Two more courses just released!

Oracle Grid Control Part 2

This Oracle online training course explains Oracle’s Grid control architecture. You are provided with a detailed look on installing and configuring Oracle’s Grid control. At the end of this course you will have a well rounded knowledge of services, beacons, grip patching and preferences, and reporting.

This course is taught by industry expert Steve Hamilton.  Mr. Hamilton has over 20 years of practical experience with Oracle, Sybase and SQL Server.  He is certified in Oracle version 8 through 11g, along with certifications in numerous other technologies. Steve particularly excels at delivering “real world examples” to the classroom.  He enjoys preparing students so they can immediately be productive when they return to their work environment.

Also check out our Oracle Grid Control Part 1 training course.

ITIL® Service Operation, a Service Lifecycle Course

NOTE: GogoTraining is an APMG ITIL Accredited Training Organization (ATO).

This ITIL® online training course covers the lifecycle aspects of Service Operation from a managerial/supervisory perspective and explores Service Operations principles and activities. You will gain an understanding of Service Operation Processes and Functions as well as the interfaces between Service Operation and the other stages of the ITIL Service Lifecycle. ITIL® Service Operation: A Service Lifecycle Course builds on the general principles covered in the ITIL® Foundation course and covers the management-level concepts and core information of the activities and techniques within Service Operation.

The ITIL® Intermediate Qualification: Service Operation Certificate is a free-standing qualification and is also part of the ITIL Intermediate Lifecycle Stream and one of the modules that leads to the ITIL Expert in IT Service Management Certificate.

This course is taught by industry expert Sue Southern.  Sue is an independent consultant and trainer with exceptional customer focus for business improvement and service excellence.  Ms. Southern is an experienced seminar and conference speaker with an excellent reputation spanning over 25 years.  She specializes in Service Management training, ITIL versions 2 and 3 process implementations/enhancements and business measurement with balanced scorecards for managing performance and transformation.

GogoTraining offers many more ITIL® Intermediate training courses and other training in ITSM.

A gap exists between today’s composition of IT groups and what is needed for enterprises to maximize return on systems investments, so say CIOs in a recent survey.

CIO magazine and the MIT Center for Information Systems Research (CISR) asked 370 CIOs about the makeup and goals of their organizations.  The CIOs indicated a new “value proposition” for IT was to move beyond building and running systems and into a space that contributes more fundamental business value to the enterprise.  This represents at least a partial shift of responsibility away from other departments who are often tasked with providing the ultimate value out of systems created and maintained by the IT department.

Skills such as vendor managers, IT/business experts, data and analytics experts, and application developers top out where it comes to skill sets needed to make that value proposition a reality.

IT/Business experts are the hybrids we discussed recently, people who have depth in both and are able to tie them together in meaningful ways.  One example are IT service managers who are not necessarily technologists but manage technology for the business.  ITIL certification and project management certification are highly advisable for those in such positions and are sure to be hired first in a glut of applicants.

Application developers will have specific skills that vary depending on the chosen technology.  Particular hot spots include Java, Oracle and Android application development.  Pursuing training in any of these areas is very desirable when seeking to build a strong resume.

GogoTraining continues to create new learning opportunities that allow IT professionals of any experience level to build a foundation for reliable job security and employability.

What area could you train for that would really make your resume stand out?

High growth in demand and compensation for non-certified IT skill sets has occurred for four straight quarters and is projected to continue, outpacing certified skills which have been experiencing comparatively anemic activity in the same timeframe, according to a new report by Foote Partners.

Factors cited as responsible for the growth include a focus on skill-based acquisition (creating more contract and consulting positions), increasingly distributed IT responsibilities in organizations, and the evolution of “hybrid IT/business professionals.”

“Technology and business skills have in effect collapsed into each other, creating legions of what our firm refers to generically as hybrid IT/business professionals.  New hybrid jobs and job titles have been created throughout the enterprise,” said David Foote, co-founder and CEO of Foote Partners. “Globalization and competitive pressures have accelerated the popularity of hybrid IT/business professionals and in turn energized market demand and interest in paying cash premiums for hundreds of certified and non-certified IT skills.”

Foote said the economic recession had a hand to play in the skill-based approach and rise in hybrid positions yet the story of evolving the IT workforce started earlier. “The truth is that IT and business leaders have been struggling with transforming the IT workforce for years, trying to make it more agile, flexible, nimble, whatever you want to call it, said Foote. “What the recession did was help leaders get ‘unstuck.’  More focused and motivated.  The pressure to get on the other side of this transition is enormous.”  Foote mentions the “end game” is to find a way to “react quicker, execute faster and more predictably.”

Of the certifications showing continued growth in worth, VMware is at the top showing an average compensation premium of 8.5%.  As virtualization and other areas tied to Cloud Computing grow, relevant certifications will continue to rise in value commensurately.  Other certifications seeing rise in value include those from Red Hat and Oracle.

