Observations of Instructor Led Training with Real Hardware

TechNow has heard many students talk about virtualized/remote training that TechNow Does Not Do. While training our most recent offering of PA-215: Palo Alto Networks Firewall Essentials FastTrack a student told his story of how he endend up in our course. His story we have heard for other technologies like Cisco, VMware, BlueCoat and other products.

A large percentage of training is moving to the virtualized/remote lab environments. Students are asked to use some variant of remote access software and remote into the training company's lab environment. Our student in our Palo Alto Networks Firewall course informed us that he went to a very costly offering of that course from the vendor and was not able to perform any labs. There were either network connectivity issues, or issues with the remote access software, or other problems. The whole training experience was very frustrating and not productive.

We keep our labs open to students if they would like after hours, or before hours access. Repeatedly going through a lab engrains that knowledge for later recall. Touching hardware is so critical in understanding the problems that arise when a cable comes loose, or a cable gets plugged in the wrong port. There are other scenarios such as just pulling the power cable, or turning off a power strip, or accidently overwriting a configuration. These disaster scenarious requires hands-on physical access to hardware. Preventing and recovering from disasters is what it's all about, and that requires hands-on, instructor led, real hardware.

CL-355: Containers, Kubernetes, and Red Hat OpenShift Administration

Course Overview:

Through an introduction to Docker, Kubernetes, and Red Hat OpenShift Platform, this training course helps you understand one of the key tenets of the DevOps and DevSecOps Platform (DSOP) movement: continuous integration and continuous deployment. The CI/CD pipeline becomes well understood and implemented in an open architecture. Containers have become a key technology for the configuration and deployment of applications and micro services. Kubernetes is a container orchestration platform that provides foundational services in Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, which allows enterprises to manage container deployments and scale their applications using Kubernetes.

This training course provides an overview of the DoD Enterprise DevSecOps Platform (DSOP) Reference Design, its current state, and ties to DoD Cloud Platform One (P1). Workflows of the DoD Iron Bank container repository are introduced, along with an overview of the DoD Pipeline as represented in Big Bang. Continuous authorization cATO via Party Bus within NIST RMF is presented. You will become aware of the Platform One (P1) integrations and relationship to Docker, Kubernetes, Istio (Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh) and Red Hat OpenShift Platform.

In addition to gaining an understanding of these tools, you will build core administration skills through the installation, configuration, and management of an OpenShift cluster and containerized applications.

Course Objectives:

Learn about Containers, Docker, Kubernetes, and OpenShift architecture
Overview DoD Enterprise DevSecOps Platform (DSOP) Reference Design and DoD Cloud Platform One (P1)
Tie together awareness of various DoD Cloud offerings and their relationships
Create containerized services
Manage containers and container images
Deploy multi-container applications
Install an OpenShift cluster
Configure and manage masters and nodes
Secure OpenShift
Control access to resources on OpenShift
Monitor and collect metrics on OpenShift
Deploy applications on OpenShift using source-to-image (S2I)
Manage storage on OpenShift

Course Outline:

Getting started with container technology
Creating containerized services
Managing containers
Managing container images
Creating custom container images
Deploying containerized applications on OpenShift
Deploying multi-container applications
Troubleshooting containerized applications
Comprehensive Review of Introduction to Container, Kubernetes, and RedHat OpenShift
Introducing Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform
Installing OpenShift Container Platform
Describing and exploring OpenShift networking concepts
Executing commands
Controlling access to OpenShift resources
Allocating persistent storage
Managing application deployments
Installing and configuring the metrics subsystem
Managing and monitoring OpenShift Container Platform

Dates/Locations:

No Events

Duration: 5 Days

Prerequisites:

Ability to use a Linux® terminal session and issue operating system commands
Good foundation in Linux
Experience with web application architectures and their corresponding technologies

Target Audience:

Developers who wish to containerize software applications
Administrators who are new to container technology and container orchestration
Architects who are considering using container technologies in software architectures
System administrators
System architects
Architects and developers who want to install and configure OpenShift Container Platform
Those working in the field of DevSecOps supporting DoD Platform One (P1) and other implementations

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CT-213: Cloud Essentials+

Course Overview:

CompTIA Cloud Essentials+ is for both IT and non-technical professionals who require the essential business acumen needed to make informed cloud service decisions. Cloud Essentials is a vendor-neutral credential designed to validate the candidate has an understanding of basic terms and definitions of cloud computing along with the different processes involved in the successful adoption of cloud computing and its implications for organizations’ use.

