Dynatrace University: Over a decade redefining virtual learning for digital transformations

Dynatrace has been a strategic partner for organizations across the world, enabling them to reduce the complexity of dynamic clouds with end-to-end observability, integrated AIOps, and application security. The most successful organizations manage a skilled team that knows how to accelerate throughput and drive efficiency across their SDLC.

But as team members come and go and the technology stack evolves, maintaining the skills necessary becomes a challenge. This is a key reason why our team launched Dynatrace University (DTU) over ten years ago, which offers an easy-to-use platform that delivers on-demand and live guided learning to enable our customers to develop the skills needed to monitor, manage, and analyze cloud environments with the Dynatrace Platform.

Over the last couple of years, the popularity of virtual learning has skyrocketed, and it is not just here at Dynatrace. For instance, traditional universities that had never offered virtual courses are now letting students learn remotely. This virtual approach that was once considered less-than-ideal learning, is now sometimes embraced as a preferred method of education. But while some organizations have had to scramble to support this emerging trend, Dynatrace University has strengthened its already strong foundation. The proof is in the numbers!

In 2021, we reached a significant milestone. Over 50,000 learners from across the globe have registered to learn at Dynatrace University! That is over 3,000 unique learners every week, representing well over 6,000 organizations. If you were to compare DTU to a traditional university, it would be in the top 20 in terms of size. So, what is driving this increased excitement for DTU? To answer that question, let us explore how our customers leverage DTU.

Performance planning

One of our customers, a large insurance company with over 700 Dynatrace users, leverages Dynatrace University as part of its ongoing employee education and performance acceleration program. As team members work towards their annual self-improvement and performance goals, Dynatrace University is a key contributor. Employees are assigned learning completion milestones, and some of them have certification goals set. This has resulted in stronger employee adoption and noticeable acceleration in proactive performance measurement and remediation across their enterprise.

Learning paths

Another customer is a global ERP organization that heavily utilizes customizable Learning Paths from Dynatrace University for both its employees and service plan customers. These learning paths are organized by skill level and role expectation. Employees can learn everything they need to know to properly configure Dynatrace to make it a key platform for achieving their service level objectives (SLOs). Their customers can easily focus on exactly what is needed to include Dynatrace in their daily activities, deployment observability, and performance awareness. These customizable learning paths are rightsized, continuously available, and can be easily reported on for either of these groups.

Blended learning at scale

One more example is a financial institution that needed to scale at a pace that is not manageable without the digital organization, guidance, and reporting that comes from Dynatrace University. With thousands of users across microservices and applications in three major regions of the world, they also needed digital scale in learning. Here, they needed a blended learning approach. While some employees are focused on expert-led learning followed by certification, others simply need to get up to speed quickly through microlearning courses. They needed a flexible approach to quickly enable their diverse employees at scale. They found that students who prepared with microlearning prior to attending expert-led training asked more advanced questions of their live instructor, and didn’t need to focus on as much of the basics.

Aligned to the Dynatrace Platform

Dynatrace University has developed a digital learning platform focused on all levels across an organization. We’ve architected this virtual university to align to all Dynatrace Platform modules – from infrastructure monitoring and digital experience management to cloud automation and business analytics. This means that leveraging Dynatrace University can help customers maximize their strategic investments in Dynatrace and ensure that their teams have the continuous education necessary to accelerate their digital transformations.
With an intuitive and easy-to-use interface, students have everything they need, and can even take their learning beyond on-demand courses. Students can access guides and labs, interactive virtual servers, and more. That means students are one click away from learning everything they need to know to take control of their multicloud environments with the Dynatrace Platform.

Get started with Dynatrace University

Every year at Perform, we put DTU to the test with hands-on learning and certifications. The last two years, with our Perform Conference being virtual, we’ve been able to support live, virtual courses for hundreds of students across the world – hundreds logged in simultaneously. In fact, many of our customers attend Perform to stay current on their Dynatrace education, and we’re proud that DTU is the virtual platform architected to support this engagement.