How To Choose The Right Data Centre Training

With so many data centre training available, choosing a training that is going to benefit you can be a headache.

Many of the folks you see achieving their career goals with somewhat ease, received the right guidance and took the right training. While those still struggling are folks who are choosing their training based on mass information provided on websites, recommendations by peers, or what the salesperson tell them. When you consider that the right training is going to influence the rest of your career, which could be for the next 10 to 40 years, and your income over that time, it is vital that you choose the right training.

3 Steps To Discover The Right Training For You

There are essentially 3 steps to find the right training for your data centre career.

Identify the competences required for your job
Identify the training that will meet your needs
Select the right training provider

Let's look at each step in a little more detail. Like we have already discussed, this is not a decision you want to take haphazardly.

First is to identify the competences (skills and knowledge) required for your current data centre job and ideally you also review your ambition for the next level in your career. Different jobs in a data centre organisation require different competences. Therefore it is very important to start with analyzing the competences required.

1. How to identify the data centre competences for your job?

You can read the Data Centre Competence Framework which is an 80-page document. At this point, you may be thinking - I don't want to read an 80-page competence document, is there a shortcut?

Yes, there is! It's a free application which will list the competences for your job with just one click. we'll share this with you in just a moment.

2. How to choose the right training

Which training will give you the competences you require? Beware that not all courses are created equal. Some course developers pick a popular title and create the course without an understanding of the competence model.

You can ask the various training providers about the data centre competences mapping to their courses. And you might be asking now, is there also a short cut?

The answer is yes! We’ll talk about this right after step 3.

3. How to choose the right training provider?

To help you select the best provider, we've prepared a short checklist.

Is the training provider a hands-on data centre expert and in it for the long term?
Do they have actual data centre experience or are they merely a course provider trying to snap up some dollars from a market that is expanding, and in a few years down the road swing to another portfolio potentially in another market segment which is then popular?
Is the training provider truly vendor-neutral or are they affiliated with some vendor(s) or consulting organization(s)?
Do they follow a comprehensive course development process using a data centre competence model?
Who issues the certification? Having 10 logos on the brochure looks impressive but in a true accredited course, you can only have ONE certificate (unless you do 10 exams…).
Is the training and certification externally accredited by another group of independent experts in the industry? This question is important because data centre design, build, operations management, are vendor-neutral subjects. If the exams are written, marked and the certification is issued by the same people who wrote the course, there is no external authority to verify the quality of the content and certification.
What are the experiences of the trainers? Real data centre background is a must-have, and also the number of years. The other important factor is the training experience. You would want a trainer who has extensive data centre experience and the skills to transfer knowledge and willingness to share knowledge.