sessions use Cisco and Juniper devices. What will you learn Run Python programs. Read Python programs. Write Python programs. Debug Python programs. Automate network tasks with Python programs. Configure network devices with Python. Collect data from network devices with Python. Python training course details Who will benefit: Network engineers. Prerequisites: TCP/IP Foundation Duration 5 days Python training course contents What is Python? Programming languages, Why Python? Python in interactive mode, Python scripts, ipython, Python version 2 versus version 3. A simple Python script. Comments. Hands on Installing Python, Hello world. A network example On box vs off box Python. telnet, ssh, NETCONF, HTTP, APIs, manufacturers and API support, analysis of a simple telnetlib program. Hands on Using Python to retrieve the configuration from a network device. Using wireshark to analyse the actions. Python basics I/O, operators, variables and assignment, types, indentation, loops and conditionals. Hands on Modifying the telnet program, changing configurations on a network devices. Functions, classes and methods What are functions, calling functions, builtin functions, useful builtin functions, file handling, classes, objects, creating instances. Hands on Storing configurations in files, configuring devices from files, using an inventory file to work on multiple devices. Libraries and modules Modules, files and packages, import, from-import, Python standard library, other packages, pip install, executing other programs. Managing python libraries. Hands on Using pip, installing and using ipaddress, subprocess to access netsnmp. For the more advanced, using the sockets library. Paramiko and netmiko SSH, enabling SSH on devices, keys. Paramiko versus netmiko, example scripts. pexpect. Hands on Configuring VLANs from Python. pySNMP Gathering facts using previous methods, SNMP review, pySNMP GET, pySNMP and SNMPv3. easySNMP library. Hands on Walking a MIB from Python. NETCONF What is NETCONF? Enabling NETCONF on devices, A first ncclient script, device handlers, get_config, edit_config, copy_config, delete_config, commit, validate, pyEZ, utils_config, utils.sw. Hands on Configuration using ncclient and PyEZ. This session is expanded for those interesting in JunOS automation. Manipulating configuration files Builtin functions, string handling. Unicode. Sequences, strings, lists, tuples. Dictionaries. TextFSM. Regular expressions. JSON, YAML, XML, YANG, Jinja2, templates. Hands on Jinja2 templating with Python to configure network devices. NAPALM Getters, configuration operations, supported devices, NAPALM transport, Config-replace, Config-merge, Compare config, Atomic changes, rollback. Example NAPLAM scripts. Hands on Using NAPALM to gather facts, Using NAPALM for configuration management REST and RESTCONF What is REST, HTTP methods, GET, POST, cURL, Postman, Python requests library. RESTCONF, a RESTCONF example. Hands on Modifying a configuration using RESTCONF. Scapy What is scapy, Scapy in interactive mode, Scapy as a module. Hands on Packet crafting from Python. Warning Errors and exceptions, Exception handling, try, except. Memory management. Garbage collection. Context management, With. Hands on Improving Python code. Nornir What is Nornir? A network automation framework, inventories, connection management and parallelization. Nornir architecture and other libraires. Hands on Setting up nornir, nornir fact gathering, nornir tasks. Optional Writing your own functions, Writing your own classes. pyntc. Hands on Writing reusable code.

VMware training course description This five-day VMware course features intensive handson training that focuses on installing, configuring, and managing VMware vSphere 8, which includes VMware ESXi 8 and VMware vCenter 8. This course prepares you to administer a vSphere infrastructure for an organization of any size. This course is the foundation for most VMware technologies in the software-defined data center. What will you learn Install and configure ESXi hosts. Deploy and configure vCenter. Create virtual networks using standard and distributed switches. Configure VMs, templates, clones, and snapshots. Manage virtual machine resource allocation. Migrate virtual machines with vSphere vMotion and vSphere Storage vMotion. VMware training course details Who will benefit: Systems administrators and engineers. Prerequisites: Introduction to data communications & networking. Windows/Linux Administration. Duration 5 days VMware training course contents Course Introduction Introductions and course logistics. Course objectives vSphere and Virtualization Overview Explain basic virtualization concepts, Describe how vSphere fits in the software-defined data center and the cloud infrastructure, Recognize the user interfaces for accessing vSphere, Explain how vSphere interacts with CPUs, memory, networks, storage, and GPUs Installing and Configuring ESXi Install an ESXi host, Recognize ESXi user account best practices, Configure the ESXi host settings using the DCUI and VMware Host Client Deploying and Configuring vCenter Recognize ESXi hosts communication with vCenter, Deploy vCenter Server Appliance, Configure vCenter settings, Use the vSphere Client to add and manage license keys, Create and organize vCenter inventory objects, Recognize the rules for applying vCenter permissions, View vCenter logs and events Configuring vSphere Networking Configure and view standard switch configurations, Configure and view distributed switch configurations, Recognize the difference between standard switches and