By Maximilian Michel (DE), Jorge Garnacho (ES), Daniel Maull (UK), Adam Griffiths (UK), Guillermo De Las Nieves (ES), Catriona McGill (UK), Ed Dunlop (UK)

The Boot Camp in South Africa was an amazing experience for all of us. The minute we landed, we were made to feel at home from our host Patrick Fitzgerald. The whole family who run the Guest House were also very friendly and always keen to help us. Since we had people from South Africa to show us all the amazing sights and their traditional ways to live their lives, the two weeks were very enjoyable for all of us and we came much closer together as a group. You can read this in the following parts of this report. Enjoy!

The first group of Apprentices in Oracle (from left to right): Maximilian Michel (DE), Jorge Garnacho (ES), Daniel Maull (UK), Adam Griffiths (UK), Guillermo De Las Nieves (ES), Catriona McGill (UK), Ed Dunlop (UK)

The Training

Well, it’s time to talk about the main purpose of our trip to South Africa: the training.

Two weeks, two courses. Servers and Storage. Two weeks to learn as much as possible and get the certificate.

First week: Eben Pretorius with Servers Boot Camp. Learning about:

• Machines: T1000, T2000, T3, T4, M series;

• How to connect to the machines: serial and network connections;

• Levels of software: ALOM, ILOM, OBP and of course the operating system, Solaris

Combined with the practical part (screwdriver in one hand, and antistatic wristband on the other) makes quite a lot of stuff! But fortunately, Eben was able to tell us about everything without making our brains explode.

For the second week: Storage Boot Camp with Deon Van Vuuren. Taking a look at the content:

• Storage machines;

• Connectors and protocols: SCSi, SAS, SATA Fiber Channel.

Again, huge amounts of information, but Deon definitely did a great job and helped us learn it all.

At the end, there was just one question left. Were we able to pass the exam and get the certificate? Well, what can we say? Just take a closer look at the picture above and make your conclusions!

Our lovely Oracle office in Woodmead (near Johannesburg)

We are all very proud to receive certification in “Server and Storage Support Fundamentals” together with our trainer Deon Van Vuuren.

In summary, in case that you don't remember any of the above, the allies for a field engineer are:

• System Handbook

• EIS-DVD

• A proper toolkit

With these tools by our side, we’ll be unbeatable! 

In the next article later this week, you can find part 2 of our experiences!