VERITAS Software Middle East opens in-house training centre in Dubai to boost certification and service levels

    Dumped value of 'ID':
'29682';

Dumped value of 'images_loop':
[];

The training facility, which can instruct up to 10 people at a time in up to eight courses per quarter, is VERITAS' first advanced education centre of its kind in the Middle East, and actually simulates the same business and technology challenges faced by organizations across the region. The leading storage management solution company invested in setting up the training facility to boost the number of VERITAS-certified professionals in the Middle East, in an effort to offer end-users the highest levels of service.

The facility will host targeted training courses for both end-users and resellers, and will complement VERITAS' first end-user certification program, which is a new component of the VERITAS™ Certified Professional Program. Mr. Conny Peukert will bring more than three years of direct experience with VERITAS' customers in the Middle East to the new role of Education Services Manager, which includes the responsibility of managing all the courses offered by the training facility.

'Storage management expertise is becoming a must-have skill in the Middle East's business community,' said Mike Hynes, Regional Director, VERITAS Middle East. 'The new in-house training facility at Dubai Internet City will enable VERITAS to further develop a base of skilled professionals from across the region by creating real-life storage scenarios onsite to educate both end-users and resellers.'

'Companies that set aside time to provide their IT managers with training are bound to experience business benefits including greater productivity and improved service levels within their organizations. At the same time, boosting certification among VERITAS' reseller community means our customers can expect a consistently superior level of service as well.'

The storage area network (SAN) environment created within the new VERITAS training facility enables a full proof-of-concept (POC) capability for students to develop hands-on storage management skills. The VERITAS centre is equipped with six Sun V240s servers, with three sets of shared storage, and three StorageTek SDLT L20s tape libraries. Training attendees will learn firsthand how to deploy and manage VERITAS solutions for storage management, data protection, high availability, application performance management, and disaster recovery.

Benefits of VERITAS' first end-user certification program
Coinciding with the opening of the training facility is the launch of VERITAS' first end-user certification program in the Middle East. The program is designed to help companies better manage the performance and availability of critical business applications through in-depth training on VERITAS™ storage management software.

Targeted at the growing community of storage architects in the Middle East, certification exams will be offered at more than 60 testing centers in seven countries across the Middle East.

VERITAS' end-user certification program introduces professional certification tracks that include rigorous testing for job tasks performed by most system administrators. These job tasks were identified through an extensive analysis conducted in real-world IT environments deploying VERITAS storage software. Initial offerings include a data protection track for both UNIX and Windows, with a high availability track soon to follow.

'Certification status is becoming an increasingly vital benchmark for both individuals and companies in the region's storage sector. The willingness to invest time and resources in the necessary training and testing signifies real commitment to enhanced storage skills, and delivers greater security to the end-user community,' said Hynes.

'The VERITAS end-user certification program is an endorsement of the knowledge and skills an IT administrator must possess in order to successfully manage storage solutions. We're proud to set the standard of professional performance in the Middle East through the VERITAS Certified Professional Program.'

The VERITAS Certified Professional Program was introduced by the company last year, offering partner certification for data protection and high availability software. The number of certified professionals worldwide is now 1,576 and more than 960 individual partners have achieved certification in 29 countries worldwide, spanning countries in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia.