Sinclair Opens State-of-the-Art IT Labs to Deliver Certification Training

Author: Ed Massie

July 2008

As we enter the second half of 2008, with unemployment at its highest rate in almost 20 years and recent news of impending layoffs from major local employers, workforce development takes on a level of importance like never before.  Historically, the Dayton region has been characterized by its focus on a blue-collar, unionized manufacturing base.  But with the reduced presence of companies like Delphi and General Motors from the region, Dayton must train and attract workers for the jobs of the future.  Many of these jobs will involve information technology (“IT”).

In an effort to keep pace with the growing IT market place, the Miami Valley region must build a qualified pool of technology applicants.   To attract and maintain businesses to the area, it is necessary to have a workforce capable of fulfilling the current and future needs of these employers. 

A major priority of Sinclair Community College’s Workforce Development & Corporate Services Group (WFD&CS) is to expand the capacity of the local workforce to be market-driven, responsive to local economic needs, and a contributor to regional economic competitiveness, particularly in the area of IT. 

With this in mind, Sinclair has invested in creating a state-of-the-art information technology center located at the Miami Valley Research Park in Kettering.  At the heart of this IT center are the region’s only hands-on Cisco and Oracle Network Labs.  Each lab comes equipped with a dedicated T-1 line, wireless connectivity, secured intelligent switching and routing, as well as upgraded high speed workstations equipped with hot-swappable hard drives.  This ensures that no matter what platform a class requires, Sinclair can quickly meet the demand by swapping the hard drive pre-loaded with the appropriate operating system. 

The day of emulation and virtualized training for networking is dead.

The world of networking requires a student to learn more than terminal commands and hardware configuration, rather it demands an understanding of how to apply the skills it takes to setup a reliable network infrastructure.  Sinclair has created a lab where each student will be immersed with equipment and be able to work through many different network scenarios.  The lab can emulate WAN connections, fiber backbones, server farms, and even client/server peer/peer configurations.  Students can make use of extensive hardware that includes:

•    Cisco 2950 - a switch that offers extensive security features such as 802.1X authentication.
•    Cisco 1841 - integrated services router offers students experience with a modular router, and has extensive capabilities such as integrated security, WAN capabilities and Voice over IP (“VoIP”).
•    Cisco 2611XM - a multiservice router that also supports IP V6
•    Cisco3640 - another multiservice router setup with VoIP interface cards to support our VoIP Lab
•    Cisco 3550 is a multilayer switch that brings together the data-link and network layers of the OSI model. By offering layer 3 IP routing capabilities, and will be used to support our VoIP Lab

Each set of hardware is on a dedicated equipment rack shared by two students, and each rack is linked within the classroom. This allows for a robust, unique configuration where students can work together to develop a live network.

Until now, most higher level IT training required companies to send employees outside of Dayton to obtain the necessary skills.  This upgraded information technology center will allow Sinclair to offer organizations on-demand IT training to upgrade IT skills, as well as acquire and maintain key IT certifications.  A recent study shows employees with IT certifications typically earn an average of $2,228 more per year than those without such certifications.  Certifications also give employees a competitive advantage with employers. 

The goal at Sinclair is to provide an accelerated certification process for current and new IT professionals to quickly build required skills without the cost and time involved in traveling.  Course durations will be short, usually one to two weeks and will be flexible to meet training requirements.  By providing these accelerated certification training options, Sinclair will be assisting our region in creating the needed pool of highly skilled IT workers to support regional growth and the jobs of the future.
To learn more about Sinclair’s IT capabilities and training or to schedule a tour of the new information technology center, please call 937-252-9787.