ERNET joins training bandwagon

ERNET India will offer high-end training courses in

networking in collaboration with Cisco. While ERNET will offer the

infrastructure and host the training, Cisco will provide the training material

as well as the course instructors. These courses which will span for five days

will be held at the premises of the ERNET office headquarters at New Delhi. The

first batch is expected to start on May 21. Although the courses are expected to

be held every month, it will depend on the number of registrations.

These courses will not be the run-of-the-mill variety

for two reasons: it has only 16 seats on offer and second, it will offer

hands-on experience in maintaining networks. Pointed out Dr Surendra Pal,

Director, ERNET, "We have to restrict the number of students since the

course will be hands-on and therefore we cannot accommodate more people than

that."

ERNET is a country-wide network connecting more than 500

institutes in the country including the IITs, RECs and the IISc. With a

combination of dedicated leased lines and satellites, the network's capacity

vary in the range of 2-8 MBPS.

These courses in network management come in the wake of

the MoU signed by Pramod Mahajan, Minister of Information Technology, during his

visit to the US last summer with John Chambers, CEO, Cisco Systems. Under the

agreement, both sides will undertake collaborative work in R&D and training

and set up a Center of Excellence which will test and showcase new technology

and products from Cisco.

Although at Rs 35,000 per head the fee appears steep,

officials are positive there will be takers since this would be a hands-on

experience and both the names associated with the course are reputed. Officials

insist that there is no commercial angle to initiating the course. Training was

always one of the mandates of ERNET along with doing R&D.

Another spin-off benefit that the government hopes to

achieve is to create a band of experienced personnel who would be able to man

the government networks. Most government departments have huge networks spread

across the country and sometimes even across the countries for whom maintenance

is an issue. Says an ERNET official, "Government departments are reluctant

to allow private parties to do anything on their networks due to security

reasons. We are looking at creating qualified professionals who would be able to

cater to these departments."

(CNS)