Thank You!

TechNow would like to honor and remember all those who gave the supreme sacrifice for our liberty.  We would also like to give a big Thank You to all the men and women who are serving and fighting for our Country!

CEH News!

1). As of June 1, 2011 the CEH V7 exam will be available through Prometric APTC and Pearson Vue testing centers.

2). If you are attempting Exam 312-50 or 312-50v7 you will need to get a authorization code from Ec-Council prior to registering for your exam.  You will not be allowed to sit for the exam without the eligibility number.

3). The cost of the new Exam 312-50 or 312-50v7 is $ 500.00 USD.

If you have any questions in regards to registering for your exam please contact us at (800) 324-2294.

Best regards,
TechNow Staff
Corp. Headquarters
(800) 324-2294

Have a safe and happy Labor Day weekend!

VM's in the Classroom!

Strategies for delivering classes over the last 30 years have changed.  Once upon a time an overhead projector with slides was a requirement that most instructors could not live without.  I can still remember running through an airport on a Friday evening and my bag opened and had 500 slides all over concourse K at O'hare.  Did anybody stop to help?  Let's just say the next time I taught that class, there were shoe prints on some of the slides.  Times change, now we expect a classroom projector we can hook up our laptops to display our presentations.

I have taught many different classes in my career as an instructor.  Learning a new desktop environment or teaching Intro to Unix didn't require too much of a classroom setup.  As I progressed to more complex classes, the need for a client/server setup became a must.  A networking class would require multiple subnets, each of which may have servers like DHCP, DNS, Sendmail, and NIS.  To evenly distribute tasks among the students in the subnet, I would have each of them configure one of the servers and the rest would be clients.  Although I would emphasize to work in teams, if students weren't comfortable with each other, they would independently work on their server or client.  Some would even set up the client before the server was ready, and then ask why stuff wasn't working.  This led to frustration, and usually, the student that needed to know the DNS setup, was the one configuring Sendmail, etc.

The first time I taught a Solaris 10(S-295) class at TechNow, my classroom was set up to run Solaris in a virtual machine (VM).  It wasn't the first time I had run solaris in a VM, I had used both VMware and VirtualBox on my laptop to enable me to run another operating system without having to reinstall or repartition the operating system that was already there, but it was the first time that I was going to use this technology in the classroom.  A little apprehensive at first, I had always taught Solaris on 'Bare Metal' system.  As the class progressed and we got to the NFS lab, it was very apparent that by having a second VM on the same machine running Solaris, one student could do both the client and the server portion of the lab.  No more idle time waiting for another student to finish before you could progress to the next step.  The student was exposed and received hands on experience for the entire setup.

The Solaris class at TechNow was introduced in 2007.  At the time, most training environments I taught in were still in the mode of one function per system.  As VM's have become more mainstream in corporate America, training philosophies have changed.  Do not be surprised when you walk into a TechNow course, that you will be responsible for maintaining multiple VM's.  Whether it is the TN-5145 class (Windows Server 2008 Administrator) where you will configure a Windows 2008 server and windows clients, the L-295 class (Linux Server Admin II) where you will configure multiple servers/clients using CentOS and/or Ubuntu, the S-295 class (Solaris System Admin II) in which the student will configure jumpstart to install a VM from another VM among other things, or even the TN-425 class (Certified Ethical Hacker CEH) where you understand exploits and tools in multiple operating systems, all of these classes use multiple guest operating systems that run in one host operating system. 

Come to TechNow for training, and let us introduce to you or demonstrate the power of virtual machines in the classroom.  See you soon.

Best Regards,
Bill Peterson
TechNow
Corp. Headquarters
(800) 324-2294

Happy Veterans Day!

TechNow would like to honor and remember all those who have served and sacrificed for our country.  We would also like to give a big Thank You to all the men and women who are still serving and fighting for our Country today!

New Courses Offered!

We are now offering a variety of new specialized courses!  The following of which are featured:

RH-245: Linux System Administrator I: This course gives direct experience with the most essential system administration tasks in RedHat. The course also instructs crucial system management skills including: configuring network interfaces, client set up of network protocols, managing local devices, installation, package management, performing system boot procedures, grub and controlling system processes.
RH-245: Linux System Administrator I

RH-295: Linux System Administrator II: This course provides hands-on experience working with more complex and integrated administration concepts, and builds upon the Part I course. Instructs essential local system administration skills including: Logical Volumes, Raid Management, and System Logging, SELinux and Virtual Machines.
RH-295: Linux System Administrator II

S-325: Solaris 10 Features for Experienced Solaris Systems Administrators: Students will be instructed and have labs in how to set up, configure, and administer the new features of the Solaris 10 Update 4 and Nevada Operating System releases including: Solaris Zones, ZFS, Dtrace, Predictive Self-Healing, Solaris Trusted Extensions, and operating system installation.
S-325: Solaris 10 Features for Experienced Solaris Systems Administrators

S-395: Configuring Security on the Solaris 10 OS: Provides enterprise-class features to help protect applications and data. Security Administrators can minimize and harden Oracle Solaris to implement a secure foundation for deploying services.
S-395: Configuring Security on the Solaris 10 OS

S-493: New Features of Solaris 11: This course demonstrates the enhancements to zones and ZFS as well as the new features. During the course, students will examine, through lecture and extensive hands-on work, the Automated Installer (AI), Image Packaging System (IPS) and network virtualization.
S-493: New Features of Solaris 11

