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System Administrators, or SysAdmins, are the “installation specialists,” “configuration specialists” and “fixers” in IT. If you’ve ever seen Pulp Fiction, SysAdmins are like Winston Wolfe — their job is to solve problems.

For organizations getting started with RHEL, Red Hat Training has developed a series of courses to develop the skills needed for basic administration and configuration of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. These courses introduce key command line concepts and enterprise-level tools, laying the foundation for the rapid deployment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The curriculum also introduces the basic administration skills needed for resolving configuration issues and integrating Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems with other existing environments. View the slide deck>>

Learn about the five types of area networks.

Here are 18 certification options, in no particular order, that are worth your effort based on site searches, feedback from subject matter experts and data in the Global Knowledge 2019 IT Skills and Salary Report.

What’s the difference between incidents and problems? This article explains the differences between these ITIL® concepts, how they are related, and why it matters.

Project Scope Management sets the foundation for the creation, development and successful delivery of a project. Learn about the project management process here.

As IT departments struggle with skills gaps and businesses attempt to recovery economically from the COVID-19 pandemic, these 10 IT skills are essential to drive success. Job roles in these areas pay well, but decision-makers are struggling to find qualified candidates. If you’re looking to make an IT skills investment or start a new career path this year, these are the areas to consider.

While cybersecurity remains the most popular certification category in our IT Skills and Salary Report, foundational-level certifications highlight our list of the most popular IT certifications of 2020. 

For women in IT, advancing your career can be a challenge in itself. In the Global Knowledge 2019 IT Skills and Salary Report, only eight percent of senior- and executive-level IT professionals are women. We have pulled data from our research that sheds light on the job roles, skills, challenges, certifications and experience of women in tech who have progressed to the highest levels of an organization.

According to the Global Knowledge IT Skills and Salary Report, women make up 16% of the tech workforce, and an even smaller percentage (8%) are at the senior or executive level. Here’s an overview of the most popular and most pursued certifications by women in tech.

Global Knowledge subject matter experts predict the top trends for 2020 in IT training, Microsoft, Cisco, AWS, cybersecurity and more.

Managers are in dire need of cybersecurity professionals with specific skills. If you’re looking to advance your career, or transfer into the cyber field, now is the time to get certified.

For organizations with the willingness to get in shape and regain their corporate vitality, combining and aligning best practice frameworks is a sure way to achieve that goal. Admittedly, it takes work. Combining ITIL® 4 and project management should be high on your list.

Learn about all of your options before choosing the path that works for our organization. Here we look at three of the common metrics questions and how ITIL® offers a balanced view for solving them.    

Answer the questions posed in our ITIL Decision Tree to see if you should pursue ITIL 4. It’s easy-to-follow and no matter how you answer, it will provide a distinct next step for your ITIL journey.

ITIL is one of the most sought-after certifications among IT professionals—nearly one in five is ITIL-certified. Find out how ITIL students apply what they learned to their job.

ITIL® is still recognised as the de facto standard in delivering end-to-end, holistic IT services. The 4th iteration retains ITIL’s place as one of the key tools at the disposal of organization’s seeking to manage digital transformations.

The ITIL 4 update is the first since 2011, and will address the new processes, vocabulary, and methods used in modern IT, including DevOps, Agile, and Lean IT development.

ITIL® 4 Foundation Bridge is a new Global Knowledge course that addresses the specific needs of professionals who have already achieved the ITIL v3 Foundation certification and wish to upgrade to ITIL 4. 

The Red Hat® Learning Subscription delivers 12-months of unlimited access to all Red Hat Online Training courses. The Standard RHLS subscription is a higher tier with access to 5 certification exams and up to 2 retakes.

Global Knowledge subject matter experts know certification exams inside and out. They understand the study methods and test-taking techniques that pay off the most when it’s exam time. Here are 10 certification exam tips and tricks, directly from our experts and Certification Prep Guides, that will best position you for certification success.

How do you measure the experience and knowledge of an IT professional? One way is through certifications. Earning any certification is a notable achievement, though not all certifications carry the same perceived worth.

IT is a very fast changing industry – what is hot today may be a tiny niche market in only a few years and lesser known things may turn out to be huge trends. That having been said, there are many certifications that will be around for a long time. However, this does not imply that recertification and/or continuing education credits are not required to maintain certification. Predicting the future is always challenging, including in IT, but these certifications are good bets.

Digital transformation means different things to different people. One fact they all agree on is that the capability needed to manage this new paradigm will lead to new ways of working, new skills, new technology and embracing more collaborative ways of co-creating value. That challenge has been the driving force for the latest iteration of ITIL®.

ITIL® 4 reflects new ways of working that have accompanied the digital revolution. Service Management, and ITIL in particular, is still an important toolset but you are now integrating its adoption and use with a vast array of new ways of working (DevOps, Agile, SIAM, Site Reliability Engineering). Since ITIL v3 was released in 2006, a large number of new and updated technologies (Cloud, Serverless Computing, Software-Defined Networking, AI, etc.) have emerged that now need managing. ITIL 4 reflects these changes. Here are some frequently asked questions about ITIL 4, as well as answers that explain what it entails, why we need it and how it differs from ITIL v3.

