mcitp certification – Page 3 – CCNA training CCIE training

BlackBerry finds safe haven in UK, despite a fall in sales

Posted on November 10, 2011 by Posted in Career, CCIE, CCNA, CCNP, Cisco

While BlackBerry sales continues to suffer across the U.S and Canada, the smartphone has found safe haven in the UK, of all places.

Microsoft MCTS Certification, MCITP Certification and over 2000+
Exams with Life Time Access Membership at https://www.actualkey.com

BlackBerrys, despite their once popular status across the U.S., Canada and Europe, have found a safe haven in exile in the United Kingdom, of all places.

It has been only a month since the BlackBerry global outage, which spread across four days and affected over half its worldwide user base, an estimated 50 million users. The press alone ripped a hole in Research in Motion’s communications strategy, which left BlackBerry users in some cases more frustrated than the outage itself.

But despite the odds, BlackBerrys retained high status and stormed ahead of both Nokia and Apple in the UK market, despite shipments declining 2 percent, as Apple’s iPhone fell by just over a quarter.

On a bright side, Samsung jumped 178 percent to 1.1 million shipments, and HTC grew by nearly half to 800,000 shipments.

While Nokia’s sales slumped the most by 87 percent to a meagre 130,000 shipments, Sony Ericsson fell 32 percent to just 300,000 shipments, after it was announced last month that Sony would buy out Ericsson’s share to take the venture into its wholly-owned arms.

Nokia hopes that, as many consider the company’s Symbian mobile operating system of choice is outdated or “perceived as dead”, Canalys senior analyst Tim Shepherd said, the Finnish phone giant is hoping to regroup with its Microsoft partnership as it rolls out Windows powered phones.

One of the reasons for Apple’s loss could be the lacking availability of the new iPhone 4S smartphone, with mobile phone contract renewal or upgrade dates falling at an inconvenient time. It is thought however that the Christmas holiday period will boost smartphone sales.

Plus, as many had hoped that the next-generation iPhone 5 would be out in September, many are still holding out for the model next year, skipping the iPhone 4S altogether.

Statistics from analytics firm Canalys show smartphone shipments declined by 7 percent to 5.3 million, with a mediocre performance across the major manufacturers.

Research in Motions’ marketshare has fallen below 10 percent, according to Shepherd, noting its 58 percent year-over-year drop in North America.

But in areas of high wealth, the United Arab Emirates for example showed a massive strong quarter of growth, up 181 percent to 1.4 million units shipped in the region.

But the outage alone did not deter loyal followers of the BlackBerry brand. The popular BlackBerry Messenger service was still a unique selling point for particularly the younger generation across Europe, though now rivalled by Apple’s iMessage service, which offers vastly the same function amongst iPhone and iOS 5 users.

HP makes more executive changes

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Posted in Career, CCIE, CCNA

After a couple of high-profile departures, HP on Wednesday announced some executive appointments, including a new CIO.

Microsoft MCTS Certification, MCITP Certification and over 2000+
Exams with Life Time Access Membership at https://www.actualkey.com

John Hinshaw is now executive vice president of Global Technology and Business Processes, the company said. He’ll oversee IT and will be in charge of optimizing business processes across the company. Hinshaw previously worked for Boeing and before that, Verizon Wireless. He’ll report to Meg Whitman, HP’s new president and CEO.

Craig Flower, an HP veteran since 1984, will take on the role of senior vice president and CIO. He’ll report to Hinshaw.

Flower once reported to former HP CIO Randy Mott, who left the company in June as part of a restructuring instituted by short-lived CEO Leo Apotheker. Mott was known for his restructuring of HP’s IT, including a massive reduction of data centers.

The appointments follow a number of high-profile departures at HP recently and this year. Last month HP’s chief strategy and technology officer, Shane Robison, retired, and the company said it wouldn’t replace him. Earlier this week, Phil McKinney, vice president and chief technology officer for HP’s Personal Systems Group, said he’d retire at the end of this year. In June, well-known HP veteran Ann Livermore stepped down as head of the Enterprise Business but took on a board seat. Whitman, HP’s new CEO, is taking over for Apotheker, who lasted less than a year and who replaced Mark Hurd, who had been ousted after allegations of sexual harassment.

Microsoft News – Atidan Wins New Microsoft Gold Competencies in the Microsoft Partner Network

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Posted in Career, CCIE

Atidan officials said that they are proud to announce that their company has achieved a total of four Gold Competencies in the Microsoft (News – Alert) Partner Network for showcasing their ability to meet Microsoft customers’ evolving needs in today’s dynamic business environment.

