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)