Ministry of Finance Professional IT Training on Enterprise Solutions
Ministry of Finance Professional IT Training on Enterprise Solutions

Requirements and Needs Assessment

The Ministry of Finance of Eritrea planned to proceed to a next generation datacenter and enterprise networks , provide enterprise grade services, and have a stable IT Infrastructure and Information Management system, integrating all its departments.  And also, it planned to embark multiple services in which one of it is the implementation of Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS), which is the IMF requirement and standard for handling and processing Public Financial Management. To accomplish this the Ministry requires Enterprise Grade ICT Infrastructure and Information Management and an Enterprise Grade ICT Human Resource. Therefore, a training was required to prepare the Human Resource of the Ministry for this purpose.

Led by Eng. Ftwi Grmay and also as a key trainer and project coordinator a training with multiple enterprise grade courses was arranged having six courses. We have selected these courses because they are good enough for having a strong foundation in an enterprise datacenter and enterprise networks and answer the requirements of the ministry. The courses are also selected for variety so that trainees will have the opportunity of identifying their temperaments and future specialization as well as create a medium of collaboration among themselves. All the courses are international standards grade and beyond. For example if we say CCNA important topics in datacenter networking from CCNA datacenter and CCIE Routing and Switching are included when appropriate. But we have given the lowest possible name to avoid exaggeration.

Training courses offered and description

There are six courses in the package. All the courses are successfully completed. the table below depicts the list of the courses with their status.

With the courses the trainees were able to identify their fields of interest. That is the courses enabled them to analyse themselves in areas like Systems Administrator, Datacenter Administrator, Backup Administrator, Systems Monitoring and Management, Network Administrator and soon. The following is the list of the participated Trainees.

1 VMware vSphere 6.0
2 Windows Server 2016
3 Linux Administration LCPI 1 and LCPI 2
4 Networking CCNA
5 Network Monitoring and Management
6 Enterprise Backup

Course 1: VMware vSphere 6.0 (VCP6.0-DCV)

This course is equivalent with VMware’s standard course given to IT Professionals in Datacenter Virtualization. In vSphere 6.0 it is known by their certification series as VMware’s Certified Professional 6.0 – Datacenter Virtualization (VCP6.0-DCV). In this course trainees were able to establish their own datacenter, by installing ESXI 6.0 and VCenter Server Appliance for managing their own datacenter. They have acquired all the advanced concepts like vSphere High Availability, VMotion and Servers and Storage Clustering. They were able to install, manage and configure their own datacenters in groups. The picture below depicts the overall datacenter and individual datacenter for each group. I would like to note that each group has two ESXI Hosts and one VCSA appliance. One of the major purposes of this course is to enable trainees to assess themselves as VMware vSphere 6.0 Virtual Datacenter administrators.

Multple vSphere Datacenters
Multple vSphere Datacenters

Course 2: Windows Server 2016

The next course that was successfully completed was Microsoft’s Windows server 2016 Infrastructure installation. In this course trainees were able to acquire knowledge on how they can install, configure and manage Windows server 2016 datacenter and infrastructure. The services they have learned are like installing DNS, DHCP, active directory services, and group policies management. They also have learned server core installation and management, group policy management and Hyper-V installation. The figure below shows the windows server 2016 servers installed by trainees in addition to the ESXI virtual hosts all on a single datacenter as base host. One of the major purposes of this course is to enable trainees to assess themselves as windows server 2016 system administrators.

Multiple Windows Server 2016 VMs

Course 3: Linux Training Package -Linux Administration LCPI 1 and LCPI 2

This course is the third course that was successfully completed. It is equivalent to CompTIA’s Linux+ or LCPI 1 and LCPI 2. LCPI stands for Linux Certified Professionals Institute. Both the training packages in training 1 and training 2 are being given. It is based on Ubuntu server 16.04 LTS and the Desktop edition. To site some of the contents that are being given, file management, process management, installation, software installation and management and more. With this course trainees are able to install configure and manage Linux Operating System instances both the server and the desktop editions. One of the major purposes of this course is to enable trainees to assess themselves as Linux administrators.

