Fast Lane Partners with London Metropolitan Network to Help IT Training Budgets Stretch Further...

Discounted Training Programme helps universities, colleges, museums and charities around London maintain network management and security expertise.

28th January, 2009 - Fast Lane UK, the leading IT training provider for Cisco and NetApp specialists, has partnered with London Metropolitan Network LMN to deliver discounted technical training and series of technology seminars to organisations within the LMN community.

London Metropolitan Network is jointly owned by its members currently comprising 80 Higher and Further Education Institutions in Greater London. The scheme will provide members including a number of charities and museums training in networking technologies at varying levels, including technical training for networking staff and high-level technology briefings for IT director-level audiences.

Fast Lane, which completed a comprehensive tendering and selection process, was selected based on its quality and value for money. The first 2 month course delivered last year proved popular and attracted 50 LMN members. As Maria Illia, Business Development Manager for LMN commented, Fast Lane showed itself to be flexible and sensitive to the varying needs of the members of the different organisations.

The full course is built around four levels which allows LMN members to gain the widely recognised Cisco Certified Network Administrator qualification. The modules cover basics such as the skills needed to install, operate and troubleshoot a small branch office network, including configuring a switch, a router, connecting to a WAN and implementing network security.

The top level provides delegates with in-depth knowledge of BGP Border Gateway Protocol , which is vital to technologies such as Multiprotocol Label Switching. This curriculum covers the theory of BGP, its configuration on Cisco routers, detailed troubleshooting information and hands-on exercises that provide delegates with the skills needed to configure and troubleshoot BGP-based networks.

Alongside technical training for key networking technologies, Fast Lane is now planning new course and seminars for 2009, which will include security, unified communications and voice over IP and a number of emerging technologies.

As the recessions starts to bite, many organisations are keen to maintain strong in-house IT resource to reduce the reliance on external contractors, comments Peter Olive, Managing Director of Fast Lane UK, We have run cost effective training programmes for non-commercial organisations in the past and they have proven popular and we look forward to working with LMN to build a balanced range of courses that will help its members both understand and utilise a wide range of current and emerging technologies.