RE: Checkpoint Question

[hermit1 <hermits () mac com>]

Pick your class carefully!  I took a class a couple of years ago after I 
had been working with FW-1 for a month or two.  The instructor gave us the 
course materials that consisted mainly of photocopies of the slides he 
showed, and he read the slides to us.  I got the feeling he was learning 
the material at the same time.
hermit


At 07:26 PM 4/20/00 -0400, Cannella, Michael (ISS Southfield) wrote:
> <Caveat>I teach the Checkpoint classes sometimes.</caveat>
>
> Like many questions about security, the answer to this one is: "it depends."
>
> A few questions to consider:
>
> -How important is having the firewall up and working in a hurry to you/your
> organization?
>
>      Tight security firewall a high priority?  The vast majority of people
> can get it up and effective a lot more quickly by taking the course.
>
> -Will you be "allowed" to dedicate the required time at work to the firewall?
>
> -Will inoperative NAT or VPN cost you money?
>
>      The cost of the class is often cheap compared to the cost of being 
> down....
>
>
> You _can_ get the information on your own that you would get in the classes,
> and it's all available free on the internet.  But how much do you know about
> firewalls to start with?  How much time will you really have at work to lock
> yourself away with the firewall and get comfortable with it.  How many
> archived FW1 list posts do you want to sort through?
>
> Like Chris, I have issues with the courseware. Some people don't learn well
> in a classroom environment.  And not all instructors are created equal.  But
> as I tell my students, even with a bonehead like me teaching, at the very
> least the courses give you a combined four days in a lab with
> pseudo-real-world conditions--time enough to:
>
> --try a lot of different settings and configurations without real-world 
> repercussions,
> --get familiar with the firewall, the gui, all of its features (even the 
> ones nobody uses)
>
> In a typical class, lots of people make lots of mistakes--an observant
> student will realize that these mistakes and the symptoms they cause are
> valuable troubleshooting experience for the real world.