This certification and exam guide discusses the various ITIL® certifications and what they might mean to you, your organization, and your career, as well as provide important test-taking tips for the ITIL certification exams. ITIL certifications help individuals validate their ability to demonstrate skills from a foundational to a mastery level of IT service management. ITIL certification can often be a key differentiator in the marketplace as well.

ITIL Foundation Exam-Taking Tips

Thinking about getting ITIL certified? In this post, we cover the value of each ITIL certification and dive into survey results to determine whether ITIL certifications are worth it. The results are in!

Certifications are the most common way in IT to prove you have the skills to solve various technical and business challenges. In this article, I'll address a range of skill sets. For each certification listed, I've included what the certification measures, the requirements to obtain it.

You may have heard about IT service management and ITIL being yesterday’s news, but the survey suggests you need to re-evaluate those rumors. The enduring value of ITSM credentials and practices have been championed by Gene Kim, one of the Godfathers of the DevOps world, who has said, “It is my firm belief that ITSM and the DevOps movement are not at odds. Quite to the contrary, they’re a perfect cultural match.”

Shortly after being awarded an ITIL® Foundation certification, a recipient’s natural inclination is to ask: “Now what? How do I take the best practices I’ve learned and apply them to my organization?”

As the technology industry has advanced, the professional certification industry has grown alongside it. The Global Knowledge 2016 IT Skills and Salary Report revealed that Cisco, Microsoft, IT service management, ITIL and security certifications are the most lucrative to obtain.

IBM WebSphere Business Modeler (WBM) can be used in conjunction with an adoption of ITIL best practices. It is a full-featured process modeling and simulation tool that fits well with other IBM products that are used to define various service management processes and activities. In this white paper learn more about how WBM provides both the ability to visually define process activities and the ability to define detailed information about processes, including inputs, outputs, cost, revenue, roles and resources.

Which mainstay certifications should be in your list of credentials? What's the next up-and-coming certification? This article will help you answer both questions by providing a review of the 15 top-paying certifications.

AMC’s television series “Halt and Catch Fire” shows North Texas’ rise as the “Silicon Prairie.” In the 1980s and early 1990s, it’s where IBM PC cloning was explored and where first-person shooter games were created. It’s also the site of the first “logic bomb”—the source of my horror story.

Using ITIL can improve your IT service levels, customer service ratings, business productivity and reduce operating costs, but getting started can be overwhelming. Gain the understanding you need to adopt and adapt ITIL with instructions and tips for important steps such as internal employee communications, determining potential pain points and methods for evaluating your existing processes.

Businesses today are more dependent on technology than ever. And, more than ever, they're looking to IT for ways to improve employee productivity, customer service and innovation. The challenge is that in order to achieve results with technology, IT and the business have to work collaboratively. IT needs to be able to develop the right relationships and communicate with different stakeholders from a business perspective - not a technical one. As a result, the transformation of the IT department has become a top-level priority for many leading organizations. At the same time, business leaders need to strengthen their business technology IQ and play a more significant role in the governance of IT.

The ITIL® event management process defines three event types: informational, warning and exception. In this post, I will discuss the different event types and give real-world examples of each.

Change is the order of the day, and if anything, the pace of business and technology change is accelerating. The business and customers are looking to IT service providers to be more responsive, delivering more frequent service changes with higher quality-resulting in services that deliver more value to the business. In order to continue to be relevant and of high value, ITIL must continue to benefit from other complementary best-practices for IT. DevOps, an approach that encourages improved communication, collaboration, and teamwork across development and operations, can have a positive influence in improving ITIL processes across the service life-cycle.

This white paper describes a technique for defining processes called SIPOC (Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, and Customers). SIPOC provides a structured way to define the key elements of any process. SIPOC can be used as a means of defining any of the service management processes presented in ITIL® best practices. Furthermore, SIPOC can be used as the preliminary input into the more formal documentation of a process in one of many process design tools.

In this hour-long webinar, Global Knowledge instructor and ITIL Expert Michael Scarborough will share his knowledge and expertise on various aspects of incident management and problem management processes. He will help you understand the difference between incidents and problems and between incident and problem management, providing examples from his own experience to drive the concepts home. Michael will also provide an overview of who performs various incident and problem management activities in an organization.

Learn the ITIL® concepts of accountability, boundaries, and consistency (the ABCs) and discover how ITIL helps establish, manage, and maintain the ABCs.

You will learn how many organizations approach change management as compared to how best practices dictate that change management should work. Global Knowledge instructor and ITIL Expert Michael Scarborough will fill you in on the purpose of change management and the difference between change management and change tickets. He will provide a high-level guide for establishing a change management process that uses real-world examples as its basis.

Michael Scarborough and Ryan Ballmer, co-authors of Global Knowledge ITIL courseware, discuss how to become an ITIL expert.

Simulate the ITIL v3 Service Management Lifecycle with an interactive gaming experience.

