Why dont they shoot a video of this and make it available to all of us on the web. Will help us all train our lower level engineers to manage MT.
It can be made available for download or at a nominal fee.
AIR Networks announces MikroTik RouterOS Training Class in Malta on April
26-29, 2005. This 4-day hands on training is organized by AIR Networks and
MikroTik and is intended for ISPs, network engineers and system integrators
who would like to learn more about using MikroTik RouterOS for general or
dynamic routing, bandwidth management, HotSpot systems, wireless access
points and backbones. At the end of training participants can sit for a
Mikrotik RouterOS Certification Test. A Certificate will be issued to those
who successfully pass the test. Each participant will get free Level 5
license for MikroTik RouterOS.
Course fee is US$600 (early registrations before April 1st, 2005)
Regular fee is US$750. Seating is limited.
Location is at Radisson SAS Bay Point Resort in St. Julians, Malta.
My feeling is that people tend to forget what we are talking about here. RouterOS is not just an AP, or a cheap DSL router (although it can be used for those purposes). There are so many advanced and very complex features and options in this system, that you have to take your time to get used to it.
Think of for example a Cisco router: Would you expect getting one (or even several) for free to test it? Would you expect to get a training on it for even only nearly the price the quoted MikroTik training is?
Everyone is free to test RouterOS using the freely available test licenses to the extent you want to. You could even purchase some licenses for longer term testing - you wouldn’t have to invest really big money for this.
The docs are quite a good reference, the examples are there, …
I admit that sometimes there could be more docs, and my view is probably influenced by the fact that I’m using those systems since version 2.4.x
But don’t be too hard with them - the price for the licenses is very low in my opinion, and if you need more support, MikroTik offers a support contract. Apart from that I think it’s not appropriate to say that there’s not much support - there are lots of people on this forum who do their best (voluntarily!) to help out other users…
Even Cisco has CBT software that is much cheaper than a class. As well as it’s easily able to refer back to it when stuck trying to accomplish something new. I never expected free but I do expect something more reasonable for small companies. Cost of flying to class, cost of hotel, cost of meals and other necessitities, and cost of the class add up to quite a bit. But with cisco their is many different options for training.
Perhaps everyone of us should purchase 1000 licenses in advance, so MT will quickly grow so they can afford training classes round the world.
But honestly - I too see the need for more “workshop” like documentation. What would be typical prices you guys would be willing to pay for such docs or CBT material (i.e. training and examples for specific applications/setups)?
One method we have seen and liked were CBT courses by level. Instead of a few hundred dollar sum up front they sell them my Level for around $60/level. They get more money that way but we can purchase them cheaper initially this way completely go through level 1 than purchase the next level when we are almost completely done with the first level. If the company sold this Active Directory CBT in a single 7 level pack or so they would get somewhere’s around $300.00 realistically but by doing it this alternative method they actually make $420.00 for the same course but make it affordable to the students, the employees (who pay for it themselves just to make themselves more invaluable to the company they work for, and small companies who budget are a bit on the tight side. And yes I have purchased training material myself that belong to me just to help further increase my own knowledge