Microsoft MCTS Certification, MCITP Certification and over 2000+
Exams with Life Time Access Membership at https://www.actualkey.com

The two new Microsoft Gold Competencies in the Microsoft Partner Network was given away to Atidan for its Digital Marketing and Application Integration. These Gold Competencies are handed over to organizations which complete a rigorous set of tests to prove their level of technology expertise, have the right number of Microsoft Certified Professionals, submit customer references and demonstrate their commitment to customer satisfaction by participating in an annual survey.
Atidan is on the leading edge of Microsoft technology solutions for the enterprise,” said David J. Rosenthal, President and CEO, Atidan. “Integrating distributed systems and process within and outside of companies and delivering enterprise-class digital marketing strategies are two of the most important technology initiatives for our clients today.”

Atidan expertise lies in developing rich Internet solutions on Microsoft SharePoint 2010 for Internet Sites, Microsoft FAST (News – Alert) Search Server technology, and the Microsoft Silverlight browser plug-in. Atidan’s Digital Marketing solutions are highly functional, scalable, flexible, and secure through a unified platform for intranet, extranet, and Internet sites, according to company officials.

Jon Roskill, Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft Corp said that they are proud to put forth a program that provides the right resources to help a company develop the expertise customer’s demand in today’s competitive market and also provides the community and infrastructure that can connect them to one another, lowering costs for all parties.

With the new title, Atidan can now deliver products and services based on the Microsoft platform with the training, resources and support they need to provide their customers a superior experience and outcomes.

Microsoft and Nokia push Windows Phone porting tool

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Posted in Career, CCIE

Microsoft and Nokia are wooing Symbian developers, offering them help in porting applications to Windows Phone ahead of the launch of the Finnish company’s first smartphone based on Microsoft’s platform.

Microsoft MCTS Certification, MCITP Certification and over 2000+
Exams with Life Time Access Membership at https://www.actualkey.com

When Nokia in February announced that Windows Phone would be its primary smartphone OS, the company also made it clear that its existing development environment would not be ported to work with Microsoft’s OS. That would just fragment that environment, which would be repeating mistakes of the past, a Nokia spokesman said at the time.

However, to make sure that its old supporters are prepared to start writing apps for Windows Phone, Symbian Qt has been added to the Windows Phone API mapping tool, Nokia said in a blog post on Wednesday.

The mapping tool serves as a translation dictionary between the Windows Phone platform and other mobile OSes. It also helps developers port applications from Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. The tool allows developers who are familiar with APIs from other platforms to see the equivalent class, method or notification events inside Windows Phone, according to Nokia.

For developers that have not worked with Windows Phone before, Nokia recommends reading “Windows Phone Guide for Symbian Qt Application Developers,” which the company has authored with Microsoft.

Microsoft ad trashes OpenOffice.org

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Posted in Career, CCIE

A recent Microsoft video suggests the company considers OpenOffice.org a significant threat to its own Office suite.

Microsoft MCTS Certification, MCITP Certification and over 2000+
Exams with Life Time Access Membership at https://www.actualkey.com

Titled “A Few Perspectives on OpenOffice.org,” the video features a series of horror stories from customers who tried the open-source productivity suite and suffered from excess costs as well as IT resources, performance and compatibility issues.

A series of customer quotes flashes across the screen in the slickly animated video, read aloud by a series of unseen narrators. “If an open-source freeware solution breaks, who’s going to fix it?” according to a statement ascribed to a school district official in the U.S.

“When we returned to Microsoft Office after our experience with OpenOffice, you could practically hear a collective sigh of relief across the entire district,” states another comment attributed to a U.S. school system official.

Comments are not enabled on the video’s YouTube page.

Microsoft is facing competition from OpenOffice.org on multiple fronts, from the commercial version sold by project owner Oracle, as well as offshoots like the recently announced LibreOffice.

Oracle this week sought to dispel any doubts about its commitment to OpenOffice.org, saying it would participate in an ODF (Open Document Format) Plugfest event in Brussels and pledging continued development support on the OpenOffice.org codebase.

An Oracle spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Microsoft’s ad.

Microsoft scales up CRM to thwart Salesforce.com, Oracle

Posted on October 16, 2011 by Posted in Career, CCIE

Microsoft announced the availability Wednesday of Dynamics CRM 2011, the on-premises and partner-hosted version of its CRM (customer relationship management) software.

