Seminars and training

[mjohnston]

Hi all.
My company is offering to pay for me to attend seminars and/or training.
I've recently rolled out Casper without much Mac experience and think I would like to learn more.
I am interested in the CCA course but it looks like I would need to do the CCT course first?
Does Jamf have any seminars coming up in the next 12 months?
Can anyone recommend any Mac course I could/should take?

I'm a senior desktop support engineer with very strong Windows background. I'm moving quickly towards systems administration and manage all things Casper and SCCM for my company.

Any suggestions welcome.

Thanks,
Matt

[rderewianko]

When I started I was able to take my CCA without CCT, however I had already been using Casper on a daily basis for six months.. You may want to contact your account team for more information if you can skip CCT.

As for what's coming up in the next 12 months JAMF is great at listing what courses are available on their website.
https://store.jamfsoftware.com/courses.html

JAMF periodically hosts webexes talking more in detail about one use case or what you can do better.

[donmontalvo]

I took my first CCA in 2010 after six months and it was a struggle, although I passed. I took my second CCA this past Summer and got one half of one question wrong; I maxed the bundled CMA class. Same instructor (oh, hey Miles!).

Just goes to show, even if you come to the table with years of IT admin/management experience, Casper is a whole new toolset. The first tool I deployed was NetOctopus at Morgan Stanley in 1999 (under 100 Macs running 8.6), and after that I used LANrev (just under 1000 Macs, shared license with Wintel folks) and some Altiris.

Six months hands on, or CCT cert, makes perfect sense. :)

PS, note to @Shearer...good to see you're digging your heals in...I hope you're planning on CCA when the time comes! :)

Don

[RobertHammen]

I'm going to deviate a little bit here... if you're an experienced Windows sysadmin that's still fairly new to the Mac, I'd highly recommend taking an Apple 101 (Client Essentials) class first at an Apple Authorized Training Center. Call me biased, as I'm an Apple Certified Trainer (for both 101 (client) and 201 (server) classes), but, being a long-time Mac admin and having never taken any of the courses before my mentor training class, I learned a few things in the classes. After having taught several courses over the last couple of years, primarily to Windows sysadmins new to Macs, I'll state that I see so many that gain so much from the hands-on class (typically 3 days and around $1500).

After you do that, then I'd pursue your CCA. I've taken the CCA class twice (and need to again), and know that JAMF is revising their courses soon. Hopefully we'll hear more concrete details at JNUC.

Hope this helps,

--Robert