Where Can I Find App-V Training?

Introduction

App-V training takes many forms and I recommend you take a look at the various offerings available to determine what best suits your needs from both a delivery and content perspective. Training for App-V is offered by Microsoft and a number of customized options also exist outside of that offering but I will first start with what Microsoft offers and go from there.

Microsoft Training

Microsoft offers a five day course for App-V 5 that is not lumped in with the rest of the MDOP suite as App-V 4 was. This exam also covers virtual desktops so it is not 100% App-V but I do believe the additional content in the exam will be relevant to many users of App-V. This exam is 70-694 and can be found on the Microsoft Learning Website.

In addition to the traditional learning track at Microsoft there are a couple courses on Microsoft Virtual Academy that I have personally took that offering and has quite a bit of useful knowledge for free. The first course is done by Aaron Ruckman the senior product manager for MDOP at Microsoft where he delivers a session titled MDOP Application Virtualization Deep Dive. The second course is hosted by Steve Thomas aka the Gladiator who is a senior consultant for Microsoft that often is engaged with very large accounts using App-V. His course is titled Deploying Office 2013 with App-V and again I highly recommend it.

Training by Industry Professionals 

Next I will put in a shameless plug for training that both Tim Mangan and myself maintain for App-V since 2007. Tim Mangan worked at Softricity before the Microsoft acquisition and managed the product development at that time. He has since become a semi-retired geek writing tools, teaching, some consulting and presenting at conferences around the world. My role has been more firmly placed in the consulting world as I was an early adopter of the technology as I went to get trained on SoftGrid 3.1 before I had my first SoftGrid project. I teach but my focus is consulting and trying to find time to blog with my schedule. Our course is five days of pure App-V focusing on infrastructure but more so on various advanced App-V sequencing scenarios as that tends to be the most challenging part of using App-V for most of our customers. We are both long time MVPs for App-V which has now transitioned to being a Windows IT Pro MVP and Tim also enjoys being a Citrix CTP. Our joint website is www.gridmastertraining.com but we offer our courses independently at www.tmurgent.com and www.bighatgroup.com. Do note that at Big Hat Group we have performed online training in real time to some North American customers.

Hopefully I can do the others justice as there are some newer options that are worth considering. Another new MVP Thamim Karim formally a Microsoft employee offers training in London UK and this might be of interest to European customers. He is a super bright guy and I have faith that he is delivering a solid course. His course can be found here and he also has a blog on the same side worth checking out.

Kalle Saunamäki is a long time App-V MVP and that also maintains what I think is one of the best third party App-V tools for sequencing called Application Virtualization Explorer. He unofficially offers sequencing workshops at www.gridmetric.com.

I personally don't know much about Erik Havarstien (sorry Eric!) but he is currently a Citrix CTP offing both XenApp training and App-V training programs. His course seems to be more slanted toward XenApp users and it is an online subscription offering from what I can tell. You can find out more about his course by visiting his website for App-V training.

For App-V training in the Netherlands and Belgium as well, you can take a look at AIMED Solutions. They are a leading consulting & training company in the application packaging area. Thier training center, the AIMED Academy is based in the Netherlands, they are offering several courses all related to application packaging / virtualization and desktop management solutions. These courses can be held on-site/in-company/abroad as well. These highly valued App-V courses (also available in English) run on a monthly schedule so if you're looking for their training schedules visit www.aimedacademy.nl.

QA which looks to be a training provider based in the UK offers a three day App-V training program that can be taken online. This course looks to be a mix of infrastructure and sequencing for App-V 5. More information can be found on the QA.com website.

Also in Finland is another company that offers App-V training on top of professional services. This company is offering courses for traditional packaging along with App-V. Visit Centero.fi for more information.

If you happen to be an AdminStudio user Flexera has a course available to better understand how to use the application virtualization features in their product to make App-V packages. This course is specifically intended for packagers using their AdminStudio packaging tool and can be found here.

Finally I did find some training for a group called Avance in the Netherlands. I am assuming the training is in Dutch and can be found here.

If you feel that I have missed something then please feel free to email me at kevin.kaminski@bighatgroup.com to refine this article further and good luck with your training effort!