Microsoft MCTS Certification, MCITP Certification and over 2000+
Exams with Life Time Access Membership at https://www.actualkey.com

The new release can scale up to 150,000 concurrent users in a single instance while maintaining fast response times, “once again raising the bar for performance and scalability in the CRM industry,” Microsoft said in a statement.

While vendor boasts about product performance are a staple of many product announcements, Microsoft’s decision to highlight the benchmark shows it wants to win deals in the largest enterprises at the expense of competitors like Salesforce.com and Oracle CRM on Demand, both of which are delivered as SaaS (software as a service).

Microsoft has a SaaS product as well, CRM Online, which is based on the same code as CRM 2011, and released the latest version last month. But Microsoft and its partners can tout the scalability of the on-premises version when competing for business with customers that may be on the fence regarding SaaS.

To one observer, however, usability, not scalability, is the main selling point for Microsoft’s latest CRM products.

“All vendors today have the ability to support huge user bases with very fast response times,” said Denis Pombriant, managing principal of Beagle Research, via e-mail. “That’s mostly thanks to beefed up hardware offerings — what a difference a decade makes. Recall that 10 years ago the ASP vendors floundered because they couldn’t field enough horsepower economically to make a cloud-like architecture work.”

“But take nothing away from Microsoft, they’ve arrived in market with a powerful offering and, most importantly, an offering that pays attention to the ways that people work,” he added. “The company spent a lot of time and effort on the UI and for me that’s the story.”

The software’s features include “role-tailored” user experiences, a native Outlook client and various dashboards and BI (business intelligence) tools meant to help workers do their jobs better.

CRM 2011 also takes a cue from Salesforce.com’s AppExchange with the integrated Dynamics Marketplace. The online catalog contains more than 1,400 software and services offerings from partners, and is also available to CRM Online customers.

EU antitrust regulators give Microsoft-Skype deal green light

Posted on October 11, 2011 by Posted in Career, CCIE

Antitrust regulators in the European Union today approved Microsoft’s $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype, the online telephone and chat giant.

“The Commission considers that there are no competition concerns in this growing market where numerous players, including Google, are present,” the European Commission, the EU’s antitrust agency, said in a statement today, referring to competition concerns for consumers, who make up the bulk of Skype’s customers.

Microsoft MCTS Certification, MCITP Certification and over 2000+
Exams with Life Time Access Membership at https://www.actualkey.com

The commission also dismissed concerns that the deal would stifle competition in the enterprise communication market.

“The investigation confirmed that Skype has a limited market presence for these products and does not compete directly with Microsoft’s enterprise communication product Lync, which is used mostly by large enterprises,” the commission added.

Microsoft announced the proposed purchase of Skype last May, saying then that it would pay $8.5 billion to the investment group that acquired a majority interest in the Internet telephony company from eBay in 2009.

“We’re committed to optimizing Skype for the TV, with Xbox and Kinect, for the Windows Phone, and the Windows PC,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at a May 10 news conference that unveiled the deal. “At the same time, we want to extend the reach of Skype by connecting Skype users with users of our Outlook products, our Lync enterprise unified communications product, Xbox LIVE, and other opportunities like Messenger and Hotmail.”

Microsoft applauded the EU antitrust watchdog’s decision.

“This is an important milestone, as we’ve now received clearance from both the United States and the European Union,” said Brad Smith, Microsoft’s lead lawyer, in a Friday statement. “We look forward to completing soon the final steps needed to close the acquisition.”

In June, U.S. regulators at the Department of Justice gave Microsoft the green light after also deciding that there was sufficient competition from other major players, including Google.

The Commission’s decision stymies a complaint submitted by Messagenet, an Italian rival to Skype, which last month asked regulators to block the deal unless Microsoft agreed not to bundle Skype with its Office products.

Lync, formerly Microsoft Office Communicator, is composed of both server and client pieces, and is under the general Office umbrella.

Messagenet’s complaint resurrected arguments that the EU had used against Microsoft for years in a case over the bundling of a media player with Windows. That action ended in 2007 when Microsoft lost on appeal; it paid a $1.4 billion fine the following year.

Later, Norwegian browser maker Opera complained that Microsoft’s bundling of Internet Explorer gave IE an unfair advantage. Under pressure from the EU, Microsoft agreed to display a “browser ballot screen” that let users choose which browser they installed on their Windows PCs.

Messagenet did not reply to a request for comment on the EU Commission’s decision today.

