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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?”

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.

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.

The advantage—and disadvantage—of IaaS cloud computing is complete control. The user is responsible for sizing, installing, and maintaining operating systems and applications, backing up the systems, etc. This enables the user to configure everything in an optimal way for the workloads that need to be accomplished, but it requires time and effort to determine how it should be set up, secured, etc. With the goal of providing a good place for you to start your IaaS implementation and highlighting some areas that you should plan for and design for, Global Knowledge instructor John Hales provides a review of IaaS, as well as insight into what you need to know before implementing IaaS. He also shares a laundry list of things to consider when implementing IaaS, including questions to ask yourself, your company and your potential cloud provider.

There are many considerations in deciding on whether to provide Software as a Service (SaaS) to others or whether to become a consumer. This white paper will explore what questions and factors you should keep in mind as you seek to implement SaaS. Considerations include deciding how your application will be accessed, implementing disaster recovery, scheduling platform maintenance and upgrades, handling service outages and creating a security plan. This knowledge can be useful whether you are provider of SaaS applications or are planning to be a consumer using software for activities like accounting or project management.

There are many questions you should ask before selecting your PaaS provider. Learn what you need to know in order to compare and contrast PaaS with the other offerings like IaaS and SaaS, and what they require in terms of setup and configuration. As with any decision involving IT infrastructure there are many variables that should be considered to ensure you find a solution that will fit your current and future needs, budget and support requirements.

Learn about Cloud Computing with AWS and the benefits AWS provides to hundreds of thousands of customers globally.

Learn about the Amazon Web Services platform, products, and services. Gain on-demand access to compute, storage, and database services without upfront costs.

While the recent trend towards cloud computing might make it seem like virtualization is new, it has existed in some form for many decades.

Many people believe that cloud computing requires server (or desktop) virtualization. But does it? We will look at using virtualization without cloud computing, cloud computing without virtualization, and then look at using both together. In each case, we'll look at where each deployment might be most useful, some use cases for it and some limitations.

One of the many useful features of tunneling is to carry non-IP traffic across an IP network, and this is still the case when dealing with IPv6 traffic. This transition mechanism makes use of a configured tunnel to transport IPv6 over a native IPv4 network, which may consist of two sites or more. Unlike the previous transition mechanisms, tunneling is not monolithic; while the basic principles may be similar, the operations are different. The following chart gives a breakdown of the current, major tunneling types in use, particularly in a Cisco environment:

A strong event management process that is able to detect changes of state throughout an organization’s IT environment is a key aspect of a complete suite of service management processes. Event management ultimately helps an organization maintain control through an understanding of the state of things, and how the state of those things changes in an IT environment.

There is a wide-range of services available in GCP ranging from Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) to completely managed Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). In the first part of this series, we will discuss the available infrastructure components and how they provide a powerful and flexible foundation on which to build your applications.

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.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is Google’s public cloud offering comparable to Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. The difference is that GCP is built upon Google's massive, cutting-edge infrastructure that handles the traffic and workload of all Google users. There is a wide range of services available in GCP ranging from Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) to completely managed Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). We will discuss the available infrastructure components and how they provide a powerful and flexible foundation on which to build your applications.

UFFA, which stands for “Use it, Flag it or Fix it, Add it,” is the responsibility of every support professional in the knowledge management process. It comes from the Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS) methodology where knowledge management is based on collaboration and a shared ownership of the knowledge base. Let’s break it down.

Cloud computing is a big force in IT today, and it isn't going away. In fact, cloud adoption is going up geometrically, both for end users (think apps on your phone or tablet) as well as for organizations of all sizes. In fact, many smaller organizations may not have any on-premises infrastructure at all, other than networking infrastructure to get connected to the cloud. With this transformation in IT, it behooves all of us in the industry to understand it and adapt or risk being out of a job, like punch card operators.

