TNT Software offers comprehensive training for the ELM family of products. A Product Support Engineer (PSE) will guide you, on your own system, through all aspects of the ELM Product you have purchased. Training sessions begin after you have met the System Requirements for installation and have ELM installed in your environment. No matter what stage your deployment is in, we will show you best practices and teach you to configure ELM to maximize your benefit from centralized management. Using on-line desktop sharing through Webex, the PSE will work directly within your ELM installation and any configurations made during the training session are yours to keep and build from.

Training Program Details
ELM training is scheduled as a 5-hour package, divided into three sessions. The first two sessions are two-hour, intense training periods. You will be provided with an agenda, which is open to modification to best suit your needs. The final session is intended as a 1-hour "wrap-up," covering some final thoughts and giving you an opportunity to ask any questions that may have arisen as you have worked with ELM. We recommend that you wait a week or so between the second and third sessions so that you have some time to work with ELM, and perhaps develop some questions or find areas of particular interest that we can focus on in session 3.

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Session 1

Session 1 begins with an introduction to the ELM User and Administrator Guides, and continues with a review of ELM System Requirements, as well as recommended configurations. Questions and in-depth side discussions are always welcome - this is your time, and we want you to get the most out of ELM.

Next we'll move on to discussing the ELM Database, recommendations for configuring it, how to access the Database Wizard, and the functions of the three ELM Databases. Covered under this topic will be database location, sizing, pruning, and maintenance. You'll ultimately need to establish a data retention policy consistent with any regulations your enterprise may be subject to, and we can discuss at this time how to achieve those objectives using ELM.

Session 1 continues with a discussion of Agents - how we actually monitor your servers, workstations, and other network devices. Included in this section are definitions of the types of Agents available, and what is required to install them. We'll recommend certain types of Agents based on what you intend to monitor, and teach you the best practices for configuring these Agents within ELM. We'll cover all the Agent deployment options, and discuss the requirements for monitoring specific types of devices such as firewalls and syslog/SNMP units. We'll discuss the advantages ELM provides by dividing Agents into Categories.

Session 1 concludes with a look at Monitor Items within ELM. Monitor Items can be a lengthy topic, as we look at all the possible variations that ELM can be configured to monitor. We'll consider which Monitors can be assigned to which classes of Agents and how they relate to the collection of data and generation of Alerts and Reports. Best practices will be discussed, as well as any requirements for specific Monitor Items you may wish to deploy in your enterprise.

Session 2

Session 2 begins with a short review of the previous material, with an opportunity for you to raise any questions about what was covered. We continue on with a detailed look at Event Filters - how do we parse out Events to find the information we really want to know about? We'll examine ways to create Event Filters, the differences between System or Application logs and Security logs, and look at using Event Filters as exclusions.

Logically following this topic will be Event Views, where we can use our Filters to see a set of Events that we're particularly interested in. ELM includes a number of Event Views "out-of-the-box," but we'll show you how to tailor Views to meet your unique needs. We'll look at Global Event Views in comparison with Agent Level Event Views, show ways to create Views, and see how Security Event Views differ from System or Application Event Views.

Next, Session 2 will move on to Notifications. This is an important part of centralized system management. ELM provides a way for administrators to be proactive, by employing a variety of Notification Methods to inform you of conditions in your environment that you need to be aware of. This is an extensive topic, as we will cover Notification Methods and Notification Rules - basically what do you want to know, and how do you want ELM to tell you? We'll look at the "out-of-the-box" Rules and how they work, and cover the creation and management of new Rules for your enterprise.

ELM wouldn't be a complete product if we didn't provide a way to generate Reports you can use to evaluate the state of your network, and Session 2 continues with an in-depth look at ELM's Reporting tools. We'll look at the ELM Publisher, which is a set of pre-defined Reports that can be assigned to Agent Categories, and examine the Monitor Items associated with these Reports. We'll then move on to the ELM Editor, a powerful utility you can use to create and schedule custom Reports. You'll see how ELM Editor Reports can be created based on Event Views, and see how these Reports can be made into Charts to assist your evaluations of your network's health.

Session 2 carries on with a look at fault tolerance. We'll see which files in the ELM folder are critical should you need to recover a failed ELM Server. Also included will be a look at the ELM Registry entries.

We'll conclude Session 2 with a review of ELM Best Practices and talk about how to upgrade to future releases of ELM.

Session 3

Session 3 is the 1-hour wrap up, and in addition to reviewing and answering any questions you may have, we will take a look at ELM's Security Features. We'll talk about required and recommended permissions, and how to configure security for the ELM Console as well as the ELM Web Viewer.

Your Support Agreement allows you continued access to TNT Software's team of Product Support Engineers, who are ready to assist your efforts for maximizing the value of your ELM deployment.

How do I sign up?

Please contact your Account Manager to request pricing and availability of ELM training.

On-site training options are also available upon request.