In May, Ballmer promised that if it acquired Skype, Microsoft would continue to develop and support the software on rival operating systems, including Apple’s Mac OS X and Google’s Android.

Certs: Added value or minimum requirement?

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Posted in CCIE, CCNA

I’ve got a Bachelors Degree in Information Systems Management, my Certified Information Security Systems Professional (CISSP) certification, the SANS GIAC Systems and Network Auditor (GSNA) certificate and I used to be a CCNA. I spent two years getting my B.S. by attending night courses, the CISSP took me 6 months of constant study, the GSNA required a week’s worth of intense instructor lead study, and I spent the better part of a school year taking the official Cisco course work at the local junior college before taking the test. And with the exception of the CCNA, the time I spent earning my degree and getting my certifications was aimed strictly at filling in a check box on an HR person’s list rather than learning something. Not to say I didn’t learn something in studying for each, but my goal was fulfilling a job requirement instead of education.

Microsoft MCTS Certification, MCITP Certification and over 2000+
Exams with Life Time Access Membership at https://www.actualkey.com

I have mixed feelings about certifications in the IT and security professions; certifications show that someone has the minimum knowledge required to pass a particular test. It shows they understand their profession well enough to know what certificates are going to be required to get a job in their field. It shows that the person is dedicated enough to their profession to take and pass these tests. But what it doesn’t show is real-world knowledge of security.

Obviously I’m not opposed to certifications, since I hold several myself. But I’ve never liked the fact that many people think certification and skills are the same thing. The fact that having the right certification can mean a significantly higher level of pay for professionals who otherwise are of the same skill level only further complicates the situation. It encourages people to accumulate as many different certifications as possible to help bolster their income, something I’m as guilty of as anyone else.

I remember the early days of the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and “paper MCSE’s” who had passed all the tests, but could barely remember how to change a password when they got their first job in the real world. I often hear accusations that the CISSP is heading in the same direction, despite increased efforts by the ISC2 to validate candidates and verify levels of experience. But I think both of these miss the real point of certification; they show that someone has spent the time and effort to pass a test, not that they have the skills required to work in the real world. After all, no one expects a kid fresh out of college to know everything about their chosen career, so why should a certificate be any different?

The 10 best IT certifications

Posted on October 1, 2011 by Posted in CCIE, CCNA, Cisco

Guest post from TechRepublic’s 10 Things blog: IT pros tend to have strong opinions when debating the value of professional certification — and views become even more polarized when it comes down to a discussion of which certs are meaningful. TechRepublic’s Erik Eckel put together a list of the accreditations he believes currently hold value […]

Microsoft MCTS Certification, MCITP Certification and over 2000+
Exams with Life Time Access Membership at https://www.actualkey.com

IT certifications boast numerous benefits. They bolster resumes, encourage higher salaries, and assist in job retention. But which IT certifications are best?

Technology professionals generate much debate over just that question. Many claim vendor-specific programs best measure a candidate’s skills, while others propose vendor-independent exams are the only worthy way of measuring real-world expertise. Still other observers believe the highest-level accreditations — Microsoft’s MCSE or new Architect Series certification, Cisco’s CCIE, etc. — are the only credentials that truly hold value.

Myself, I don’t fully subscribe to any of those mindsets. The best IT certification for you, after all, is likely to be different from that for another technology professional with different education, skills, and goals working at a different company in a different industry. For that reason, when pursuing any professional accreditation, you should give much thought and care to your education, experience, skills, goals, and desired career path.

Once a career road map is in place, selecting a potential certification path becomes much easier. And that’s where this list of the industry’s 10 best IT certifications comes into play. While this list may not include the 10 best accreditations for you, it does catalog 10 IT certifications that possess significant value for a wide range of technology professionals.

Note: This information is also available as a PDF download.

#1: MCITP

The new-generation Microsoft Certified IT Professional credential, or MCITP for short, is likely to become the next big Microsoft certification. Available for a variety of fields of expertise — including database developer, database administrator, enterprise messaging administrator, and server administrator — an MCITP validates a professional’s proven job-role capabilities. Candidates must pass several Microsoft exams that track directly to their job role before earning the new designation.

