2011 is the latest version of ISO/IEC 20000 standard set dealing with IT Service Management. GogoTraining offers the Foundation and the Associate courses which provide an excellent basis for companies to implement and use IT Service Management according to the internationally accepted ISO/IEC 20000 standard. The programs developed by EXIN supplements the essence of ITIL® with the quality- and consistency- thinking of the ISO approach, and also adds role-based thinking to it. The EXIN IT Service Management qualification is an extremely practical exam program. With an ITSM certificate, you can show that you are able do a professional job of IT service management. Get a fresh start in 2013 – check out these courses on GogoTraining.

Are you old enough to remember when the IT department was made up of mainframe computers, and users had to file requests for reports they wanted? The IT department had “kingdom” control over information. The penetration of PCs into that arena caused a huge paradigm shift, as control shifted from the IT department to the user. With that came a new set of business rules, and the first signs of computer security as we know it today. Mind you, the mainframe never left the scene; its functionality shifted to tasks that were best suited for that environment instead of the overly dynamic environment of the user request. But the PC forever changed the way information is commmunicated within organizations. And here we are again looking down the long barrel of another shift – this one caused by multiple technologies, the Cloud and smart mobile devices.

The Cloud is the source of the shift up, but not because it’s new exciting technology; this technology has been around for a long time. We just haven’t needed it till now. As companies handle increasingly large amounts of data and face the hard economics of enlarging data centers and adding servers, the Cloud is starting to look “mighty fine” as an alternative. Company IT departments are grappling with security and privacy issues. Security plays an important role but is in the best interest of the supplier to have the latest security measures since this is the number one concern of clients. Privacy is currently being handled through authentication involving limited to full access based on usernames and passwords, and job roles defined around that. There are many ramifications including impact or shift to jobs, and will become evident as the trend continues.

Smart phones and tablets are causing a shift out for IT, as more and more employees are conducting business from these devices, and the devices are achieving networking and computing abilities similar to the PC. Security and privacy as in the Cloud, have bubbled up to the surface as the key concerns. As organizations adopt their use for their employees, concerns with security have increased with such things as information-stealing applications.  The variety of phones and operating systems also poses a challenge for organizational support, along with the additional training needed. Business rules are popping up to deal with such issues as what information should and shouldn’t be stored on the device; who owns the information that is stored, how frequently the syncing of that data occurs and many others.

Here we go again….

Source: Intel.com, Intel’s Vision of the Ongoing Shift to Cloud Computing white paper.

http://computer.howstuffworks.com, Cloud Computing Concerns, Jonathan Strickland

http://www.spsm-workshop.org, 2nd Annual ACM CCS Workshop on Security and Privacy in Smartphones and Mobile Devices (SPSM)

Yes, ISO/IEC 20000:2011 and ITIL 2011 CAN play nicely with each other. As a matter of fact, ISO/IEC 20000:2011 is the standard under which the ITIL framework is housed.

Isabelle Perron in an article in 2011, explains it this way, “An ISO standard is based on the consensus of 160 countries agreeing on a common approach or method of “doing” something such as how to manage IT services as is the case of ISO/IEC 20000-1.  ITIL®, on the other hand, is a comprehensive and cohesive set of best practices aimed at identifying, planning, delivering and supporting IT services to the business.  An organization gets certified as ISO-compliant; individuals or organizations are qualified as being ITIL® competent.  Processes which emanate from both ISO and ITIL® are complementary.”

Standards deliver a measurable set of common best practice benchmarks for organizations and businesses. When you comply with a certain standard, it indicates that you have reached at least the minimum level of given benchmarks and you’re committed to ongoing improvement. An outsider can the assume that a given level of quality can be anticipated. The other important aspect of a standard is that it is auditable and assessable by independent and authorized auditors.

EMC Infracorp.com in a white paper states that standards provide direction for achieving the following business advantages:

• Efficiency – creating more efficiencies in IT is critical with budget cuts to infrastructure.
• Integrity – Standards provide the needed benchmark in process control areas for regulatory compliance and major partners.
• Alignment to business objectives -Standards can ensure that effectiveness is reviewed and measured against business needs, and that efficiency goals have not compromised the objectives of the process.
• Agility – IT is increasingly required to adapt to the dynamic nature of business. Clear processes and process ownership, with continuous review, increase the capacity for IT to respond to change.