distributed switches, Explain how to set networking policies on standard and distributed switches Configuring vSphere Storage Recognize vSphere storage technologies, Identify types of vSphere datastores, Describe Fibre Channel components and addressing, Describe iSCSI components and addressing, Configure iSCSI storage on ESXi, Create and manage VMFS datastores, Configure and manage NFS datastores Deploying Virtual Machines Create and provision VMs, Explain the importance of VMware Tools, Identify the files that make up a VM Recognize the components of a VM, Navigate the vSphere, Client and examine VM settings and options, Modify VMs by dynamically increasing resources, Create VM templates and deploy VMs from them, Clone VMs, Create customization specifications for guest operating systems, Create local, published, and subscribed content libraries, Deploy VMs from content libraries, Manage multiple versions of VM templates in content libraries Managing Virtual Machines Recognize the types of VM migrations that you can perform within a vCenter instance and across vCenter instances, Migrate VMs using vSphere vMotion, Describe the role of Enhanced vMotion Compatibility in migrations, Migrate VMs using vSphere Storage vMotion, Take a snapshot of a VM, Manage, consolidate, and delete snapshots, Describe CPU and memory concepts in relation to a virtualized environment, Describe how VMs compete for resources Define CPU and memory shares, reservations, and limits Deploying and Configuring vSphere Clusters Create a vSphere cluster enabled for vSphere DRS and vSphere HA, View information about a vSphere cluster Explain how vSphere DRS determines VM placement on hosts in the cluster, Recognize use cases for vSphere DRS settings, Monitor a vSphere DRS cluster Describe how vSphere HA responds to various types of failures, Identify options for configuring network redundancy in a vSphere HA cluster, Recognize vSphere HA design considerations, Recognize the use cases for various vSphere HA settings, Configure a vSphere HA cluster, Recognize when to use vSphere Fault Tolerance Managing the vSphere Lifecycle Enable vSphere Lifecycle Manager in a vSphere cluster, Describe features of the vCenter Update Planner, Run vCenter upgrade prechecks and interoperability reports, Recognize features of vSphere Lifecycle Manager, Distinguish between managing hosts using baselines and managing hosts using images, Describe how to update hosts using baselines, Describe ESXi images, Validate ESXi host compliance against a cluster image and update ESXi hosts, Update ESXi hosts using vSphere Lifecycle Manager, Describe vSphere Lifecycle Manager automatic recommendations, Use vSphere Lifecycle Manager to upgrade VMware Tools and VM hardware

Conflict is a word that conjures up many emotions. It is something that most people would prefer to avoid, if possible. Work can be an emotive place. Positive relationships can make your life at work exciting, motivating and challenging, whilst relationships that do not hold value to you could make your life very difficult and stressful, especially if there is conflict between you and your manager. This course is essential for people who want to understand where conflict can be used to positive effect and how to manage conflict in your working relationships and see it as something positive that can stimulate the environment. Research has shown that relationships at work are an extremely high motivational factor, and for a lot of people it has a higher importance that salary! Therefore, it is essential that we invest in relationships and search out new ways to make them better in order to have a more positive influence on our surroundings. By understanding why other people are in conflict we can manage the conversation a lot better, with outcomes managed more effectively so the 'conflict' will add value to the organisation. This participative event will cover a wide variety of exercises and personal stories, and leave course participants with a clear strategy to identify when they are in conflict with someone and how they will structure their approach to get to a satisfactory outcome. This is a workshop that targets anyone where conflict needs to be managed and cannot seem to resolve it, whether internally or externally. At the end of the day, participants will: Know their key relationships and the strength of those relationships Complete the Strengths Deployment Inventory (SDI) to identify where you deploy your strengths Understand what is important to you and your key stakeholders Know how motivational value systems can influence behaviour Tailor your communication style to match that of your opposite party Know conflict strategies to resolve conflict in others Learn to be more assertive when challenging Achieve key personal, departmental and organisational objectives 1 Where are you now? How effective are your current working relationships? Can I work effectively without the input from others? Who do you need to be a success? 2 The Strengths Deployment Inventory (SDI) Completion of the SDI questionnaire An understanding of the theory A 'trip around the triangle' Predicting relationship interaction Your scores and what they mean in your relationships 3 Conflict theory What is conflict? The 3 flags of conflict What are your conflict triggers? Your conflict scores plotted The conflict sequence 4 Conflict resolution strategies Early warning signs Most productive behaviours Least productive behaviours Preventable / unwarranted conflict Review of the dynamic triangle Review of the day, personal learning and action planning