As with Microsoft’s other new-generation accreditations, the MCITP certification will retire when Microsoft suspends mainstream support for the platforms targeted within the MCITP exams. By matching the new certification to popular job roles, as has been done to some extent with CompTIA’s Server+ (server administrator), Project+ (project manager), and A+ (desktop support) certifications, Microsoft has created a new certification that’s certain to prove timely, relevant, and valuable.
#2: MCTS

The new-generation Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) helps IT staff validate skills in installing, maintaining, and troubleshooting a specific Microsoft technology. The MCTS certifications are designed to communicate the skills and expertise a holder possesses on a specific platform.

For example, candidates won’t earn an MCTS on SQL Server 2008. Instead, they’ll earn an MCTS covering SQL Server business intelligence (MCTS: SQL Server 2008 Business Intelligence), database creation (MCTS: SQL Server 2008, Database Development), or SQL server administration (MCTS: SQL Server 2008, Implementation and Maintenance).

These new certifications require passing multiple, tightly targeted exams that focus on specific responsibilities on specific platforms. MCTS designations will expire when Microsoft suspends mainstream support for the corresponding platform. These changes, as with other new-generation Microsoft certifications, add value to the accreditation.
#3: Security+

Security continues to be a critical topic. That’s not going to change. In fact, its importance is only going to grow. One of the quickest ways to lose shareholder value, client confidence, and sales is to suffer a data breach. And no self-respecting technology professional wants to be responsible for such a breach.

CompTIA’s Security+ accreditation provides a respected, vendor-neutral foundation for industry staff (with at least two years of experience) seeking to demonstrate proficiency with security fundamentals. While the Security+ accreditation consists of just a single exam, it could be argued that any IT employee charged with managing client data or other sensitive information should, at a minimum, possess this accreditation. The importance of ensuring staff are properly educated as to systems security, network infrastructure, access control, auditing, and organizational security principles is simply too important to take for granted.
#4: MCPD

There’s more to information technology than just administration, support, and networking. Someone must create and maintain the applications and programs that power organizations. That’s where the new-generation Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (MCPD) credential comes into play.

The MCPD accreditation measures a developer’s ability to build and maintain software solutions using Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5. Split into three certification paths (Windows Developer 3.5, ASP.NET Developer 3.5, and Enterprise Applications Developer 3.5), the credential targets IT professionals tasked with designing, optimizing, and operating those Microsoft technologies to fulfill business needs.

A redesigned certification aimed at better-measuring real-world skills and expertise, the MCPD will prove important for developers and programmers. Besides requiring candidates to pass several exams, the MCPD certification will retire when Microsoft suspends mainstream support for the corresponding platform. The change is designed to ensure the MCPD certification remains relevant, which is certain to further increase its value.
#5: CCNA

The Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) accreditation captures most of the networking company’s certification glory. But the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) might prove more realistic within many organizations.

In a world in which Microsoft and Linux administrators are also often expected to be networking experts, many companies don’t have the budgets necessary to train (or employ) a CCIE. But even small and midsize corporations can benefit from having their technology professionals earn basic proficiency administering Cisco equipment, as demonstrated by earning a CCNA accreditation.

As smaller companies become increasingly dependent upon remote access technologies, basic Cisco systems skills are bound to become more important. Although many smaller organizations will never have the complexity or workload necessary to keep a CCIE busy, Cisco’s CCNA is a strong accreditation for technology professionals with a few years’ experience seeking to grow and improve their networking skills.
#6: A+

Technology professionals with solid hardware and support skills are becoming tougher to find. There’s not much glory in digging elbow-deep into a desktop box or troubleshooting Windows boot errors. But those skills are essential to keeping companies running.

Adding CompTIA’s A+ certification to a resume tells hiring managers and department heads that you have proven support expertise. Whether an organization requires desktop installation, problem diagnosis, preventive maintenance, or computer or network error troubleshooting, many organizations have found A+-certified technicians to be more productive than their noncertified counterparts.

Changes to the A+ certification, which requires passing multiple exams, are aimed at keeping the popular credential relevant. Basic prerequisite requirements are now followed by testing that covers specific fields of expertise (such as IT, remote support, or depot technician). The accreditation is aimed at those working in desktop support, on help desks, and in the field, and while many of these staffers are new to the industry, the importance of an A+ certification should not be overlooked.
#7: PMP

Some accreditations gain value by targeting specific skills and expertise. The Project Management Professional (PMP) certification is a great example.

The Project Management Institute (PMI), a nonprofit organization that serves as a leading membership association for project management practitioners, maintains the PMP exam. The certification measures a candidate’s project management expertise by validating skills and knowledge required to plan, execute, budget, and lead a technology project. Eligible candidates must have five years of project management experience or three years of project management experience and 35 hours of related education.

