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)

It’s been a hard year for corporate executives. Not only have they faced the challenges of moving their companies forward in a trickle-growth economy, they have also had to manage this forward move with less staff, less budget and more dispersed employee locations. Many are suffering under the stress of these responsibilities, and an extended vacation would be a welcome break.  Breaks of this nature can create havoc without the right team to step in temporarily at the helm. We have the perfect candidates to to consider.

As Chief Executive Officer, let me introduce Max Shepherd. Mr. Shepherd has an extensive background in managing tough situations. He held the CEO position at ASPCA for many years,and brought them to prominence in their field through his innovative marketing and barking expertise. He has also earned his bones in staff management. His hallmark is managing his underlings as he would his own family, and through Human Resources, is known for an organization that is very protective of employee rights and abilities.

Mr. Shepherd works closely with his right-hand man, Rob Malmut. Mr. Malmut has been working with Mr. Shepherd for over 10 years and provides a complimentary set of skills that enable the team to create a successful working dynamic and environment in which seniors managers thrive. Prior to working with Mr. Shepherd, Mr. Malmut was responsible for IT Security and the Press Room at the Iditarod in Alaska, and provided assistance with grant writing to the Alaska State government. He is known for his succinct communication style and rough but steady manner.

Mr. Shepherd’s team includes Director of Information Technology, John Mutt. Mr. Mutt has worked with Mr. Shepherd for the last 7 years and bring a great deal of varied experience to the team. Prior to working with Mr. Shepherd, Mr. Mutt worked for Petco, a pet products and food retailer, and was responsible for revolutionizing the web site purchasing capabilities. He also worked at Fancy Feast creating and maintaining their IT systems but left because of philosophical differences. While Mr. Mutt has a quiet, and seemingly insecure countenance,  he is a great asset to the team and very effective in his role.

Mr. Shepherd also brings with him a very capable manager of finance Timothy Boxer. Mr. Boxer has worked with Mr. Shepherd for 4 years and has a strong international background in finance. In his last position, he was Chief Financial Officer for Hanes. Through diligent oversight of the budget and restructuring of debt, he enabled Hanes to step into an offer with Fruit of the Loom. Prior to this position, he managed the financial consulting division of Devereau, Oberlin and Gossinger, (D.O.G. Consultants), an international consulting firm that held many contracts in Europe and the Middle East.

Mr. Shepherd and his team are ready to be of service to your organization. They can be contacted at 877-546-4446 or by email, info@gogotraining.com.

Sources: http://nickvt.blogspot.com/2012/05/dogs-office-environment.html

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

So what is Big Data? Big Data as defined by Wikipedia, “is a collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process using on-hand database management tools. The trend to larger data sets is due to the additional information derivable from analysis of a single large set of related data, as compared to separate smaller sets with the same total amount of data, allowing correlations to be found to “spot business trends, determine quality of research, prevent diseases, link legal citations, combat crime, and determine real-time roadway traffic conditions.”

Hurwitz & Associates have identified 4 dimensions of data:

1. Volume – 20 years ago, a Gigabyte was huge! Now, we have Terabytes and even Petabytes (one quadrillion bytes), an enormous volume of data. And we’re analyzing all kinds of data: from posts on Facebook to weather pattern data.
2. Velocity – Much of the volume of data must move at very fast speeds such as banking transactions from vendors or stock trades from day traders.
3. Variety – No longer are we just processing text but also audio and video as well as varieties in between.
4. Veracity – It’s easy to trust your data when it’s a small quantity, but as the quantity grows, lack of trust grows exponentially with it.

Career opportunities abound in a this new area being called Data Science.  In this very young, and maturing field, there is a quickly growing need that is not being fully met. Consulting firm McKinsey and Company predicts that in just 6 years, there will be a shortage of 1.5 million workers with data science skills and another 140-190,000 workers with large data processing skills. While universities gear up with degrees in this area, today’s candidate that may be a good fit comes with strong backgrounds in computer science, algorithms and operating systems. “If they have a good foundation in that, then you pair that up with a training program that allows them to understand how to translate into this new architecture,” Jim Yu from BrightEdge says.

