MySQL Training on Demand – online training classes from Oracle

It’s been a while since I’ve written any blog entries.  I like to think and write about basics and fundamentals, and in my work (Senior MySQL Support Engineer at Oracle), I can get caught up in particulars, so sometimes it’s hard to see the forest for the trees.

That’s why when we were offered a chance to try out Oracle’s Training on Demand (“ToD”) and take the new offering of “MySQL for Beginners”, I jumped at it.  I can go back to fundamentals, and now I can blog about the basics – in this case, the basics of Oracle’s Training-on-Demand – how it works, the experience, etc.

In my previous jobs as a DBA, I always enjoyed taking training classes (again, I like to focus on fundamentals).  I remember first (LONG ago) going to classes to learn linux.  (We felt initiated when, at the end, the instructor said “do a ps -ef and pipe it to grep for cron” and we all understood him.)  Later, I also took classes for being an Oracle DBA (then taking the first, “beta” certification exams at Oracle Open World and passing), then a MySQL DBA.  All of them were a welcome chance to take a break from the regular work day and go back to school.

Now Oracle Training on Demand offers a way to take such courses online, which offers many benefits, some of them beyond normal classroom training:

•    you don’t need to wait for a class to be offered in your area
•    the training is available for use for 90 days, 24×7
•    online access to a student guide
•    white-boarding and online labs, for hands-on experience
•    Q&A available with an Oracle University Instructor
•    you can start, stop, pause, skip or rewind as you like
•    full-text search to find relevant spots in the video quickly

I am excited about this, because it can offer the best of a classroom and the best of a book.  Sometimes I learn best from a book, but I enjoy a classroom, too.  With a book, I can go at my own pace, put it down, pick it up, go back, look ahead, etc.  Same with ToD.  In a classroom, I can ask questions, or get hands-on lab practice.  Same with ToD.  And you get it for 90 days – not so with a classroom course.  The list goes on…

So I look forward to trying this out and blogging about the course content, and about how Oracle’s Training on Demand works.  In the meantime, you can read an announcement about this course at

https://blogs.oracle.com/MySQL/entry/all_new_mysql_for_beginners

or see the page for the course at

http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=557&get_params=courseId:D77226GC10,showLabTab:Y

More to come soon!