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Clusterhausen
A training world by 42bits Consulting DE Training

Clusterhausen Waffle Works · Handmade since 1998

Welcome to Clusterhausen.

Clusterhausen Waffle Works is the fictional company at the heart of our training courses for Ansible, containers, Kubernetes and Zabbix. Here, your IT team spends a few days building a system that actually runs at the end.

See the training courses A training world by 42bits Consulting
Clusterhausen Waffle Works on the market square: an old factory building of brick and timber framing with two chimneys in the evening light

  1. A made-up company, real training.

    Clusterhausen does not exist. The corporate training courses from 42bits Consulting do: for teams of up to eight people, on-site or online.

  2. One project instead of twenty exercises.

    Every exercise builds on the one before. At the end, there is a system your team built itself.

  3. Your team plays the lead.

    Participants are never spectators. They are the new IT team at the Waffle Works and solve its problems.

The story in four chapters

The Waffle Works has four problems. Your team solves them.

Each chapter is a training course of its own. The four courses are independent and do not build on one another: you book exactly the ones your team needs. Those who attend several will recognize the Waffle Works. Those who attend just one will miss nothing.

Konrad Ansbach stands in front of a corkboard full of yellow notes, smiling helplessly. On the calendar behind him, one day is circled in red

Chapter 1 – Ansible Konrad’s office

The knowledge is pinned to the corkboard.

Konrad Ansbach runs the Waffle Works and, on the side, its servers too. He set up every one of them by hand. Exactly how is written on yellow notes: on the corkboard, in the cigar box, in his shirt pocket.

The last update took the shop down for half a day. Since then, the next patch day has been circled in red on the calendar.

In the training

In the Ansible training, your team is the new automation team at the Waffle Works.

What your team can do afterwards

  • Set up Linux and Windows servers with playbooks that produce the same result on every run
  • Build roles, templates and a collection of your own: reusable, versioned and shareable across the team
  • Protect credentials in the vault and safeguard updates with backup and rollback

At the end: A patch day that updates every server in a single run.

5 days€9,950*net

fixed price for teams of up to 8 · on-site or online · in German or English · including lab and Ask the Trainer

To the Ansible training
Carl Cuberneties loads three boxes into his cream-white van on the market square, with the Waffle Works and its lettering behind him

Chapter 2 – Containers Carl’s boxes

Packed and ready, it arrives the same everywhere.

Carl Cuberneties delivers the waffles. Each one sits in its box with everything it needs, and it arrives at the South Branch exactly as it does at the café on the square.

The Waffle Works’ order shop can’t do that. It runs on a single server behind the bakery, every new version means an evening of manual work, and test and production never look the same.

In the training

In the container training, your team packs the shop into containers.

What your team can do afterwards

  • Move applications into containers with Podman and Docker and fix errors systematically
  • Build your own lean, reproducible images without a root user
  • Store data persistently and connect multiple containers via dedicated networks

At the end: Shop, catalog and database as a stack that starts automatically and can be updated in minutes.

3 days€5,950*net

fixed price for teams of up to 8 · on-site or online · in German or English · including lab and Ask the Trainer

To the container training
Three hexagonal Pod Waffles side by side in a box on the bakery worktop

Chapter 3 – Kubernetes The Pod Waffle

Twenty times the visitors. The shop just keeps running.

The Pod Waffle is hexagonal and rarely comes alone, preferably in a pack of three. A video of it went viral around the world, and overnight there were twenty times as many visitors as usual.

For the shop to withstand that, it has to be in the oven several times over: if one copy fails, the others keep baking.

In the training

In the Kubernetes training, your team is the new platform team and brings the shop into the cluster.

What your team can do afterwards

  • Run and scale applications with Deployments and Services
  • Roll out new versions without interruption and roll back in a controlled way when errors occur
  • Make the shop reachable at its own address via Ingress and secure it

At the end: A shop that is reachable at its own address and survives a failure test.

3 days€5,950*net

fixed price for teams of up to 8 · on-site or online · in German or English · including lab and Ask the Trainer

To the Kubernetes training

Containers plus Kubernetes bundle: 3 + 3 days, €9,950* instead of €11,900 net, including lab and two Ask the Trainer sessions.

Grandma from behind at the cast-iron waffle iron: white bun, gray cardigan, lifting a waffle out of the iron. Her face is not visible

Chapter 4 – Zabbix Grandma’s watchful eye

She notices before it smells burnt.

Grandma has never let a waffle burn. She can tell from the sizzle when an iron is too hot, and she steps in before anyone smells a thing.

The Waffle Works’ IT is not there yet. So far, Konrad only finds out the shop is down when customers call.

In the training

In the Zabbix training, your team is the new monitoring team.

What your team can do afterwards

  • Bring servers, network devices, log files and interfaces into monitoring
  • Design triggers so that real problems are detected and alert floods do not happen
  • Build alerting with escalation that reaches the right people

At the end: Monitoring that alerts before customers notice anything.

3 days€5,950*net

fixed price for teams of up to 8 · on-site or online · in German or English · including lab and Ask the Trainer

To the Zabbix training

* All prices are net, plus VAT; for on-site training, plus travel and accommodation. The details on 42bits.io apply.

For everyone who decides on training

Why a story?

What if, after the training, your people didn’t just know commands, but had built a running system together?
The bakery of the Waffle Works: cast-iron waffle irons on gas flames, a bowl of batter and boxes in the morning light

  • The map

    On the first morning, everyone sees the big picture. It comes back before every chapter. Nobody wonders what a topic is for.

  • One project instead of twenty exercises

    Every exercise builds on the one before. At the end, there is a system the participants built themselves.

  • Mistakes on purpose

    Typical failures are built in, with a task to diagnose them. Your team practices troubleshooting before running into it in production.

  • Nobody gets stuck

    There is a finished state for every exercise. Anyone who loses the thread can pick it up again from there.

The Waffle Works

Who works here

  • Konrad Ansbach in his office in front of the corkboard: checked shirt, bold glasses, yellow notes in his chest pocket

    Konrad Ansbach

    Owner

    Knows every screw in the building and every server. Writes everything down on yellow notes and finds almost all of them again. Wants only the best and knows when he needs help.

    “It’s all written on a note. I just have to find it.”

  • Carl Cuberneties with a clipboard in front of his van on the market square: dark blue work jacket and flat cap

    Carl Cuberneties

    Delivery driver

    Brings the ingredients in the morning, delivers the waffles in the afternoon and takes care of whatever comes up in between.

    “No two days are alike. But in the end, it’s always about keeping Clusterhausen running.”

  • Grandma’s hands at the waffle iron, next to her recipe book with a rubber band around it. Her face is not in the picture

    Grandma

    Keeper of the 1998 recipe

    Trusts no electric waffle iron and keeps strict records. She won’t reveal what goes into her classic.

    Grandma does not have her picture taken.

Who is behind this

Clusterhausen is made up. The training is real.

42bits Consulting trains IT teams in Ansible, containers, Kubernetes and Zabbix: as corporate training on-site or in a virtual classroom, in German or English. Technical training since 2017, all courses completely revised in 2026.

  • Fixed price for teams of up to 8
  • Lab included: a dedicated lab environment per participant, access via the browser, no installation
  • Materials included
  • Ask the Trainer included: one hour online, two to four weeks after the course

* All prices are net, plus VAT; for on-site training, plus travel and accommodation. The details on 42bits.io apply.

All training courses at 42bits.io