Look how much you know!

Here I want to highlight three AIX courses on offer, and emphasise the value of keeping up to date with what's happening in AIX and Power Systems. But this post is also to serve as an encouragement to the many people out there who keep the wheels turning and think they only have a basic grasp of AIX. You probably know a lot more than you let on.

There are some excellent AIX training courses and seminars available from time to time. Even if you've been in the game of AIX for years, there'll be something you can learn. In fact,  it's quite often that I pick up a fresh approach from someone who has only recently started working on AIX.

AIX Networking and knowledge

Apart from the content of the courses, the networking - meeting like-minded AIX enthusiasts - is 3/4 of the fun of attending these things, when the nature or location of the course allows that.

Although IT people are often humble (I have so far managed to escape that accusation), if you take stock you might be surprised at just how much you have learned over the years. For example, here are three AIX courses that are on offer. If you're a regular reader of the many good AIX blogs and articles on offer (see Resources section below for a small selection), a lot of these topics you would have at least heard of, and many (if not most) of them, you'll already have a good understanding of, and perhaps even hands-on experience.

For example, have a look at the course outline for the self-paced Virtual Class on:

AIX System Administration I: Implementation

You can enroll in this class here.

My comments appear in red from this point on. As you read through this, mentally check off how many of these you already have competence in.

Prerequisites

Before enrolling in this class, you should be able to:

• Log in to an AIX system and set a user password

• Execute basic AIX commands

• Manage files and directories

• Use the vi editor

• Use redirection, pipes, and tees

• Use the utilities find and grep

• Use the command and variable substitution

• Set and change Korn shell variables

• Write simple shell scripts

• These skills may be acquired by completing:

• AIX Basics (AU13G) or

• AIX Basics (self-paced virtual class) (AY13G)

• Install the AIX operating system, software bundles, and filesets

• Perform system startup and shutdown

• Understand and use the system management tools

• Manage physical and logical devices

• Perform file system management

• Create and manage user and group accounts

• Perform and restore system backups

• Utilize administrative subsystems, including cron to schedule system tasks, and security to implement customized access of files and directories

• Describe basic networking concepts

How many of these topics have you covered simply by reading this and other blogs on AIX? And you thought you were just reading them for the entertainment, didn't you?

Objectives

• Introduction to System p/AIX system administration

• System Management Interface Tool (SMIT)

• System startup and shutdown

• AIX Software installation and maintenance

• AIX 6 installation

• Web-based System Manager

• Devices

• System storage overview

• Working with the Logical Volume Manager (LVM)

• Working with file systems

• Managing file systems

• Paging space

• Backup and restore

• Security and user administration

• Scheduling

• Printers and queues

• Networking overview

AIX Jumpstart - Introduction to AIX on Power Systems

The AIX jumpstart course - which is being presented as a free one-day seminar in Sydney (airfare and accommodation not included), also covers a lot of the same areas.
http://www-304.ibm.com/jct03001c/services/learning/ites.wss/au/en?pageType=course_description&courseCode=AW81AU#2

Once again, see how many of these areas you are competent in:

Topics - Morning

• Introduction to AIX and IBM Power Systems

• CPU Virtualisation, and Multiple Shared Processor Pools

• I/O Virtualisation

• Memory Virtualisation

• Active Memory Sharing

• Active Memory Expansion

• Virtualisation Architecture

• Workload Partitions (WPAR)

• Application Mobility

Topics - Afternoon

• AIX System Administration Tools

• Data Managed by the Object Data Manager (ODM)

• System Resource Controller

• The topas command

• AIX Partition Activation

• AIX Software Installation and Maintenance

• Network Installation Manager (NIM) Overview

• AIX System Configuration and Devices

• Printing Subsystem

• TCP/IP Networking

• Logical Volume Manager (LVM) Components

• Paging Space

• Journaled File Systems (JFS)

• mksysb - make A System Boot Image

AIX for smarties

You're probably well beyond the "AIX for dummies" level already. If you've been working on recent levels of AIX on fairly up to date Power hardware, you probably won't find the following list of topics too daunting.

This time, the course is:

IBM POWER Systems Virtualization: Advanced Topics, Management and Best Practices

http://www-304.ibm.com/jct03001c/services/learning/ites.wss/au/en?pageType=course_description&courseCode=WRB190AU#4

and the prereqs include many topics covered over the last year or so at AIX Down Under. The prerequisites are:

"knowledge on AIX system administration, POWER systems administration, HMC administration."

and the course outline explains that the course is a combination of lectures, discussion, and hands-on exercises on the following topics:

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• Introduction

• PowerVM Editions

• Maintenance strategy

• New features for the Virtual I/O Server

• Other PowerVM enhancements

• Virtual storage management

• Disk mapping options

• Using virtual optical devices

• Using virtual tape devices

• Using file-backed devices

• Mapping LUNs over vSCSI to hdisks

• Replacing a disk on the Virtual I/O Server

• Managing multiple storage security zones

• Storage planning with migration in mind

• Virtual network management

• Changing IP addresses or the VLAN

• Managing the mapping of network devices

• SEA threading on the Virtual I/O Server

• SEA enhancements

• Virtual I/O Server security

• Network security

• Network Time Protocol configuration

• Managing users

• Virtual I/O Server maintenance

• Dynamic operations

• Multiple Shared Processor Pools management

• Dynamic LPAR operations on AIX and IBM i

• Dynamic LPAR operations on Linux for Power

• Dynamic LPAR operations on the Virtual I/O Server

So there you go. Maybe a few new topics in there but on the whole areas that you probably might be surprised you knew.

Sometimes it's worth taking stock of your abilities, both to recognise areas you might want to work on, but also to see the areas where you do have experience, or at least are not coming in completely blind.

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Resources

Some of my favourite blogs and sources of AIX information and tips are:

• Chris's AIX Blog (written by Chris Gibson, a fellow Aussie)
• Rob McNelly's AIXChange (a weekly blog post)
• The AIXpert blog (unrelated to the "aixpert" security expert command, the AIXPert blog typically containing posts written by Nigel Grffiths - Mr Nmon himself)
• The AIX Virtual User Group - USA has regular free webinars in the dead of night (Sydney time) on very pertinent topics by people who know what they're talking about
  

• IBM Systems Magazine - AIX edition
• and, of course, IBM developerWorks - AIX and Unix

These are just a few that spring to mind, but there are many others.

I'd encourage you to keep reading blogs and to consider getting along to one or other course. It pays to keep up to date on developments within AIX. You can find approaches which are smarter, simpler and smoother, and which take advantage of the technology.