The three Cs of storage training

Costs Sending your information technology staff to storage school? You can expect to spend up to $1,000 per student per day for an instructor-led course. The typical storage vendor's foundation-level course lasts three to five days, so the tally could run as high as $5,000 per student. That price tag, of course, goes up for students who want to move on to advanced courses or pursue certification.

With that level of investment, taking the appropriate course becomes critical. EMC offers online quizzes that help students assess where they stand and steer them toward relevant training, said Rod Gilbert, director of marketing and business development for EMC Global Education.

Classroom Agencies can send one or a handful of students to a public training class. Vendors, however, will make training house calls. Brocade, for example, offers on-site training for groups of up to 14 students, said Linda Moss, director of education services at Brocade Communications Systems.

Courses Training may come in tiers. Bryan Courtright, an enterprise consultant at GTSI, said the first pass involves training on day-to-day operations of a particular storage deployment. Following that, customers may opt for more in-depth training on a specific storage vendor's technology.

— John Moore