Course 4: Enterprise Backup & Replication

After successful completion of the three courses this course backup replication starts after students set up datacenter using the above courses VMware vSphere 6, Windows Server 2016 and Linux. After Setting up Installing datacenter using VMware, windows server and Linux server the next course was setting up enterprise backup and recovery server using Veeam backup and replication for their datacenters. This course starts Installing Veeam Backup and replication, connecting backup server to the virtual infrastructures, configuring backup repository, backup proxy and configure replication with configuring data recovery site. After this students practice performing backup and restore for virtual machine, guest files, performing backup copy, performing replication failing over for Virtual Machine replica, undoing failover, failing back to the primary Virtual Machine and committing failback. In addition, they study distributed backup infrastructure management using Veeam backup enterprise manager which is used managing multiple Veeam backup servers, cloning and editing jobs, performing 1-click restore and searching for guest OS from backup. One of the major purposes of this course is to enable trainees to assess themselves as Backup and Restore administrators.

Veeam Backup and Replication Training
Veeam Backup and Replication Training

Course 5: Network Monitoring and Management – Monitoring Availability and Performance using Manage Engine OpManager

This is the fifth course given to the trainees and it is about monitoring the availability and taking the account of each systems using OpManager. With this course student has seen and practiced how to their datacenters, networks, applications and systems are monitored. After setting the datacenter having network management and monitoring tool is mandatory. This course starts with installing the OpManager, discovering the network resources, configure discovery credentials, discover network and its devices& discover its services, determining availability, monitoring system resources. In addition to this they learned and practiced configuring users, reports, alarm and faults and configuring emailing the report. One of the major purposes of this course is to enable trainees to assess themselves as IT support and is also part of Security Administrators.

Enterprise Systems Management
Enterprise Systems Management

Course 6: CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate)

CCNA Network Diagram
CCNA Network Diagram

We now have multiple datacenters and neworks of each group and it is time to integrate and create inter-operability to them. Therefore the last course given to trainees is CCNA Equivalent routing and switching course. This course helps them to become a network administrator of their Networks and datacentres. This course includes VLANs, VTP, STP, RIP and OSPF and others all being demonstrated and applied by each trainee. This course helped them to integrate all the previous courses in to their own networks and datacentres. One of the major purposes of this course is to enable trainees to assess themselves as Cisco Networks and the like network administrators.

OSPF Diagram
OSPF Diagram

Trainees

There were 40 trainees who participated in the training and each of them has participated in the six courses. 8 or 20% of the trainees were female and 32 or 80% were male. The Ministry of Finance was able to cover finance needed for 30 trainees and 10 people from the ICT of the Ministry of Finance had to miss the opportunity due to financial issue. But Ultrates having the insight of long term relationship with the ministry included them free of charge.

Goals and Objectives Achieved

  • The knowledge base of the Ministry was transformed to enterprise Grade
  • Each ICT personnel of the Ministry Has Identified his/her temperaments and fields of interest
  • Future readiness for the IFMIS Project was ensured
  • Cooperation and Communication between the ICT personnel of the Ministry was created
  • Trainees was able to identify the current and future enterprise grade ICT equipment required by the ministry
  • Trainees are now to capable of operating and administering enterprise grade modern datacenters and Networks with the vision to extend.
  • Trainees with different ICT backgrounds were made to come in to common understanding regarding to ICT vision and mission of the ministry
  • After the training the trainees were able to clearly identify the limitations of the existing system and understand the advantages that will be brought by the future datacenter and network infrastructure
  • Trainees has learned new skills and knowledge in VMware VSphere 6.0 virtualization
  • Trainees has learned new skills and knowledge in Windows server 2016 Datacenters
  • Trainees has learned new skills and knowledge in Cisco Enterprise Networks
  • Trainees has learned new skills and knowledge in Linux Operating Systems
  • Trainees has learned new skills and knowledge in Enterprise Grade Backup
  • Trainees has learned new skills and knowledge in Enterprise Management and monitoring
  • Trainees are now able to make maximum utilization of Modern ICT services in their departments
  • Trainees, now have the understanding on how to professionally handle the consequences that could arise from poor ICT infrastructure and information management

Conclusion

The training was completed within three months and every participant was satisfied by the training. When the training has completed, an assessment meeting was held and everyone underlined that they have found a strong foundation and a clear insight for their future career. The IT heads added that they now know their future IT infrastructure and information management system would look like and also the equipment they need in their datacenter and network systems right from client devices to high-end systems. The human resource manager of the ministry appreciatively said “From the outset the ministry of finance was assiduous in developing his human resource and we have never seen such a training in which all its participants are fully satisfied. We will create a strong and long-term relationship with you, in meeting our future goals. Wherever you are, we will never leave you”. And we felt satisfied in bring such a difference to our clients.

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