OS/400 Security Training Offered As Streaming Video

by Alex Woodie

Companies that would like to bring OS/400 security consultant Carol Woodbury into their shops, but are deterred by the former IBM OS/400 security architect's consulting fees, now have another option. ExpertAnytime recently made available a series of short, 20-minute video presentations by Woodbury on OS/400 security topics. Users with broadband Internet connections can access the presentations as streaming video over the Web, while users with slower connections can watch them on CD.

ExpertAnytime offers 25 different presentations by Woodbury as part of its "OS/400 Security Tips & Techniques" library. The presentations are grouped into eight general categories, including security policies, general OS/400 security, system values, managed security, miscellaneous security topics, object-level security, designing secure applications, and encryption technologies.

Users can either purchase subscriptions that give them access to the streaming video version of a presentation for a specified number of days or purchase the CD of the presentation outright. A 90-day subscription to one title costs $24.95. A 180-day subscription costs $34.95. The CD version costs $69.95 per presentation. The company is offering a 33 percent discount if you buy all three presentations within a category. The entire 25-session series is available on CD for $489.95, 70 percent less than buying each session separately.

Woodbury says she takes a practical, hands-on approach in her videos and concentrates on providing "how to" advice for beginners. "The thing we see when we go out to clients is that they're sort of befuddled on where they should start," she said. "These videos give them another place to start. The underlying theme of all of these videos is practical advice."

Woodbury says the new videos were kept relatively short (they range from 15 to 30 minutes, but most are about 20 minutes) in order to keep viewers attentive. "We're really looking at how people learn these days, and it's typically not in a day-long session," she said. "Most companies can't send their staff to a weeklong convention, but they can afford to purchase these videos and have their staff watch them over a 15-minute break."

ExpertAnytime was launched earlier this month from Seattle by Woodbury and her business partner at OS/400 security consultancy SkyView Partners, John Vanderwall, in collaboration with Read Technologies, an Irvine, California, iSeries reseller. Woodbury and Vanderwall launched SkyView earlier this year after leaving OS/400 security tools vendor PowerTech Group.

ExpertAnytime hopes to take its brand of bite-sized how-to videos into other areas of OS/400 operations and management, such as WebSphere and Domino. For more information, go to www.expertanytime.com.

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