Tired of sending your team to training that nobody remembers by Thursday?
Ironbark runs live cohort courses where sysadmins actually break servers, fix outages, and build things together. Small groups. Working instructors. Skills that last past the parking lot.
30-minute walkthrough. No sales pitch. We show the labs and let you decide.
Live Labs
Break. Fix. Repeat.
Max 12 Per Class
Names, not numbers.
Career Credential
Ship, not study.
1,780
Admins trained since 2018
92%
Complete the full programme
39
Countries represented
4.8/5
Post-course satisfaction
Courses scaled to your team
Whether it's one person sharpening skills or a department of fifteen catching up, we've structured the tracks around how many people you're sending.
Solo Learner
Join an open cohort with admins from other companies. Same labs, same instructors. You just don't bring a team — you join one.
8 weeks · from CA$1,750
Small Team (2–5)
Your people train together in a shared cohort. Team exercises use your group — you troubleshoot as a unit. Most of our clients start here. It's the sweet spot, honestly.
8–10 weeks · from CA$1,550/seat
Mid-Sized (6–12)
Private cohort. We tailor the scenario library to your stack. Your team trains without outsiders. Scheduling flexibility improves too — we can shift session times to match your time zone.
10 weeks · from CA$1,400/seat
Department (13+)
Multiple parallel cohorts. Dedicated account manager. We've done this for groups up to 40 — it requires planning, and we're honest that lead times grow with size. Worth it, but start the conversation early.
Custom timeline · Contact us
All prices in CAD, exclude GST/PST. The demo call covers pricing in detail for your team size.
From demo to diploma in four steps
Book a demo
30 minutes. We walk you through the lab environment, show a sample scenario, and answer questions. If it's not a fit, we'll tell you.
Enrol your team
Pick a cohort date and team size. Lab credentials arrive one week early — real servers, real configs, no guardrails.
Learn together, break things
Twice-weekly live sessions, evening PT. Short lectures, long labs. Your team debugs problems as a unit — that's where the learning compounds.
Ship a capstone
The final project is a working deployment or runbook your team can use on the job. Not a quiz. Previous capstones have gone straight into production — which, yeah, surprised a few managers.
What the lab looks like
Three views from the actual platform. These aren't mockups — this is what your team sees on day one.
Active Scenarios: 138
Completed by you: 24
In progress: 2
Categories:
Networking · 31
Storage · 22
Monitoring · 28
Incident Sim · 19
$ dig @ns1.lab.local app.corp
; SERVFAIL
$ cat /etc/named/zones/corp.zone
; SOA serial not incremented
$ vim /etc/named/zones/corp.zone
// fix serial, :wq
$ rndc reload
zone corp/IN: loaded serial 2026111302
@instructor · 11:42 PM
Lab 47 is up. DNS is broken on purpose. You have 20 minutes.
@jordan · 11:44 PM
SOA serial wasn't bumped. Classic.
@maya · 11:46 PM
Already fixed. 4 minutes. New record for our group.
What students actually say
“We enrolled four people. By week three they were voluntarily running extra lab sessions on lunch breaks. That had never happened with any prior training. The team exercises forced them to communicate about problems differently.”
Amy Chen · IT Director, Ravenswood Financial
“Honestly? The pace was faster than I expected for the first two weeks. But that's intentional. By week four I was debugging things I would've escalated a month earlier.”
Tariq Hassan · Systems Engineer, Cordova Analytics
“Took the solo track while between jobs. Used my capstone project in two interviews. Got both offers.”
Lisa Okafor · Senior Admin, now at Threshold Media
“The instructor spotted a gap in our backup testing within two sessions. We fixed it before the course even finished. That alone was worth the fee — and I don't usually say that about training spend.”
Kevin Drummond · VP Operations, Birchline Logistics
“Not perfect. Scheduling across Pacific and Eastern time was awkward for our split team. But the content itself? Best ops training we've put people through. Four out of five.”
Deepak Malhotra · CTO, Granville SaaS Partners
“Short and useful.”
Nadia Bergstrom · Platform Engineer, Frostlight Systems
Questions we hear a lot
What happens during the demo call?
We show you the lab environment, walk through a sample scenario, and explain how cohorts work. It's 30 minutes. No slides. No sales pitch. If it's not right for your team, we'll say so — and we have, more than once.
Is the credential government-accredited?
No, and we're straightforward about that. The capstone produces a working artefact you can demo in interviews or present to management. The credential carries weight among ops teams who know our programme. But if your HR team needs a specific regulatory stamp, ask us first — we'd rather you know before you pay.
How much time per week?
About 8 to 10 hours. Two live sessions (90 min each), lab work, and some reading. Most students manage it alongside a full-time job.
Can my employer be invoiced?
Yes. About 70% of our students use employer billing. We provide invoices in CAD plus applicable GST/PST. Volume discounts kick in at five seats. We also have a justification letter template if you need help with the internal approval — just mention it during the demo.
What if someone needs to pause?
One free deferral to the next cohort. After that, CA$250 re-enrolment. On-call emergencies happen. We get it.
Sessions recorded?
Yes. Available for 90 days post-cohort.
Book a live demo
See the labs, ask questions, and decide if it fits. 30 minutes. We'll show you a real scenario — not a slide deck.
Phone
+1 604-336-8172Office
401 W Georgia St, Suite 1500, Vancouver BC V6B 5A1