Good (Preferably Free) Online SCCM Learning Resources

Hey all. So as many people probably know, I lost my IT job about 3 weeks ago. The job I thought I had in the bag to replace it doesn't appear as solid anymore so I've been applying for other stuff in town. Unfortunately, a lot of stuff I'm otherwise well qualified for requires experience in or at least knowledge of Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager. One of the many failings of the IT environment at my old job was that we had no solution like this in place. We looked at it once (and it was LANDesk, not SCCM), then all our budgets seized up. However, based on my job hunting, SCCM is extremely popular in Ottawa, to the point where it's say it's the standard. I know there are alternatives, including several good ones that don't run on Windows but I've got to go with what's popular in my job market.

Truth be told, I don't think I'd have that much problem picking it up but there's no easy way for me to setup a test environment for it at home. I've looked into a number of online and in-person courses offered for it, many of which claim to be able to teach you the core administrative tasks in 5-7 days. Problem is, they all cost about $2,500-$3,000, or the better part of half of what I have saved up to survive on while unemployed. I can't spend that kind of money on a course in the vague hope that having just taken a course in SCCM with no actual production experience with it will get me a job.

I'm wondering, does anyone in Goodjer IT land know of some good resources for learning SCCM? I'm not actually opposed to paying for it, I just can't spend that kind of money right now and obviously, free is best. I tend to learn best either visually or practically but given my current monetary limitations, even just reading material's probably better than nothing. I'm going to spend some more time digging around today but I thought I'd toss the question in here and see if anyone knew of something.

Thanks all!

Have you looked at Microsoft Virtual Academy and the Technet Virtual Labs?

Have you ever used SMS prior to the rename to SCCM? Not much has changed in terms of interface and server roles.

If you are new to the product MS has eval versions available for download provided you have a lab at home to run them in.

The portal site is here, click on the Evaluate System Center 2012 R2 link and it will put you on your way. There are also links to the virtual labs that LM was mentioning from this site.

I'll take a look at the virtual labs. I have a TechNet membership but I know TechNet's being discontinued so I don't know if all that is still available. I most definitely don't have a lab at home. There's only two desktops and two laptops here and my girlfriend won't want me joining her's to a domain. Though I suppose I could use VMs to build a mini environment (may need to suck it up and buy a RAM upgrade for that.) I never used SMS either. Most of my IT career was spent in an on-site role for small environments and while we had a large, multi-office environment at my last job, we used no centralised management suite because well, that would have made too much sense. I will take a look at that other stuff though. Honestly, I am a hands-on learner and if I could get a miniature evaluation environment setup, I could probably teach myself the basics. I welcome anyone else's suggestions but those are great ideas, thanks!

Technet Virtual Labs is totally independent of Technet subscriptions. It provides a cloud based time limited VM and a structured walk-through of various tasks. It sucks that Technet is going away but you can download 180 day evals of basically all MS software and extend it for longer with slmgr -rearm. Having a personal Hyper-V server is awesome. Also, in their continued war against VMWare, MS is offering free exams for 74-409 Hyper-V certification through June.

Geez, that's incredible! Amazing there's still so many expensive training courses out there when this is what they have to compete with. I will look into this for sure, it sounds like exactly what I need to claim I have SCCM knowledge on my CV without lying. Thanks a ton!

Pluralsight.com also has tons of virtual learning.. 16 SCCM courses for $49 a month if you are looking for more resources.

Excellent, I shall check them out as well! An knowledge I can get of it is a huge help.

I also highly recommend Pluralsight even though I use it mostly for software development training.

Good to know. I've seen several of these "all you can learn" subscription sites and some of them have pretty divided opinions with regards to the quality of the programs they offer. I'm going to do the Microsoft Virtual Academy stuff for sure (hope to start it next week if my freelance work evens off) but I may very well sub to that for additional stuff afterward.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Good to know. I've seen several of these "all you can learn" subscription sites and some of them have pretty divided opinions with regards to the quality of the programs they offer. I'm going to do the Microsoft Virtual Academy stuff for sure (hope to start it next week if my freelance work evens off) but I may very well sub to that for additional stuff afterward.

My team says they are pretty good.. honestly for $50 a month I don't expect miracles but rather just something people can do while they have down time that doesn't involve a $3K week long 8 hour a day course.

Yeah, my entire team uses pluralsight. 22 people at $500 a year is totally worth being able to make everyone feel there is at least a bare bones educational offering.

If you do end up building a system to play with at home, I reckon that virtual is actually much superior to physical. Since you're doing system management stuff, the ability to snapshot, roll back and experiement is just brilliant. Of course, lots of RAM helps a great deal with VMs, and even more with Windows, but it's cheap these days and may be worth the investment.

Yeah, I've considered that. My gaming rig has 8GB which is fine for gaming and editing my YouTube project but with multiple VMs running, it'll quickly melt. If some of the training I look into can be helped by VMing it, I'll probably suck it up and go buy a 2x8GB kit and up my box to 24GB.