Last year Udacity developed a new course with Nutanix called Hybrid Cloud Fundamentals. Out of professional interest I signed up for this course and I can recommend this one to everyone starting with HyperConverged Infrastructure (HCI). This is a great entry level course to get you started and if you want to start working with Nutanix a must-follow in my opinion.
After finishing this course and providing input, Udacity & Nutanix gave away 500 Scholarships for the second phase of the nano degree program: Hybrid Cloud Engineer. On October 19th 2020 I found out that I was one of the lucky few to be selected.
This program is designed as a self-paced learning program and estimates you to input ±10 hours/week for 3 months. Unfortunately I had to juggle a bit with my time, so I couldn’t do the 10 hours/weeks, but instead did some sprints (weekends/holidays) to finish the program.
The program consists of 3 projects that will learn you how to build the different components of a hybrid cloud. The projects follow up in such a way that your skillset grows into the hybrid cloud. The projects are:
- Project 1: Private Cloud Web Application Infrastructure
- Project 2: Private Cloud SaaS: Three-Tier Web Application
- Project 3: Hybrid Cloud SaaS: Three-Tier Web Application
The trainers in this scholarship are Mark Lavi & Cees van Eijk who guide you through the scholarship.
Each project is based on lessons and excercises that require you to logon to a lab environment provided to you via Frame. Each session lasts for 4 hours and will terminate after this time, allowing you enough time to complete the excercise. Of course it is always encouraged to save your work in progress during the sessions in a persistent student folder.
After you have finished each lesson in a project, you need to put everything you learned into place and submit a project to be reviewed. If all is okay, you can move on to the next project. This was for me the most fun thing to do, as you get real hands-on experience.
Last week I finally submitted my last project and after a day I got the confirmation I graduated this nanodegree program.
I found the program strongly focused on automation (using Nutanix Calm) and quite enjoyable to do – as I have very limited experience in this-. If you’re interested check out the program, download the syllabus and if you feel ready for it, start studying.