...

they should've spent more money on books and less on leather jackets.....

Seems like a good opportunity to introduce myself...NetApp has recently made a substantial investment in the Educational Services organization, allowing us to improve/expand our base courses (and materials), as well as develop new courses.

The NTAP 101 student manual has been completely rewritten (with a tab based TOC) and the NTAP 202 new manual is in the works. The new manuals are a different format and have more of the 'lecture' included, requiring less 'note taking' by the students (although more vs. less note taking is a highly debated subject in the training world). Classes, overall, have more lab time (input from our class evals). We are also creating WBT (web based training). Our first WB course is currently in beta. We have scaled down the 'giveaways' in class (they were pretty substantial) but have improved the multiple student/multiple class discounts.

A point I'd like to make specifically on Jason's comment:

Even after taking the class I doubt I'd play with the special

commands without tech support on the phone... at least not on a production filer.

This is an important point which we stress in the 202 class.

For reference, here's the URL to our web page: http://www.netapp.com/support/training.html Another URL for additional feedback and/or input on new/extended courses is: http://support.netapp.com/now/survey.html If you'd like to be on our mailing list, you can fill out a form on the web or send e-mail to registrar@netapp.com.

This may be more than you ever wanted to know about training, but I appreciate the comments and the chance to put out some information.

Ruth... Ruth Page Director, World Wide Educational Services Network Appliance 2770 San Tomas Expwy / Santa Clara, CA 95051 phone: 1-409-367-3722 Fax: 1-408-367-3996 Email: rpage@netapp.com Web: www.netapp.com