S-495: Labeled Security Programming with Trusted Extensions: In this course, students will learn Label APIs to write programs to manage labeled data processes, including Solaris library routines and system calls that use Trusted Extensions parameters.
S-495: Labeled Security Programming with Trusted Extensions

S-595: Solaris Trusted Extensions Installation & Configuration: This course teaches how to design and configure Trusted Extensions security label mechanisms, use extended security features of the two graphical desktops, compartmentalize system administrator powers and control privileges and authorizations.  
S-595: Solaris Trusted Extensions Installation & Configuration

N-495: Voice Over IP Foundations: In this course, students will learn how VoIP works, why VoIP works and how to use VoIP.  This course will include configuring an IP Network using Cisco Routers and switches, learning IP fundamentals in order to make VoIP easier to understand.  The last four days of class will focus on VoIP and IP Telephony.
N-495: Voice Over IP Foundations

N-595: VoIP Security Analysis and Design: In this course, the student delves into the dark world of attacking VoIP. Strategies cover attacks at all layers and demonstrate many vectors that work! Topics include how VoIP works, its interactions with the network, its vulnerabilities and mitigations.  Focus is on the leading open source and proprietary technologies utilizing Asterisk and Cisco and the protocols SIP, H.323, RTP, MGCP, and Skinny.
N-595: VoIP Security Analysis and Design

Solaris 11 Is Here!

Oracle will be releasing Solaris 11 in November of 2011.  Even before the release date, Oracle Solaris 11 Express has been available for developers and testers to make the transition easy and smooth.  As instructors getting ready for the change, we have already been working with at Solaris 11 Express, and before that OpenSolaris.

Some of these changes include the cool GUI TimeSlider, similar to Apple Time Machine, utilizing ZFS snapshots; which allows a user to go back in time.  For the administrator this is nothing more than a rollback to a ZFS snapshot.  Other features in ZFS are DEDUP, encryption, and network virtualization, for easier implementation of QOS. 

Transitions are always interesting, especially for instructors.  We have to deal with the issues that involve architecting, implementing, and configuring a new operating system.  We hope we can leverage our previous experience to help ease our students understanding.  It is not just about learning the new commands, options or arguments; it is learning about the "big picture."

Solaris 10 was a good example of this.  It had a variety of new commands to teach, but also a change in the way we approach administration.  For example, Solaris 10 introduced Zones, Service Management Facility (SMF), and Zettabyte File System (ZFS).

Leveraging the previous experience with Solaris 10 is going to be key for a better understanding of Solaris 11.  Enhancements to these same Zones and ZFS requires a strong background in Solaris 10.  Even live upgrade experience to deal with multiple boot environments that involve root on ZFS (now the default behavior) and how we can snapshot, clone and patch the clones are now going to be considered normal procedures.

Two new features in Solaris 11, CrossBow and the Image Packaging System, may not necessarily require Solaris 10 background.  Solaris 10 background just adds a little extra experience.  CrossBow will allow for true virtualization of networks, allowing for easier implementation of quality of service for applications and zones.  If these zones need to network within themselves, we can now efficiently create virtual switches.  Going to a network aware automated update for packages, Solaris 11 promises to make upgrade and patch management much less painful whether you have Zones installed or not. 

In the upcoming months, as Solaris 11 is officially released, look for more blogs to expand on all of these features.  

We look forward to seeing you in our new courses being offered, including our newest Solaris class (S-493: New Features of Solaris 11).

Best Regards,
Bill Peterson
TechNow
(800) 324-2294

TechNow Has Moved!

Our Corporate Headquarters Has Relocated!

TechNow's new address:
14117 Jones Maltsberger
San Antonio, Texas 78247

Although our address has changed, our phone numbers will remain the same. If you have any questions, please call: (210)-733-1093 or toll free: (800)-324-2294.

Until Further Notice, All San Antonio Classes Will Be Held At:

The Hilton Airport Hotel
611 Northwest Loop 410
San Antonio, Texas 78216

All classes will be held on the second floor of the Hilton Airport Hotel.  If you have trouble locating your class, please see the Hilton front desk and ask for the TechNow Event.

Questions About Course Schedules?

The schedule of courses is subject to change throughout the next couple of months. To stay updated on our course information, such as dates and locations please refer to our Schedules page. 

Thank You
TechNow Staff

There is a great New York Times Article that details current events regarding intellectual property theft with China.  This problem is as old as dirt, but we are all aware what the impact of IT has had on the velocity of intellectual property theft.  Additionally, when there are structured and pseudo government support for these aggressive and damaging activities the volume and impact is difficult to comprehend.  

TechNow has had a very aggressive training program with respect to this type of problem for over twenty years.  Even with an array of SANS certifications, ISC2, CompTIA, and other certifications we are still challenged to as an industry to keep upper level management informed and motivated to take action.  The policies and mitigations to minimize a foriegn government, organized, well funded attack against intellectual property is cost prohibitive.

Our government needs to become agressive in this area as the impact on our national security is dramatic.  These aggessive strategies will likely utilize individuals who have acquired high end skills with our training programs in reverse engineering, intrusion analysis, systems penetration, and malware engineering, applied both in the corporate sector and Intelligence Community.