Microsoft's Windows 2000 Boot Camp Begins: Free TechNet Sessions for W2K - Company Business and Marketing

ENT, Oct 6, 1999 by Brian Ploskina

Gearing up for the release of its new platform, Microsoft Corp. is offering a free series of TechNet briefings in about 250 cities worldwide to deploy, manage, support and optimize solutions based on Microsoft Windows 2000. There are six sessions, which will run from October to December.

Course offerings include how to efficiently manage a Windows 2000 Professional environment; how to design a Windows 2000 Server-based networking infrastructure and interoperate it with Windows NT Server 4.0; how to migrate Windows NT 4.0 directory services to Windows 2000 Active Directory; how to effectively use the Terminal Services component of the Windows 2000 Server operating system; how to set up a reliable Web server using Internet Information Services 5.0 and Windows 2000; and how to create secure, Web-based business solutions based on Windows 2000 Server and IIS 5.0.

"TechNet is a program that was created 15 months ago to make IT professionals more successful at their jobs," says Rosa Garcia, director of the TechNet program. "They wanted to learn about Microsoft products without the hype and [to have] the opportunity to interact with Microsoft professionals."

There are three training tools used by TechNet: the events and technical sessions where IT managers can learn directly from Microsoft professionals; a Web site that hosts internal and external documentation for free and encourages feedback; and a monthly TechNet CD-ROM disk that includes updates for the content Microsoft produces.

In April, Microsoft announced it was investing $40 million dollars into training aimed at educating professionals about Windows 2000. Garcia says this free offering is a development of that effort. "We believe that by investing heavily in IT training, it's going to be a win-win for [IT professionals] and Microsoft," she explains. "They will be much more comfortable with Windows 2000 when it's ready. For us, the product will be better and more reliable. It will be easier to maintain. We want the customer to know every detail we have changed so they can get 100 percent of the features in there."

One feature is Active Directory. Garcia says it will be the most difficult aspect of the new platform to learn. She explains that planning is essential to implementing Active Directory successfully, and she hopes that through the training, professionals can begin the planning for implementing Active Directory -- a process that could take up to a year -- and then implement the technology when they are ready.

But is Microsoft concerned that difficulties such as this could be so daunting that IT just decides not to use the technology at all? "We hope that the IT managers will be so excited about the technology [that they will] encourage their employees to get training in these technologies," Garcia expounds. "That's why we're making the training as available as possible."

TechNet can be reached via the Microsoft Web site at www.microsoft.com/technet.>

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