As organizations battle tough economic conditions, having proven project scheduling, budgeting, and management skills will only grow in importance. The PMI’s PMP credential is a perfect conduit for demonstrating that expertise on a resume.
#8: MCSE/MCSA

Even years after their introduction, Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) and Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA) credentials remain valuable. But it’s important to avoid interpreting these accreditations as meaning the holders are all-knowing gurus, as that’s usually untrue.

In my mind, the MCSE and MCSA hold value because they demonstrate the holder’s capacity to complete a long and comprehensive education, training, and certification program requiring intensive study. Further, these certifications validate a wide range of relevant expertise (from client and server administration to security issues) on specific, widely used platforms.

Also important is the fact that these certifications tend to indicate holders have been working within the technology field for a long time. There’s no substitute for actual hands-on experience. Many MCSEs and MCSAs hold their certifications on Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 platforms, meaning they’ve been working within the industry for many years. While these certifications will be replaced by Microsoft’s new-generation credentials, they remain an important measure of foundational skills on Windows platforms.
#9: CISSP

As mentioned with the Security+ accreditation earlier, security is only going to grow in importance. Whatever an organization’s mission, product, or service, security is paramount.

(ISC)², which administers the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) accreditation, has done well building a respected, vendor-neutral security certification. Designed for industry pros with at least five years of full-time experience, and accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), the CISSP is internationally recognized for validating a candidate’s expertise with operations and network and physical security, as well as their ability to manage risk and understand legal compliance responsibilities and other security-related elements.
#10: Linux+

While pursuing my first Microsoft certification 10 years ago, I remember debating the importance of Linux with several telecommunications technicians. They mocked the investment I was making in learning Microsoft technologies. These techs were confident Linux was going to displace Windows.

Well, didn’t happen. Linux continues to make inroads, though. The open source alternative is an important platform. Those professionals who have Linux expertise and want to formalize that skill set will do well adding CompTIA’s Linux+ certification to their resumes.

The vendor-neutral exam, which validates basic Linux client and server skills, is designed for professionals with at least six to 12 months of hands-on Linux experience. In addition to being vendor-neutral, the exam is also distribution neutral (meaning the skills it covers work well whether a candidate is administering Red Hat, SUSE, or Ubuntu systems).
Let the debate begin

Technology professionals almost always have strong reactions when debating certification’s value. Listing the top 10 certifications leaves room, of course, for only 10 credentials. That means many favorite and popular designations, such as HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) certifications, have been necessarily omitted. Other important accreditations, including those for VoIP providers and from PC manufacturers, Red Hat, and even Apple, have also been left out here.

Architect certification increasingly impacts professionalization of IT in the cloud era

Posted on September 22, 2011 by Posted in CCNA, CCNP, Cisco

The primary driver here that we’re hearing from members and customers is that they need to get more out of the investments that they’re making — their payroll for their IT staff. They need to get more productivity. And that has a number of consequences.

Microsoft MCTS Certification, MCITP Certification and over 2000+
Exams with Life Time Access Membership at https://www.actualkey.com

We’ve assembled a panel in conjunction with the recent Open Group Conference in Austin, Texas, to explore the impact and role of certifications for IT professionals. Examine here how certification for enterprise architects, business architects, and such industry initiatives as ArchiMate are proving instrumental as IT organizations seek to reinvent themselves.

There are now a lot of shifts in skills and a lot of movement about how organizations should properly staff themselves. There have been cost pressures and certification issues for regulation and the adoption of new technologies. We’re going to look at how all these are impacting the role of certification out in the field.

Here to help better understand how an organization like The Open Group is alleviating the impact and supporting the importance of finding verified IT skills is Steve Philp, Marketing Director for Professional Certification at The Open Group; Andrew Josey, Director of Standards at The Open Group, and James de Raeve, Vice President of Certification at The Open Group. The discussion is moderated by Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions. [Disclosure: The Open Group is a Sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]

Here are some excerpts:

de Raeve: The primary driver here that we’re hearing from members and customers is that they need to get more out of the investments that they’re making — their payroll for their IT staff. They need to get more productivity. And that has a number of consequences.

Realizing talent

They want to ensure that the people they are employing and that they’re staffing their teams with are effective. They want to be sure that they’re not bringing in external experts when they don’t need to. So there is a need to realize the talent that they’ve actually got in their internal IT community and to develop that talent, nurture it, and exploit it for the benefit of the organization.