To support its benchmarks and core principles, ISO 20000 depends on frameworks such as ITIL therefore the alignment between ISO and ITIL is intentional.

Sources: White paper-EMC Infracorp.com; ISO/IEC 20000:2011 – The new version: how does it align with ITIL® Edition 2011? October 12, 2011 by Isabelle Perron

A Short Plug for Black Friday Sales: GogoTraining is stepping into unconventional, unusual ground on Friday, November 23rd. Be sure to stop back and check it out!

With 100’s of Terabytes of data, companies want new hires who understand the the entire scope of big data processing. It is  a different mindset, and there is a struggle to identify the skills needed, but some have been tagged.

• Working with traditional SQL relational databases
• Distributing loads on servers
• Strong math and coding skills and business savvy
• Willingness to learn new skills (different database or OS)
• Higher level quantitative skill sets
• Research Scientist background

Because of the shortage, crossing from one industry to another is not a considerable barrier. Modis Kelly says, “Data is data. Industry vertical really isn’t going to be the key driver. Its going to be what did you do with the data, how large of an environment was it.” Hiring organizations will avoid backgrounds with small companies because of the small data experience being so radically different. Jim Yu says it involves finding candidates who, “understand the right questions to ask around this data and how to tease this into actions that result in business outcomes for our customers.”

Source: Computerworld, Big data worker shortage demands job candidates with diverse backgrounds by Fred O’Connor, October 10, 2012

Sometimes it seems like the IT industry was the inventor of the acronym, with a new one getting created every two minutes.  Enter Cloud Computing and a host of new and fun abbreviations that can get confused or switched around.

Adron Hall offers a simple run-down (and introduction for some) on three important acronyms in Cloud Computing that are used to represent three general areas in the Cloud:

Software as a Service (SaaS): Perhaps the most commonly heard and understood of the three, SaaS is a service that is provided by any sort of entity – from a small group up to a government – that provides software to the client.  That software could be delivered in any way; internally or from a provider/vendor entity to a user/contracting entity.

Platform as a Service (PaaS): Somewhat less heard-of is the concept of delivering a platform wherein clients can develop software and re-deploy it either internally, over the Internet or via other Cloud environments.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): This entails an entity providing networking fundamentals such as load balancing, routing, virtualized OS hosting, content delivery networks, computer networking, backup, etc.

Interested in the Cloud?  Check out what GogoTraining offers for training in Cloud Computing, ITIL training, and project management training.

The United States Air Force has turned to Northrop Grumman to conduct technological experiments on how various service-oriented architecture (SOA) implementations spread across command and control domains might be integrated, according to a Northrop Grumman press release on January 31.

“This research will enable coordination and synchronization of information and application services to meet the demands of warfighting missions,” says Mike Twyman, vice president of integrated command, control, communications, and intelligence systems for Northrop Grumman’s Information Systems sector. “By partnering with Air Force Research Laboratory, Rome Research Site, we will jointly recommend and demonstrate novel strategies to manage and orchestrate data flow and content delivery across the realms of air and space command and control.”

Northrop Grumman will also analyze emerging information technology as applied to air and space warfighting domains. The goal of the engage with the USAF is to explore standardization in order to provide better enterprise-wide accessability.

GogoTraining offers the service-oriented architecture (SOA) courses as part of a suite of Cloud Computing training opportunities:

• Introduction to SOA Using Oracle 10g Service Bus
• Service Oriented Architecture in a Cloud Computing World

The healthcare industry recently started clamoring to meet requirements for data handling to avoid financial penalties.  Those who aren’t EHR/EMR (Electronic Health/Medical Records) compliant by 2015 will still have to do it AND pay fines.

According to Dice.com, the recent expansion of specialized datacenters to facilitate a move away from low-density server and storage to Tier IV is expanding the job market.  IT staff including virtualization engineers, SANS experts and system architects are being sought after to fill out the expanding field.

Join the emerging Healthcare IT field with networking, programming and management training from GogoTraining.  Start today to take advantage of special offers.