It’s been about 10 years since public cloud offerings like AWS opened up the world of big data analytics. This post examines the top five most useful architectures used for big data stacks to learn the sweet spots of each.

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

If you’re looking to fortify your cloud expertise, there are a number of certifications to consider. We have compiled 10 cloud certifications that are sure to positively affect your career. 

General character attributes every IT pro should have and on the things that every IT pro should know or do.

You might already know what cloud computing is, and you might already be implementing it into your business, but are you able to have a conversation about it? The lingo surrounding this newer technology can be a bit, well, cloudy. Here are just some of the terms we keep hearing as cloud computing spreads from organization to organization.

These technology job roles are proven to be essential during a crisis as enterprises scramble to change strategies and meet goals. The skills demonstrated by IT professionals in these 10 positions can make the difference between business success and failure, especially during a recession.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers increased agility, developer productivity, pay-as-you-go pricing and overall cost savings. But you might wonder where to start, what pitfalls exist and how can you avoid them? How can you best save time and money? Learn what you need to know and where to start before launching an AWS-hosted service.

Event management, although theoretically different, is fundamentally what most IT organizations refer to as “monitoring.” Monitoring an organization’s environment to determine whether important assets are in the state they should be, and knowing when that state changes, is a very important activity that many organizations spend significant portions of their budget doing.

As with all technologies transforming the way organizations operate, it’s expected that roles will also evolve. Cloud computing already has and will continue to change traditional IT roles and functions for years to come. We'll begin our overview of the transformation of cloud job roles with a look at some of the top cloud computing roles and responsibilities for architects, engineers and developers.

In 2020 we will see the complete ITIL4 education portfolio released and in all likelihood the start of the retirement of the ITIL v3 qualifications. Our ITIL guru, Barry Corless lead author for ITIL4 incident and problem management practices, will talk about the course content, the practical skills you’ll learn, and who will benefit from attending each courses. If you plan to continue your ITIL education then you cannot afford to miss this webinar.

We spoke with Doug Cutting about his role with Cloudera and learned more about Big Data, training options for IT professionals interested in Big Data, and how Cloudera compares to Red Hat.

Communication in our work and personal life has been dramatically transformed, not only by technology, but also by new practices and habits. At the same time, numerous studies show that communication is one of the top critical skills required to be successful. In fact, because of the way organizations and jobs are evolving, the importance of communication keeps increasing for professionals and leaders. This hour-long complimentary webinar is not about how to maximize your LinkedIn contacts or attract more Twitter followers. Jocelyn Bérard is a psychologist specializing in human performance and will share innovative ways to influence others through communication. He will also help you raise your knowledge and awareness about your personality traits and personal characteristics, how they impact communication and how to use them effectively.The digital age is here and you can't control it. But you can certainly improve and better use the human side of your communication.

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.

In the digital age, people and intellectual property have supplanted physical assets as the most important criteria for determining the value of an organization. It is the employees who develop the next big product or improve the practices, processes, services and internal culture that add significant value to an organization.

Young adults unable to find work, employers unable to fill jobs, a recent GAO study that reported substantial declines in telecommunication expertise — there has been a lot of news about the pervasiveness of skills gaps, their causes, the actual impacts and what to do about them. It’s rather confusing, because the term “skills gaps” has been hijacked to politicize an extremely wide range of issues.

Learn how Docker makes it easy to update, test and debug software with this white paper and gain foundational knowledge about Dockerfile, Docker images and containers.

This white paper has three main goals. The first is to generate a better understanding of the cloud in both the business and IT communities. The second is to describe the major components of vCloud and the virtual datacenters they provide. The third is help businesses visualize and understand how vClouds could be beneficial in addressing their specific IT needs.

VMware vCloud Director fashions the provisioning of the software-defined datacenter layer to allow for a full virtual datacenter deployment within a short period of time. A vCloud consists of many layers and can quickly become a complex architecture. Before any deployment, requirements should be defined so that the vCloud can be designed to offer those services needed. It is imperative to understand the many components of vCloud, how each vCloud construct fits, which allocation models are available, and what network options can be chosen.