In this hour-long webinar by Global Knowledge instructor and ITIL Expert Michael Scarborough, you will learn how to study for and succeed in passing ITIL Intermediate Exams. You will learn how to approach an ITIL Intermediate exam, the true/false approach and why it works and how to study for the ITIL Intermediate exams.

Nasser El-Batal will walk you through the most useful, recognized, and mandated ITSM best practices in the industry: TOGAF, COBIT and ITIL®. He will highlight the benefits of integrating them into a single implementation program to avoid project disaster. Discussions are focused on "Getting Your House in Order" and how to establish your own organization-specific business transformation program, while increasing your organization maturity.

Cloud computing enables development teams to get applications into production faster. IT Service Management (ITSM) leaders must adopt new strategies and change existing processes or risk becoming a barrier to success. Cloud computing requires DevOps-the blending of development and operations with the goal of accelerating time-to-market and reducing time-to-value. The good news is that ITIL® is uniquely positioned to accelerate DevOps, but it requires changes to existing ITSM processes.

The short answer (and a common one in our industry): it depends. When comparing Cisco IOS with Juniper Junos, the decision to choose one over the other is difficult and often boils down to cost. Of course, there are other factors to consider.

Michael Scarborough and Ryan Ballmer, co-authors of Global Knowledge ITIL courseware, discuss the difference between ITIL Capability courses and ITIL Lifecycle courses.

In this report, I've reviewed the 15 most popular certifications according to our more than 12,000 North American respondents to our annual IT Skills and Salary Survey. For each certification, you'll find a brief description, the average salary, and some insight into why it is popular.

You know you need to invest in training, but how do you get the best return on investment (ROI) from your training dollars? To help you make smart training decisions, we've put together this guide, which illustrates some alternative and little-known payment options, the types of discounts and promotions available with training and a suggested list of courses that give you excellent value.

A gap analysis is a tool that ITIL recommends organizations use to compare their current state to some future desired state.

Co-authors Michael Scarborough and Ryan Ballmer discuss some key differences in the new Global Knowledge ITIL courseware.

Michael Scarborough and Ryan Ballmer, co-authors of Global Knowledge ITIL courseware, discuss why ITIL is important to businesses.

Traditionally, ITIL and TOGAF professionals have been part of different teams within an organization. Due to the ongoing alignment of business and IT, these professionals now often find themselves on the same team. Because of this crossover, there is a growing trend towards organization of work based on multiple best practice models. 

Many I&O leaders and customers see little value from investments in ITIL. Not getting the Return on Investment (ROI) you expect normally comes from using ITIL incorrectly. You, your staff, and your customers must share the same goals and understand exactly what to expect from your ITIL investments. The goal of ITIL is not “business and IT alignment” or “competitive advantage from IT investments.” Instead, its first goal is to stabilize service operation. This builds a base for the second goal: increasing value through service optimization. You must have clear-cut, documented, and managed expectations for each activity, and order is vital. Success requires that you stabilize service delivery before trying to optimize. Focusing on the correct goal and linking each ITIL task to that goal is the correct use of ITIL.

ITIL is generally not prescriptive. In reality, the CSI Register at any given organization might look significantly different than the example given in the CSI book. The fields given in this example are important. 

Organizations that plan for and conduct supplier management according to defined processes and boundaries are more likely to receive predictable, high-quality goods and services from their suppliers in a timely manner.

Regardless of your vendor preference or your experience on the Juniper JUNOS CLI, assuming you have a point of reference to another vendor, your first thought when experiencing JUNOS is, “I have been here before.” The CLI is familiar, convenient, and polished. The similarities between JUNOS CLI and another CLI such as Cisco’s IOS are not what I want to focus on here however; it is their differences I want to focus on. But first, when you connect to a JUNOS powered device and access Operational Mode (see Brad Wilson’s blog post Introduction to Juniper Junos), it looks very much like the User EXEC Mode in IOS. In fact, there are a lot of JUNOS commands that are very much like the IOS User EXEC Mode commands.

Previously I discussed service providers and their risks in the example of my involvement with a landscaping company. ITIL clearly states that services, “…deliver value to customers by facilitating outcomes customers want to achieve…” However, sometimes organizations and people focus on outputs as opposed to outcomes, which sacrifices some of the value of the service. This leads to a question, what is the difference between an outcome and an output?

None of us have much time to waste, so what can you do when your environment changes quickly and you need to come up to speed on a device that you have never seen before? You find the quickest way to bring yourself up to speed. Some of you will have experience with other vendors’ equipment, and some of you will not have much experience at all; therefore, we will focus on topics that will get your feet wet the quickest and have you talking Junos in no time.

What's the correct sequence of activities for handling an incident? Find out why categorization occurs before initial diagnosis in the ITIL incident management process flow so you can answer this common ITIL Foundation exam question.

As long as I've been involved in service management, one of the perennial debates that's really never been resolved focuses around how many discrete processes ITIL describes. No such single list exists in the ITIL core books. However, section 4.1 of each of the ITIL 2011 core books shows the processes described within that specific book. When we deliver accredited ITIL training, if it is describe in section 4.1 of any of the ITIL core books, then it is considered a "process".