The events were run in conjunction with manufacturer NETGEAR over two days, and focused on various aspects of VPN’s and Firewalls - from types of vulnerability, to features, functionality and different types of solutions.
“Convergence is happening here and now and if we don’t get involved it will soon be too late; our business simply won’t survive in the future. Courses of this nature are so important in boosting our working knowledge of networks,” said one West Midlands reseller afterwards. The dealer, who has been operating for the last 18 years, added: “You will always have a need for analogue and digital extensions but if you can’t do data you simply won’t have any customers in the future. It’s a whole new world. You have to move with the times.”
Nimans’ Installation product Specialist, Geoff Wilde, confirmed: “A mix of voice and data engineers joined us to understand the security environments of VPN’s and Firewalls; why they are important, the different types of products and features available and how they can be integrated into networks - spanning products, set-up and security aspects. When we launched these events to our customer base we reached capacity in just a couple of hours.”
Wilde says the course forms part of Nimans’ comprehensive reseller training program across many different industry sectors, as he added: “VPN’s are a growing area of our business, as usage by home workers in particular continues to fuel demand and accelerate reseller sales. These courses were initially set-up in response to huge customer demand and more are planned for the future.”
Neil Smart, a Systems Engineer at NETGEAR, who conducted the courses, remarked: “The interesting thing was that the people here had never touched VPN’s and firewalls before. This is a growing area of telecoms with huge potential. It was very rewarding to increase their know-how.”