As mentioned in last week’s post, interviews that require ITIL Intermediate level knowledge will most likely be targeted to specific process areas and activities. If I interviewed someone for a job that required ITIL Intermediate level knowledge, in addition to other questions about the specific technical responsibilities of the job, I might ask the following questions:

After a review of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and its close cousin Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), this white paper addresses three main deployment scenarios: SDN without deploying cloud computing, cloud computing without deploying SDN, and deploying cloud computing in conjunction with SDN. We'll look at use cases, when the approach makes sense, and any applicable limitations.

Most organizations quickly realize that knowledge management must be integrated with incident management in order to improve the quality of service and the efficiency of providing assisted service. What is not as quickly recognized is the value of integrating knowledge management with problem management.

Problem Solving - Root Cause Analysis using Kepner Tregoe

The Toronto Chapter of the Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP), in partnership with Global Knowledge, welcomes Kelly Norgate to share information about her success in leading change with powerful change communication strategies. In this hour-long webinar, Norgate will examine the link between creative change communication solutions and great corporate culture. You will learn practical change communications strategies and tactics that generate the energy and commitment required to get employees on board with transformational change. Take your next change communication plan from good – to great.

In this video, Practice Leader Craig Brown discusses the new Microsoft Cloud Computing platforms and how to keep your organization's data secure and functioning properly while operating either partially or entirely on the cloud.

Discover the most common barriers you will face when implementing knowledge management and how to overcome them, so that your organization changes, over time, into a culture where knowledge sharing and reuse becomes second nature and part of the normal course of activity.

Most Internet users don't realize that often a website or other service that seems slow to respond is actually working fine. Instead, it’s the resolution of DNS that is putting a glitch in your giddy up. Fortunately, there are several steps you can take to optimize your DNS to get better performance.

Microsoft Office 365 has a vast array of features to explore. A rich administration interface, streamlined security, and versatile migration options make this one of the most interesting products when it comes to an SaaS public cloud solution.

If you’re looking for serious change, why not focus on your IT professional career? How much can you really learn from a five-point “Hack” list that speaks to everyone, yet no one? Not much. Too many articles rattle off a quick hit list. After reading this goal-setting guide you’ll be able to develop a game plan to bring successful change in your professional life.

Looking ahead at new and emerging certifications provides insight into the areas deemed valuable in the IT industry. If you are an early adopter or in a position where you need to show that you have the bleeding-edge expertise of a technology, this list of recent and upcoming certifications is for you. 

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. 

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.

In 2019, Microsoft has thoughtfully adapted their curriculum to boost Azure skills adoption. And to further speed up Azure consumption, Global Knowledge has stepped in to support Microsoft’s evolution and their new strategy. We’re fighting change with change. And here’s how we did it.

Organizations are moving strongly toward Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) access, bringing outsourced activities back in-house, and finding ways to make use of the growing amounts of data flowing in from many new sources such as social media. These factors create an increasing shift in required and desired skills showing up in IT departments. Hiring and salary surveys, such as the 2014 IT Skills and Salary Survey from Global Knowledge and Windows IP Pro, TEKsystems' 2014 Annual IT Forecast, Foote Research Group's 2014 IT Skills and Certifications Pay Index, Computerworld's annual Forecast survey, Robert Half Technology Survey, and information from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Futurestep, Mondo, GovLoop, and Dice have presented a developing picture of the IT skills that will be in demand in 2014. Here, in survey order, are the top 10 major skills and why they made the list.

Unified asset and service management software provides a common control center for managing business processes for both digital and physical assets. SmartCloud Control Desk is an Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL®)-compliant software that is accessible through mobile devices and integrates with social media and development tools. Discover how to choose the delivery model you need such as on-premise, software as a service (SaaS), or VM image and seamlessly change it to suit your business needs.