And professionalism, professionalization, and profession frameworks are all tools that can be used in identifying, measuring, and developing the talents and capabilities of your people. That seems to be the major driver.

Philp: Something I have noticed since joining The Open Group is that we’ve got some skills and experience-based certifications. They seem to be the things that people are particularly interested in, because it’s not just a test of your knowledge about a particular vendor or product, but how you have applied your skills and experience out there in the marketplace. They have proven to be very successful in helping people assess where they are and in working towards developing a career path.

That’s one of the areas of certification that things are going to move more towards — more skills and experience-based certification programs in organizations.

Looking at certification in general, you still have areas like Microsoft MCSE, Microsoft technical specialist, application development, and project management that are in demand, and things like CCNA from Cisco. But I’ve also noticed a lot more in the security field. CISSP and CCSA seem to be the ones that are always getting a lot of attention. In terms of security, the trends in mobile computing, cloud computing, means that security certification is a big growth area.

There is a need for people too in the building of teams and in the delivering of results to nurture and grow their people to be team players and team participants.

We’re just about to put a security track into our Certified IT Specialist Program at The Open Group, so there will be a skills and experience-based track for security practitioners soon.

de Raeve: There is a whole world out there of technology and product-related certifications that are fulfilling a very important function in helping people establish and demonstrate their knowledge of those particular products and technologies.

But there is a need for people too in the building of teams and in the delivering of results to nurture and grow their people to be team players and team participants and to be able to work with them to function within the organization as, for want of a better term, “t-shaped people,” where there are a number of soft and people-related skills and potentially architecture related skills for the IT specialists, and skills and capabilities enable people to be rounded professionals within an organization.

T-shaped people

It’s that aspect that differentiates the professionalization and the profession-oriented certification programs that we’re operating here at The Open Group — The Open Certified Architect, The Open Certified IT Specialist. Those are t-shaped people and we think that makes a huge difference. It’s what’s going to enable organizations to be more effective by developing their people to have that more rounded t-shaped capability.

Josey: We see the certification as being the ultimate drive in the uptake of the standards, and so we’re able to go from not just having a standard on the shelf to actually seeing it being deployed in the field and used. We’ve actually got some people certification programs, such as TOGAF, and we’ve got some over 20,000 practitioners now.

We’ve gone through the certification program and we’ve been using and evangelizing, TOGAF as a standard in the field and then feeding that back to our members and, through the association, the feedback improvements to the standards. So it’s very much part of the end-to-end ecosystem — developing a standard for deploying it, and getting people on it, and then getting the feedback in the right way.

Philp: It’s very much an important part of the process now. TOGAF and IT Architect Certification (ITAC) have appeared in a number of RFPs for government and for major manufacturing organizations. So it’s important that the suppliers and the buyers recognize these programs.

Similarly with recruitment, you find that things like TOGAF will appear in most recruitment ads for architects. Certainly, people want knowledge of it, but more and more you’ll see TOGAF certification is required as well.

ITAC, which is now Open CA, has also appeared in a number of recruitment ads for members like Logica, Capgemini, Shell. More recently, organizations like the CBS, EADS, ADGA Group, Direct Energy have requested it. And the list goes on. It’s a measure of how important the awareness is for these certifications and that’s something we will continue to drive at The Open Group.

In development

Josey: ArchiMate certification is something new that we’re developing right now. We haven’t deployed a certification program as yet. The previous certification program was under the ArchiMate Foundation, which was the body that developed ArchiMate, before it transferred into The Open Group.

We’re currently working on the new program which will be similar to some aspects of our TOGAF program, and it’ll be knowledge base certification with an assessment by exam and a practical assessment in which the candidate can actually do modeling. So this will be people certification and there will also be accredited training course certification.

And then also what we’re going to do there is actually to provide certification for tools. There will be certifications there.

That’s pretty much what we’re doing in ArchiMate, so we don’t have a firm timeline. So it will not be available it looks like, probably towards the end of the year would be the earliest, but possibly early next year.

ArchiMate is a modeling language for enterprise architecture (EA) in general and specifically it’s a good fit for TOGAF. It’s a way of communicating and developing models for TOGAF EA. Originally it was developed by the Telematica Instituut and funded, I think, by the EU and a number of commercial companies in the Netherlands. It was actually brought into The Open Group in 2008 by the ArchiMate Foundation and is now managed by the ArchiMate Forum within The Open Group.