More ideas on what types of skills to come next week on IT CareerCast. Stay tuned!

Sources:

“Four Vendor Views on Big Data and Big Data Analytics: IBM”, Hurwitz & Associates, Fern Halper, January 2012

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

Last week’s Linux Collaboration Summit yielded some interesting recent developments that are sure to help continue moving the platform toward even more usefulness for businesses.

One such innovation is something called the Yocto Project.  As they describe it on the website, Yocto is “an open source collaboration project that provides templates, tools and methods to help you create custom Linux-based systems for embedded products regardless of the hardware architecture.”  Sounds good enough but there’s more to it than that.

Yocto project starts with an ultra bare-bones Linux platform designed for ARM or x86 chips, allowing people to develop a Linux platform for a device with only what is needed and in a more efficient manner (starting bare and building up, versus the other way around).  Millions have been spent by other corporations developing device platforms on Linux by pulling out what is not needed from an existing Linux kernel until they’ve engineered it down to the essentials for that particular device.  Now developers can use Yocto to avoid all of that mess and expense to get to what they need for their device development project. 

This represents a considerable competitive advantage as it opens up use of the Linux platform in device development to a much larger crowd rather than only those who have the deep pockets and existing sales to weather extensive development cycles.  This is very likely to result in the emergence of more device development shops meeting various markets using Linux.

To get involved with Linux development, GogoTraining has the following expert courses:

• Linux Essentials
• Introduction to Embedded Linux
• Linux Device Drivers: Programming at the Kernel Level
• Red Hat Linux System Administration Part 1
• Red Hat Linux System Administration Part 2
• Red Hat Linux Network Administration

Most businesses do not appreciate network uptime until it is down.  Few people realize how much loss can occur when the network or servers are not operating correctly until they see entire departments of people idle and searching for something to fill their time while repairs are put into effect.

CDW took a look at the problem in a survey run last year and released recently.  In their 2010 CDW Business Continuity Straw Poll, CDW asked 7,099 IT managers about uptime and 1,794 reported they had experienced a network disruption of more than four hours since July 2009.  The survey was closed after obtaining 200 completed responses from SMB’s with over 100 employees.

Two major take-away points from the report:

• From the 25% of the initial set that suffered significant outage and the average number of days business was closed due to such circumstances, CDW estimated these cost roughly $1.7 billion in lost profits last year.
• 82% of the most significant outages could have been avoided by enacting measures found in any comprehensive business continuity/disaster recovery plan.

Enter ITIL, the Information Technology Infrastructure Library.  ITIL is concerned with best practices surrounding the management of information technology.  As a certification path, it starts out with the Foundations level which establishes, well, a foundation of BP understanding and an important overview of the landscape.

From there, important information technology service management (ITSM) issues are covered at the Intermediate level.  One of them is the ITIL Planning, Protection and Optimization course which covers such mission-critical subjects as capacity management, availability management, IT service continuity management, information security management and demand management.  Sound familiar?  Probably because these are the things that would have saved those 1,794 IT manager’s.

More to the point, these are the things that would have saved $1.7 billion of loss last year.  Considering the cost of obtaining ITIL certification in order to implement these management best practices, the business case is more than established.

On top of it, ITIL training doesn’t have to be expensive or time consuming.  Travel and in-person expenses are easily saved through providers like GogoTraining, an APMG ITIL authorized training organization (ATO), who delivers online, self-paced ITIL v3 certification training courses.  Due to a unique business model and the savings afforded with online delivery, GogoTraining courses are among the most affordable on the market (online courses are in the low hundreds!).  For ITIL, you can get the ITIL v3 Foundation for $448 (two courses on a buy-one-get-one package) and then enough Intermediate courses to fulfill the credit requirement to sit for Intermediate certification, all for mere hundreds of dollars.  To save hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars?  There isn’t much to argue on that point. 

