By Apryl Motley, CAE - Technical Writer & Communications Lead, Internet2 Trust and Identity/NET+ Services
Just ahead of kicking off our next COmanage Class, June 28–30, we caught up with co-instructors Shayna Atkinson and Laura Paglione, both partners with Spherical Cow Group, to get their take on what attendees can expect from the workshop and what they hope their major takeaways will be. (There’s still time to join us for COmanage Class!)
COmanage is an identity registry with flexible enrollment and lifecycle management capabilities. The workshop provides attendees with the technical know-how to get this solution up and running whether they represent a research computing center or central IT.
Shayna, who began facilitating COmanage training last fall, noted that the workshop’s format lends itself to preparing attendees for making decisions about how to model their particular organizational needs with COmanage. “The topics are designed to lead students through the typical choices they need to make when designing the system to meet their needs and give them competency in the basic functionality at the same time,” she said.
A six-time instructor of COmanage training, Laura concurred with this characterization of its primary learning objectives. “The training, which highlights the strength and flexibility of the tool, is a solid jumping-off place for further exploration,” Laura said. “It is tempting to think of COmanage Registry as a simple place to register your population, though it is really a full lifecycle management tool to help streamline, understand, and manage the evolution of your population over time.”
The training provides a forum for exploration and exchange of knowledge with peers. One of the most enjoyable aspects of the training for both Shayna and Laura is learning how the various institutions represented are implementing COmanage. Laura said, “I love it when participants bring their own use cases to the training and explore how to address them using COmanage Registry.”
Shayna echoed this sentiment: “I enjoy hearing the different ways COmanage can possibly be used. Everyone’s use case seems slightly different, and it’s neat to see how the flexibility of COmanage can address those differences.”
| Fun Facts About Laura |
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| Fun Facts about Shayna |
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Therein lies one of the primary benefits of attending the training. In addition to the hands-on exercises and the top-notch course materials, attendees have access to a wonderful community of their peers, instructors, and the developers of the tool itself. “There’s great benefit to taking COmanage training for the access to the instructors as well as developers, documenters, and architects of COmanage,” Shayna explained. “The students learn the reasons for why a feature was implemented the way it was or what use cases led to certain functionalities.”
“They learn that COmanage is very use-case driven and that we love to hear their situations and struggles,” she continued, “as it helps us better understand how COmanage can help them and others to get their jobs done and done well.”
So what’s the No. 1 reason you should attend COmanage training? Here’s how Laura summed it up: “COmanage Registry’s superpower of flexibility can also be its biggest challenge. With flexibility comes complexity. The training helps to put this flexibility into context and provides a foundation from which to build.”
There’s no need to start from scratch when you can register for COmanage Class today, and join us June 28–30, 12 – 4 p.m. ET daily (plus instructor office hours until 5 p.m. ET.)