The latest version of TOGAF is TOGAF 9 for certification. As we mentioned earlier, there are two types of certification programs, skills and knowledge based. TOGAF falls into the knowledge based camp. We have two levels. TOGAF 9 Foundation, which is our level one, is for individuals to assess that they know the terminology and basic concepts of EA in TOGAF.

Level two, which is a superset of level one, in addition assesses analysis and comprehension. The idea is that some people who are interested in just getting familiar with TOGAF and those people who work around enterprise architects can go into TOGAF Foundation. And these enterprise architects themselves should initially start with the TOGAF Certified, the level two, and then perhaps move on later to Open CA. That will be helpful.

For TOGAF 9 Certification, we introduced that by midyear 2009. We launched TOGAF 9 in February, and it took a couple of months to just roll out all these certifications through all the exam channels.

Since then, we’ve gone through 8,000 certifications. We’ve seen that two-thirds of those were at the higher level, level two, for EA practitioners and one-third of those are currently at the foundation level.

A new area

Philp: Business architecture is a new area that we’ve been working on. Let me just to go back to what we did on the branding, because it ties in with that. We launched The Open Group’s new website recently and we used that as the opportunity to re-brand ITAC as The Open Group Certified Architect (Open CA) program. The IT Specialist Certification (ITSC) has now become The Open Group Certified IT Specialist or Open CITS Program.

We did the rebranding at that time, because we wanted to be it associated with the word “open.” We wanted to give the skills and experience-based certification a closer linkage to The Open Group. That’s why we changed from ITAC to Open CA. But, we’ve not changed the actual program itself. Candidates still have to create a certification package and be interviewed by three board members, and there are still three levels of certification: Certified, Master, and Distinguished.

However, what we’re intending to do is have some core requirements that architects need to meet, and then add some specific specializations for different types of architects. The one that we’ve been working on the most recently is the Business Architecture Certification. This came about from an initiative about 18 months ago.

We formed something called the Business Forum with a number of platinum members who got involved with it –companies like IBM, HP, SAP, Oracle and Capgemini. We’ve been defining the conformance requirements for the business architecture certification. It’s going through the development process and hopefully will be launched sometime later this year or early next year.

“For the first time we feel like management is paying attention to us.”

de Raeve: There’s a very good example [of the importance of staffing issues in IT] …, and they’ve done a presentation about this in one of our conferences. It’s Philips, and they used to have an IT workforce that was divided among the business units. The different businesses had their own IT function.

They changed that and went to a single IT function across the organization, providing services to the businesses. In doing so, they needed to rationalize things like grades, titles, job descriptions, and they were looking around for a framework within which they could do this and they evaluated a number of them.

They were working with a partner who wass helping them do this. The partner was an Open Group member and suggested they look at the Open Group’s IT Specialist Certification, the CITS Certification Program, as it provides a set of definitions for the capabilities and skills required for IT professionals. They picked it up and used it, because it covered the areas they were interested in.

This was sufficient and complete enough to be useful to them, and it was vendor neutral, and an industry best practice. So they could pick this up and use it with confidence. And that has been very successful. They initially benchmarked their entire 900 strong IT workforce against The Open Group definition, so they could get to calibrate themselves, where their people were on their journey through development as professionals.

It’s had a very significant impact in terms of not only enabling them to get a handle upon their people, but also in terms of their employee engagement.

They’ve started to embrace the certification programs as a method of not only measuring their people, but also rewarding them. It’s had a very significant impact in terms of not only enabling them to get a handle upon their people, but also in terms of their employee engagement. In the engagement surveys that they do with their staff, some of the comments they got back after they started doing this process were, “For the first time we feel like management is paying attention to us.”

It was very positive feedback, and the net result is that they are well on their way to meeting their goal of no longer having automatically to bring in an external service provider whenever they were dealing with a new project or a new topic. They know that they’ve got people with sufficient expertise in-house on their own payroll now. They’ve been able to recognize that capability, and the use of it has had a very positive effect. So it’s a very strong good story.

I think that the slides will be available to our members in the conference’s proceedings from the London conference in April. That will be worth something to look at.

Philp: If you go to the Open Group website, www.opengroup.org/certifications, all of the people based certifications are there, along with the benefits for individuals, benefits for organizations and various links to the appropriate literature. There’s also a lot of other useful things, like self-assessment tests, previous webinars, sample packages, etc. That will give you more of an idea of what’s required for certification along with the conformance requirements and other program documentation. There’s a lot of useful information on the website.

« Previous Page