Cloud forensics involves exploring issues a company and its forensic examiner may face when suffering a breach of company information in the cloud. If they need to collect information from the cloud to determine what happened, to determine what was lost or compromised, for remediation, for civil litigation, or for some other action, what issues will they face? And, how can they collect the data? Although this white paper discusses many legal issues, this is not a legal "how-to" article. The purpose is to provide some insight into cloud forensics.

In this seminar, discover how OpenStack can simplify your cloud infrastructure management. Experts from Red Hat, the leading contributor to the OpenStack project, will fill you in on how organizations have solved problems and increased business value with open-source cloud technology. They will also give you a peek into the future of Red Hat OpenStack and reveal how Red Hat training and certification can ensure the success of your cloud deployment.

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® 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.

We asked for your top IT horror stories, and you delivered. Read the most unexpected and cringe-worthy IT nightmares from fellow IT professionals.

Database Management Systems (DBMS) have been monolithic structures with their own dedicated hardware, storage arrays, and consoles. Amazon Web Services (AWS) realized that while each company can use unique methods of collecting and using data, the actual processes of building the management infrastructure are almost always the same. AWS remedies DBMS problems with its Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS).

AWS has introduced Auto Scaling so that you can take advantage of cloud computing without having to incur the costs of adding more personnel or building your own software. You can use Auto Scaling to scale for high availability, to meet increasing system demand, or to control costs by eliminating unneeded capacity. You can also use Auto Scaling to quickly deploy software for massive systems, using testable, scriptable processes to minimize risk and cost of deployment.

Discover how the enhanced performance and reliability of Amazon Aurora will help AWS customers reduce performance bottlenecks in their applications. The relatively low cost of Aurora will tempt many customers to migrate workloads to this implementation of RDS.

In this hour-long webinar, Global Knowledge course director Brian Egler will examine key new features of Microsoft SQL Server 2016 that demonstrate how it provides automatic end-to-end security, seamless generation of business analytics and elastic integration of data in the cloud.

A longtime leader in data analytics, Google continues to earn their position by continually improving their data analytics offerings. Now, with Google Cloud Platform (GCP), you can capture, process, store, and analyze your data in one place, allowing you to change your focus from infrastructure to analytics that informs business decisions. However, you can also use GCP Big Data tools in combination with other cloud-native and open-source solutions to meet your needs. Below is an overview of GCP Big Data Tools and how you might utilize them to improve analytics.

The four-part Cloud TechTalks series shares practical insights and best practices for using the cloud. With exponential growth and unparalleled demand, there are few areas with greater opportunity than storage in the cloud. Join us for this complimentary, hour-long webinar to hear Susan Schreitmueller, IBM distinguished engineer and senior cloud advisor, share IBM's cloud storage solutions. Along with exploring trends and directions around IBM's roadmap for storage in the cloud, Schreitmueller will review Cloud Managed Services and SoftLayer options, as well as software-defined storage and IBM's suite of products.

Do you want to take your Power System to higher levels of cloud functionality but don't know what's available? Join us for this free webinar, presented by IBM and sponsored by Global Knowledge, to hear senior power cloud consultants Vess Natchev and Kyle Wurgler share an exciting new cloud solution for Power Systems. In this interactive webinar, you'll gain insight on the details and features of the new cloud solution from IBM and VMware.

Cloud can be described as the ability for users to provision new environments and/or services in a self-service fashion backed by automation. z Systems use technologies that best allow us to apply the strengths of our platform to cloud methodologies while complying with industry standards and preserving the security and manageability of our platform. This enables us to use the strengths of z Systems scalable multitenant architecture for on-premise cloud deployments. z Systems can also expose valuable enterprise services in a secure manner that feels native to mobile and Web application developers, enabling organizations to use enterprise services on z Systems with a frictionless experience for distributed developers.

