CiRBA Fundamentals Course

The CiRBA Fundamentals provides foundational knowledge required for deploying and maintaining the CiRBA server and agents, collecting data, and analyzing the data for consolidation and virtualization potential.

The course is typically delivered via local CiRBA installations on student laptops or onsite training infrastructure.

Who Should Attend

CiRBA customers, partners, and practitioners who will be using CiRBA for consolidation and virtualization analysis assessments, including the data collection and validation processes. The course covers a broad spectrum of CiRBA features and functionality and provides attendees with the fundamentals required for advanced learning through add-on workshops.

Expected Course Outcomes

At the end of the course, students will have a good understanding of the CiRBA Data Center Intelligence solution architecture and data acquisition strategies; and be able to collect data and analyze it using the CiRBA software.

Prerequisites

Students should have some proficiency in the majority of the following areas:

• UNIX, Linux, and/or Windows operating systems
• Software installation mechanisms
• Network communications
• Workload and performance measurement
• Server consolidation and virtualization concepts, strategies and technologies
• General system administration concepts (including performance measurement)
• General business considerations related to real-world application operation

Systems Management experience is an asset, as is basic knowledge of application architectures and high-level data center operation.

Certification

Upon completing the course, students will have an opportunity to take an online assessment to obtain the CiRBA Certified Professional designation.

Duration

2 days

Course Fees

$2,000 (USD) per person, or

$1,000 (USD) per person for CiRBA Powered Service Providers (PSP) and Resellers
Volume Discounts are available. Please contact training@cirba.com. The course fee includes all course material and access to CiRBA’s online learning resources and assessments.

Registration

By email at: training@cirba.com. Confirmation will be sent by email within one week of receipt and processing of the registration. You are not registered in the course until you have received an email confirmation.

Material Requirements

Students must bring their own network enabled laptop that can remote desktop (RDP) into a Windows training environment. All other material will be provided during the course.

Registrants will be asked to sign a letter that prohibits the use of the CiRBA license and training databases for customer engagements. The registrant will not copy or duplicate the CiRBA software license or related database without prior written consent of CiRBA.

Course Content

The CiRBA Fundamentals Course provides foundational knowledge required for deploying and maintaining the CiRBA server and agents, collecting data, and analyzing the data for consolidation and virtualization potential.

1. Architecture and Deployment

• Overall Implementation Process
• Underlying CiRBA Product Architecture
• CiRBA Deployment Strategies
• CiRBA Server and Database Requirements
• CiRBA Installation Steps

2. General Navigation and Reporting

• Homepage and General Navigation
• Standard Reports & Views
• System Searching
• Generating Ad-hoc Reports
• System Groups

3. Data Acquisition

• Configuration and Workload Data Collection Options
• Audit Templates for Agentless and Agent-based Audits
• CiRBA Windows and SNMP Agents
• Script-based Data Collection
• Importing Data into the CiRBA Repository
• CiRBA Discovery Process
• Data Collection Decision Tree
• Importing Business Attributes

4. Utilities

• CiRBA Import and Export
• Data Scrubbing

5. Analysis Introduction and Navigation

• Concepts and Terminology
• Three pillars of CiRBA Analysis: Configuration, Workload, & Business Constraints
• CiRBA 10-Step Analysis Methodology
• Navigation and the Analysis Toolbar

6. Basic Analysis

• Creating an Analysis using ‘one click’ Analysis Templates
• Exploring Analysis Compatibility Maps and Drilldown Reports in Detail
• Map Filtering and Searching
• Analysis Creation Options
• Rulesets Overview
• Workload Overview

7. CiRBA Central and Ruleset Editing

• Centralized Knowledge Capture through CiRBA Central Integration
• Ruleset Editor vs. Ruleset Designer

8. Advanced Analysis

• Data Collection Validation
• Directional Analysis
• Exploring Auto-fit and Net Effect functionality
• Virtualization Analysis
• Hypothetical Server Models
• Workload Benchmarks
• Workload parameters, Scoring Strategies and Confidence Factor
• What-if Analysis Options
• Sprawl Avoidance through Forward Consolidation Analysis
• Ongoing Operational Analytics Overview