TechNow is a CompTIA partner and uses official CompTIA Cloud Essentials+ curriculum.

Attendees to CT-213: Cloud Essentials+ will receive TechNow approved course materials and expert instruction.

Date/Locations:

Date/Time	Event
10/14/2025 - 10/16/2025 08:00 -16:00	CT-213: Cloud Essentials+ TechNow, Inc, San Antonio TX

Course Duration: 3 days

Course Objectives:

Domain 1 : Cloud Concepts
- Understand cloud principles
- Identify cloud networking concepts & storage techniques
- Understand cloud design aspects
Domain 2: Business Principles of Cloud Environments
- Identify and employ appropriate cloud assessments like feasibility studies, benchmarking, or gap analysis
- Highlight key business aspects of cloud vendor relation adoption, and comprehend cloud migration approaches
Domain 3: Management and Technical Operations
- Explain aspects of operating within the cloud, such as data management or optimization
- Understand the role of DevOps in cloud environments, like API integration or provisioning
Domain 4: Governance, Risk, Compliance and Security for the Cloud
- Understand risk management and response concepts related to cloud services and identify the importance and impacts of compliance in the cloud, such as regulatory concerns or international standards.

Course Prerequisites:

CompTIA recommends that a candidate have at least 6 months of experience in an IT environment, with direct involvement in IT-related tasks responsibilities and/or decision making.

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AZ-400: Microsoft Azure DevOps Solutions

Course Overview:

This course provides the knowledge and skills to design and implement DevOps processes and practices. Students will learn how to plan for DevOps, use source control, scale Git for an enterprise, consolidate artifacts, design a dependency management strategy, manage secrets, implement continuous integration, implement a container build strategy, design a release strategy, set up a release management workflow, implement a deployment pattern, and optimize feedback mechanisms.

TechNow has worked worldwide enterprise infrastructures for over 20 years and has developed demos and labs to exemplify the techniques required to demonstrate cloud technologies and to effectively manage security in the cloud environment.

Attendees to AZ-400: Microsoft Azure DevOps Solutions will receive TechNow approved course materials and expert instruction.

Date/Locations:

No Events

Course Duration: 5 days

Course Outline:

Planning for DevOps
Getting started with Source Control
Scaling Git for enterprise DevOps
Consolidating Artifacts & Designing a Dependency Management Strategy
Implementing Continuous Integration with Azure Pipelines
Managing Application Config and Secrets
Managing Code Quality and Security Policies
Implementing a Container Build Strategy
Manage Artifact versioning, security & compliance
Design a Release Strategy
Set up a Release Management Workflow
Implement an appropriate deployment pattern
Implement process for routing system feedback to development teams
Implement a mobile DevOps strategy
Infrastructure and Configuration Azure Tools
Azure Deployment Models and Services
Create and Manage Kubernetes Service Infrastructure
Third Party Infrastructure as Code Tools available with Azure
Implement Compliance and Security in your Infrastructure
Recommend and design system feedback mechanisms
Optimize feedback mechanisms

Prerequisites :

- - AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals
  - Fundamental knowledge about Azure, version control, Agile software development, and core software development principles. It would be helpful to have experience in an organization that delivers software.

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L-245: Linux System Administration I

Course Overview:

In this course students will learn to install the Linux™ operating system, to administer users and software, to use vi, basic Linux security, process control, file system maintenance, backup and recovery, including some basic networking concepts. This course insures that students have the skills to configure all desktop and client side related activity.

Attendees to L-245: Linux System Administration I will receive TechNow approved course materials and expert instruction.

Dates/Locations:

No Events

Duration: 5 days

Course Objectives:

Linux operating system installation
Hardware Issues
LILO & GRUB Configuration
Managing the Linux file system
Boot Process
Customization of setup files
System Startup
Run Levels
Network Services
User Management
Changing Passwords
Monitoring, accessing & restricting root system access
Administration Tools
Disk Management
Quotas
Process Control
Installing & removing software & patches
Network Configuration
Client side components of NFS, Samba, NTP, NIS
Printing
Backup and Recovery
Using utilities for process control, locating files & automating maintenance tasks

Prerequisites:

Students should have an understanding of all basic UNIX commands as well as variable substitution, wild card expansion, command pipes, permissions, the grep and find commands.
These prerequisites can be met through completion of TN-125: Introduction to UNIX & Linux and six month’s experience with Linux.