PowerVC is a cloud tool based on OpenStack technology used to manage your virtualized environment running on your Power System. It automates rapid provisioning/deprovisioning and provides simple ongoing management of LPARs on Power Systems. Join us for this free, interactive webinar to hear senior power cloud consultants Vess Natchev and Kyle Wurgler from IBM System Lab Services.

Cloud adoption continues to soar. In fact, worldwide Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) public cloud services grew by 29.5 percent in 2017, according to Gartner. If it’s not in a company’s current plans to utilize cloud technology, it most certainly will be (or should be) in the next couple of years.

Accessing cloud-based resources, whether they be IaaS/PaaS/SaaS-based, is very convenient. With a browser and Internet connection, you are up and running. No driving to your work office, no need to log into the corporate network. Just open up your web browser and go. This convenience, however, comes with a security risk. All of your business work is conducted over an insecure communication network. Unlike your office network, where the network link between you and the data center is under corporate control and is physically secure, the cloud access link is over the Internet.

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.

In this one-hour webinar, AWS consultant and instructor Ryan Dymek, will discuss how to optimize your AWS architecture design.

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.

Measurements and metrics provide a view into every aspect of an organization. From resource availability to necessary improvements, measurements are the key to successfully understanding how your organization is performing. This paper will give you guidance on why measuring is important, how to get started, what types of metrics are available, what should be measured, and how to go about initiating improvements.

It’s inevitable. At some point in your career, you’ll find yourself working alongside individuals who fall into the general category of “Difficult People.” The effects these people can have on an organization vary greatly but usually involve many problems for the team. This white paper describes some of the more common types of difficult people and provides you with tips on how to handle them.

The idea of building and running applications without thinking about the servers (AKA serverless computing) is a developers dream come true.  Watch expert Rich Morrow to understand: The benefits of using serverless computing Different architectures that use serverless computing How AWS services, like Lambda, S3, API Gateway and DynamoDB work together to enable faster and more flexible application deployment and management. This video also features a live demo: Building a web app with only serverless components.

As far as modern architectures go, there are few more complicated than an IoT pipeline. You’ve got to consider an ingestion layer (typically streaming) that may undergo manic load. You’ve got to think of data tagging, storage (probably across multiple engines), archival and access—both internal and external. And all of it has to scale like crazy, be as cost effective as possible, and use automation wherever it can. Oh, and your boss needs the IoT pipeline built by tomorrow. Short timelines? Tight budget? Unrealistic expectations? Unfortunately, these asks are realities for many cloud professionals. AWS knows this and is here to help.  

This Certification Prep Guide provides an overview of the Microsoft Azure Fundamentals certification and offers helpful tips that you can use when preparing for your certification exam. 

This Certification Prep Guide provides an overview of the Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification and offers helpful tips that you can use when preparing for your certification exam.

This Certification Prep Guide provides an overview of the Microsoft Azure Developer Associate certification and offers helpful tips that you can use when preparing for your certification exam.

This Certification Prep Guide provides an overview of the Microsoft Azure Administrator Associate certification and offers helpful tips that you can use when preparing for your certification exam.

Surprises can be a lot of fun, unless it happens in the middle of your cloud migration project. While moving to the cloud is no trivial matter, it doesn’t have to be stressful or surprising. Many steps and techniques are often overlooked or forgotten. Watch this 60-minute webinar delivered by cloud expert, course author and instructor, Brian Eiler. You’ll gain a better understanding of the scope involved for migrating workloads, plus tips and techniques that will enable your organization to get started in cloud computing without all the surprises. What will you learn? Key concepts related to cloud workloads, from planning and human elements to connectivity, security and data transfer. Different design aspects that should be considered when planning a workload migration to the cloud. How these factors impact the workload migration process. Recommended Courses: Cloud Workload Planning Understanding the Cloud Business Application & Vendor Landscape

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.