Level Up Your AIX Skills!
Refresh Your AIX 7.3 Skills with IBM Power Technical Training!
Introduction:
Several months ago I posted a blog reflecting on why it’s often important for us to take the time to refresh our skills. Last time I focused on IBM PowerVM, and specifically, and how it’s important to take a closer look at some of the recent features and capabilities that the IBM Power ecosystem has to offer. Based on the feedback I’ve received, others also thought similarly, as one person commented to me, “I can speak from previous experience, I've said, oh I already know this topic I don't need any more education. But I went, and too my surprise I still learned a couple of new tricks, including one I immediately used with a customer. This reminded me, nope don't assume you know everything on a topic”.
I like to think that as IT professionals, all of us are committed to continuous learning. We all try to practice behaviours that aid us in acquiring new skills and knowledge continually over time (oftern referred to as ‘upskilling’ or ‘leveling up’). This helps us to develop both personally and professionally, often opening doors to new opportunities, and pushing us to achieve our full potential. With this in mind, in this post, I’d like to focus on what’s new with AIX training. AIX is IBM’s, enterprise class, UNIX operating system and if you haven’t been following closely, you might have missed some of the new features and capabilities that are now available with the latest version, 7.3.
If this interests you, it may also excite you to know that the IBM Power Technical Training team has been working diligently, in the background, creating new technical training content for AIX 7.3. This new content will be beneficial to both new and seasoned AIX system administrators and users.
Let’s take a quick look at what’s new in AIX training from IBM.
Mastering IBM AIX: Implementation and Administration
Course code: AN12G
This five day course has been completely refreshed for AIX 7.3 and includes several new areas of interest for new and experienced administrators. The class is designed to teach students how to install, customize, and administer the AIX operating system in a virtualised Power server environment. It provides practical discussions that provide you with a greater understanding of AIX administration topics. As a system administrator, or anyone for that matter, that’s responsible for implementing and managing AIX virtual machines, this course will (as the title implies) give you the skills to master the day-to-day care and feeding of the AIX operating system. Here's a list of the topics (at a high-level) that you’ll study in this AIX system administration class:
· Install the AIX operating system, filesets, and RedHat Package Manager (RPM) packages
· Perform system startup and shutdown
· Discuss and use system management tools such as System
· Management Interface Tool (SMIT)
· Manage physical and logical devices
· Discuss the purpose of the logical volume manager
· Perform logical volume and 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
· Configure TCP/IP networking
· Configure and conduct Live Updates on a running AIX LPAR
This class covers all the essentials required by a system administrator to efficiently manage the AIX OS, and it also includes loads of new content for AIX 7.3. Here’s just a sample:
· Updated tools for managing open source software on AIX that allows administrators to install and manage open source packages on AIX using tools like DNF and YUM.
· Live Update enhancements for 7.3 which allow you to save and restore all AIX tunable parameter values after a Live Update operation.
· New Logical Volume Manager (LVM) enhancements for secure encryption and new attributes (for logical volumes and volume groups) that provide greater security, flexibility, and scalability.
· New File System management techniques for JFS2 file systems, including new default inline logging attributes, new JFS2 log shuffle capabilities, and more.
We’ve also updated this class to run with HMC V10 and VIOS 3.1.3.X. Each topic that’s covered is reinforced with extensive hands-on lab exercises which provide practical experience. Yes, that’s right, you’ll even get a chance to try exciting new things like installing RPMs with DNF or using AIX Live Update to patch the OS without a reboot! All of this helps to reinforce your knowledge and provide a rock-solid foundation from which to build upon your AIX skills. The AN12G class covers the most important topics to help AIX administrators and it’s a great place for learning (or re-learning) the essentials of AIX system administration.
This course has proven quite popular over the years, with students rating the experience highly. And with the most recent content and updates students are likely to continue finding this class rewarding and well worth their time.
Alright, so the AN12G class is aimed at students who may be new to AIX system administration but already have some level of basic AIX (or UNIX/Linux) experience. But what if you’re new to AIX (or UNIX/Linux) in general? Perhaps you’ve never logged in to an AIX system before and you’re looking to gain the skills required to perform basic “UNIX” activities on AIX? Well, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with the AIX Basics class, AN10G.
AIX Basics
Course code: AN10G
If you’re new to AIX and UNIX, then AIX Basics is the course for you! This three day class provides a great environment for learning the basic, user-level skills you need to be able to work in an AIX environment. The following topics are covered to kickstart your AIX user skills:
· Log in to an AIX system and set a user password
· Access the IBM AIX on-line documentation
· Manage AIX files and directories
· Describe the purpose of the shell
· Use the vi editor
· Execute common AIX commands and manage AIX processes
· Customize the working environment
· Use common AIX utilities
Again, this course has also been recently refreshed for AIX 7.3, so you’ll be working with the latest version of AIX as you start your fascinating journey into the world of the AIX operating system.
But why stop there? Once you’ve completed the basics, perhaps you’ll consider attending the AN12G class, so you can start honing your skills as an AIX systems administrator!
Badges!
Not only will these courses help you to “level up!” your AIX skills, but upon completion of each class you’ll also be eligible to attain new AIX badges. You can display these with great pride, advertising your desire to acquire new skills and highlighting your achievements in mastering your craft.
Conclusion:
Both classes, AN12G and AN10G, offer something different for everyone, but it’s clear that whether your new to AIX or whether you are a weathered AIX veteran there’ll likely be something new to learn from either class.
By the way, both courses are instructor-led classes, either in-person or virtual, but we also offer self-paced virtual classes (digital) versions of each of these courses. They allow you to take each of these classes at your own pace and provide you with self-paced hands-on lab as well. See the links at the end of the article for information on each of these digital offerings.
If you would like to learn more about AN12G and AN10G please refer to the following links for further details and class schedules for your location:
Instructor-led training
Mastering IBM AIX: Implementation and Administration (AN12G)
https://www.ibm.com/training/course/mastering-ibm-aix-implementation-and-administration-AN12G
AIX Basics (AN10G)
https://www.ibm.com/training/course/power-systems-for-aix-virtualization-ii-advanced-powervm-and-performance-AN31G
Badge: Mastering AIX Implementation and Administration (AN12G)
https://www.ibm.com/training/badge/power-systems-for-aix-ii-aix-implementation-and-administration-code-an12g
Self-paced virtual training
AIX Implementation and Administration Part 1 (Digital course, AN12D1DG)
https://www.ibm.com/training/course/aix-implementation-and-administration-part-1-digital-course-AN12D1DG
AIX Implementation and Administration Part 2 (Digital course, AN12D2DG)
https://www.ibm.com/training/course/aix-implementation-and-administration-part-2-digital-course-AN12D2DG
AIX Basics (AN10D1DG)
https://www.ibm.com/training/course/aix-basics-AN10D1DG
Need some help justifying why is training and development important? Successful businesses understand that it’s more beneficial and cost-effective to develop their existing employees instead of seeking out new talent. Take a look the following link and its list of the top ten benefits of employee training and development programs.
https://www.ibm.com/topics/training-development
The IBM Power Technical Training team is working hard to update and refresh all popular AIX classes and training materials. So you can expect to see more updates from us in the future.
We hope to see you in class soon!