Non-certified skills which saw a sustained lift for four consecutive quarters include database, application development tools, SAP/ERP, Web/e-commerce and methodology and process management.

GogoTraining provides outstanding quality technology and management training at an affordable price.  IT and technical management professionals of all stages in experience and academic background are encouraged to meet the needs of today’s job market, ensure longevity and increase your chances for above-average compensation by identifying a training path and getting started with GogoTraining today.

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?

If there was ever a time to do an awareness check on your situation and make sure your career – and employment – is in the “safe and moving forward” zone, it is now. 

“In this economy” has become the preamble to all sorts of reminders of good advice on how to survive and thrive.  Let this be another one!  With that said, here’s four ways to keep your job and maybe even do a little advancing this year:

Dust off your communication skills.  It’s time to start speaking up in those horrifying status meetings.  A sure sign of being overlooked by management is to glaze over like a donut in the back of the room while they drone on about what features are being pushed to phase two.  Ask questions, make suggestions, and bring new ideas.  It matters less what you say and more that you try.  Trying gets noticed, and the noticed get remembered.

Improve your visibility.  Meet and converse regularly with the key decision makers in your department.  Ask your boss how else you can help.  Keep your ears out for opportunities to pitch in on other projects.  Keep the project manager updated on your status.  Be positive in all interactions while you’re at it.

Ask for feedback – and use it.  Ask your project manager and/or boss how you’re doing.  Ask what can be improved or what skill sets your department needs to sharpen or gain.  If you’re not sure how to obtain those skills, ask for training.  Even if you are sure, ask for training.  If you get feedback of a personal nature, do your best to make the changes suggested (or implied).  Overall, it is important to show that you are acting on feedback instead of just soliciting it.

Continually educate yourself.  Start by making sure you are staying current in you field.  It could be as simple as attending the right conference and taking a few online courses each year to stay up on trends and keep sharp on new industry developments.

Next, look to add to your skills.  A great way to add texture to your skill set is by obtaining project management skills.  The new protocol in IT as of 2011 is to diminish costs and increase efficiency, and producers who are trained in project management are sure bets on how to do that.  Why?  Because chances are high that a project could be taken on by as little as one to three people and there aren’t enough project managers to be had for such small teams.  If you’re a hardware or development geek who was just handed a two-week or two-month project to work on you need to be your own project manager – and you better know how to do it well.

GogoTraining can help with a catalog of over 140 outstanding IT training courses and a free library of podcasts regarding IT topics (with over 500 entries).  Some particularly hot areas include:

• Our brand-new Android Development Training Program.
• ITIL training courses.
• Project Management Professional (PMP) certification exam prep courses.
• Oracle training courses including Data Guard, Grid Control and Application Express.
• Our list of IT certification paths and included courses.

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 business community has always thrived on service.  The fundamental best practice of serving customers has always been a necessary ingredient to long-term success and a sustainable business model.  You simply can’t expect to have staying power – whether you’re serving retail or business customers – and fail to think about their needs (and respond to them!). 

As information technology has grown in prominence among business users, many of us became caught in a technology trap where the tech took center stage and it was up to customers to conform.  The result has often been problems with cost, efficiency and consistency as technology is adopted due to a less-than-whole perspective on who will use it and why.

Back in the 1980’s, the proliferation of information technology across different departments in the United Kingdom government was occurring at a pace that left things like consistency, relevance, applicability and utility behind.  It sounds strange because these are just the sorts of things information technology is supposed to support or even introduce into an environment.  But rapid adoption by multiple points within the same entity (e.g. the UK government) makes for a lack of continuity and a resulting jumble of confused and colliding implementations.

Enter ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library), a set of standards first envisioned in the late 1980’s by the Central Computer Telecommunications Agency (a division of the UK government).  This blossomed over the years into many volumes of publications covering best practices for IT management, application and service.  The focus remained on Service Management; specifically, a perspective on IT management that is centered on the customer’s perspective of IT.

This customer-centered approach represents a major competitive opportunity for businesses in 2011 and beyond.  Due to several years of difficult economic conditions the corporate lens is focused on finding ways to save costs and create efficiency, and ITIL certainly offers both of these advantages.

Those with ITIL certification have an opportunity to stand out in this economy.  Being able to bring this sort of perspective is a difference maker for those already employed or seeking a new position.  Companies large and small are looking for an edge and the user-focused best practices of ITIL make a strong business case for accomplishing real savings in any and all IT investments moving forward.  Businesses are already well-educated on the importance of this after several decades of technology deployments with very mixed results.

If you are currently employed and in the position to manage IT services, consider obtaining ITIL certification training that will enable you to get certified.  By making a case for efficiency and cost control you may be able to get your employer to pay for it.  If you are unemployed and looking to secure a new position that includes IT service management then ITIL certification could be a way to distinguish yourself.
 
Employed or not, taking a page from the ITIL philosophy on IT management and singing the tune of customer-focused service is sure to be one that resonates with today’s top employers.