topic Re: Opinions on Fast Lane vs Quickstart virtual training for ONTAP? in NetApp Learning Services Discussions

Opinions on Fast Lane vs Quickstart virtual training for ONTAP?

kodiak_f — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 10:47:58 GMT

I'm a Linux specialist with about 15 years in IT who's recently been tossed into storage admin as an additional responsibility. As part of this, work is paying to put me through ONTAP courses. I'll be the first at our facility to go through any sort of NetApp training and we have no experience with these two training companies.

I was hoping there might be folks willing to provide their experiences, because in my experience, quality of training can vary quite a bit!

Thanks!

Re: Opinions on Fast Lane vs Quickstart virtual training for ONTAP?

AlainTansi — Thu, 22 Oct 2020 19:32:49 GMT

Any fast lane training that can be recommended will depend on the primary task that you will be having on the storage.

However, as a beginner with NetApp, there is a bundle of fundamental training that you can find on NetApp university to start with.

I will also recommend you taking a look at the curriculum for NCDA here

https://www.netapp.com/support-and-training/netapp-university-training-and-certification/certification/data-administrator/

Re: Opinions on Fast Lane vs Quickstart virtual training for ONTAP?

SpindleNinja — Thu, 22 Oct 2020 20:10:04 GMT

Link to netapp learning services -> https://www.netapp.com/support-and-training/netapp-university/

There is also a simulator and some labs that are available .

https://mysupport.netapp.com/site/tools/tool-eula/simulate-ontap

Labs can be found by filtering in tools. https://mysupport.netapp.com/site/tools

Re: Opinions on Fast Lane vs Quickstart virtual training for ONTAP?

jcolonfzenpr — Thu, 22 Oct 2020 21:32:12 GMT

I took many oficial courses through Fastlane but Neil Anderson has the best NetApp course.

Just my humble opinion!

https://www.flackbox.com/

Re: Opinions on Fast Lane vs Quickstart virtual training for ONTAP?

kodiak_f — Tue, 27 Oct 2020 20:18:13 GMT

Thanks all for the replies!

Haven already taken the NetApp fundamentals courses, I've gone ahead and purchased the NTUs for training. It's looking like it'll probably be FastLane's converged ONTAP cluster administration and data protection bundle (CDOTDP9).

Re: Opinions on Fast Lane vs Quickstart virtual training for ONTAP?

CHRISMAKI — Thu, 26 Nov 2020 04:30:33 GMT

I see you've gotten ample feedback on training providers, my response here is to suggest that you install the simulator in your virtual environment, get into the command line and start changing/breaking stuff. There's no better way to learn. Get to the command line, type a question mark, type the first command and then another question mark to see the parameters ad nauseam.

Re: Opinions on Fast Lane vs Quickstart virtual training for ONTAP?

kodiak_f — Mon, 30 Nov 2020 12:24:31 GMT

Thanks ChrisMaki - that is a great piece of advice. I haven't played with a vendor specific simulator in easily over a decade since Graphical Network Simulator IIRC - something for Cisco - a lifetime ago in tech years. Installing the NetApp simulator was an early item on my to-do backlog and to be honest I'd forgotten all about it since being tossed into the production deep end immediately upon taking this position.

I'll try to get that up and running ASAP, but for now I've gotten my hands on the NTUs so I'll have to see about getting signed up for a class right away.