If your business has not considered the potential of downtime and the impact to the bottom line, a great way to start would be to obtain ITIL certification in order to put in place IT management best practices to avoid them in the first place.

Looking to get caught up in the shift toward Cloud Computing? It winds up even those focused on storage and network administration will need to add management to their skill set.

There are two roles that are becoming relevant in cloud computing, according to Drue Reeves, VP and Gartner analyst on cloud computing. The first are Cloud Leads, operating at the strategic level to serve as enterprise evaluator and ambassador.  The second are Cloud Administrators, repurposed storage and network administrators who move more into a management role working with cloud providers.

Thus, the adoption of cloud platforms will drive an increase in demand for those with not only the requisite IT skills but also key management training or background.

One excellent form of management training for IT professionals is the certification for ITIL, or the Information Technology Infrastructure Library.  ITIL is among the most widely used set of best practices where it comes to IT services management (ITSM).  Those interested in obtaining ITIL certification begin with the ITIL v3 Foundation certification training in order to obtain the initial certificate.  Afterward, ITIL offers an Intermediate level with two tracks of learning, Lifecycle and Capability.  Certifications are offered in each of the Intermediate modules but those seeking to sit for the exams must demonstrate they have taken ITIL v3 Intermediate training from an Authorized Training Organization (GogoTraining is an ATO).

GogoTraining offers the ITIL v3 Foundation certification training courses (there are 2) at a “buy one get one” price to help interested professionals get started quickly and easily.

Other strong IT management training courses include:

• Service Oriented Architecture in a Cloud Computing World
• IT Asset Management: A Comprehensive Overview
• ITSM Comprehensive Overview
• Performance Management
• Risk Management

While heading to the Cloud may mean being able to outsource a number of infrastructure headaches, one responsibility remains squarely on the shoulder of any cloud-bound business: data management. Wherever your data is and by whom it is handled are separate issues from how it is managed.

Arthur Cole, writing for IT Business Edge, shows how movement to the cloud is introducing a more sophisticated, complex challenge where it comes to data management.  One such area where that challenge can be successfully addressed is using ITIL, or the Information Technology Infrastructure Library.  ITIL has successfully carved out space as a leading best practice documentation set by which professionals involved in IT service management can gain qualification.

Among the many definitions embodied by ITIL is the Business Service Management (BSM) specification.  Vikas Aggarwal, CEO of management firm Zyrion, asserts that many management platform vendors are working to retrofit their products in order to support the BSM spec.  “Business Service Management correlates data from different parts of the IT infrastructure and provides a service-oriented context,” says Aggarwal (in Cole’s article).  “That is the reason why BSM is such a key component in virtual and cloud environments.”

As businesses continue a growing mass movement toward the Cloud, disciplines such as ITIL will continue to be adopted throughout the industry.  As enterprises launch ITIL initiatives attached to their greater Cloud-based aspirations, professionals with ITIL certification are sure to thrive.

GogoTraining provides ITIL v3 Foundation and v3 Intermediate training courses.  They are online, self-paced and affordable.  Be sure to consider aquiring an ITIL certification if you are at all involved in IT service management (ITSM).

The U.K. Office of Government Commerce (OGC) began phasing out v2 publications and qualifications for ITIL in June of 2010.  The formal movement from v2 to v3 continues through June 30, 2011 when the availability of the Manager’s Bridging qualification ends.  At that point, ITIL will be offered strictly in the v3 format of qualification.

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), the professional best practice definition for IT service management, is a valuable addition to anyone who is responsible for information technology service management.  There are four exam levels: Foundation, Intermediate, Expert and Master. 

Get ITIL Foundation and Intermediate training courses from GogoTraining, offering outstanding instruction from industry experts such as Neal Rowland, Sue Southern, and Helen Morris.

Have you updated to v3 yet?  Have you obtained your ITIL certification?