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You have earned a CompTIA certification. The next step is to ensure that your certification remains current and valid. Some certifications are good for life, while others require renewal. Let’s look at what certifications require renewal, the options that you have for maintaining your certifications, and steps to get it done.

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.

CISSP remains one of the most respected and sought-after cybersecurity certifications. With the most recent update released in May 2021, (ISC)2 has maintained the high bar it set to validate the knowledge and skills of senior cybersecurity managers.

In this article, we discuss how to achieve that optimal security approach in the data center with Cisco Application Centric Architecture, or ACI.

CompTIA has become one of the most recognized and respected names in IT certifications, from the first A+ back in the 1990s to today with over a dozen vendor-neutral certifications covering a variety of topics.

After reading this article, whether you’re requesting training for yourself or your team, you will be better prepared to build and state your case for the business-delivering value of training.

With a constant demand for support, specialized skills and technology, IT professionals are under a good deal of pressure at work. And if they’re not compensated for it, they might just leave — causing disruption at the company, but also their own lives.

This quick reference guide will highlight the various certification tracks to help you find your path through the EC-Council programs.

This is the second of a two-part series on First Hop Redundancy Protocols (FHRP). In Part 1 of this topic, we reviewed the fundamentals of networking, the importance of the Default Gateway to an endpoint, and how to solve redundancy of Default Gateway by using an FHRP such as Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP)

As an IT security leader, you understand the importance of having and following corporate policies to protect and defend your systems and the assets that they retain. You and your security team work diligently to know the latest threats, prepare for possible intrusion, and harden your network.

In any operational data network, the two high-level outcome possibilities are connectivity and isolation. If every device can connect to every other device by enabling full connectivity, networking is relatively easy to create, but inherently unsecure. If a network fully isolates all forms of traffic, it is unusable.

Diversity in the workplace means that a company employs a wide range of individuals with different characteristics. By nurturing a more accepting, diverse culture, organizations will experience a substantial positive effect on individuals and a stronger bond within teams. 

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.

Passwords aren't as secure as you think, but there are ways to improve their effectiveness against hackers' attempts to gain access.

Hackers are everywhere, and they have a sophisticated array of tools for cracking your passwords. The primary purpose of this white paper is to help you understand that easy-to-remember passwords are no longer considered a secure form of authentication

IT is everywhere. The advent of the Internet of Things (IoT), expansion of data capabilities and storage, and broad access to wireless services have pushed IT into virtually every aspect of our lives. From appliances and televisions to tablets and smartphones, people are more connected than ever.

One of the most used ways for hackers to attack an organization is through email phishing. From an attacker’s point of view, email attacks can be automated at scale with thousands of emails sent virtually for free.

Retention rates and employee morale plague IT departments. The solution? Invest in career development and ongoing training. 

Cryptography can be used for many purposes, but there are two types of cryptographic algorithms you need to understand: symmetric and asymmetric. Learn more from the experts at Global Knowledge.

HR and IT managers, if you're losing top talent and having trouble attracting quality candidates, the no. 1 reason is that they don't see a future with you. If you're not leveraging professional development, here are a couple tips to start.

There are several techniques, methods, and tools that can help you reduce your security budget while maintaining or increasing your actual defenses. No security defense is perfect, and you often get what you pay for.

In any operational data network, the two high-level outcome possibilities are connectivity and isolation. If every device can connect to every other device by enabling full connectivity, networking is relatively easy to create, but inherently unsecure. If a network fully isolates all forms of traffic, it is unusable.

A career in Cybersecurity means being a lifelong learner. New attacks are constantly being invented, and cybersecurity engineers must respond to them in new ways. This video introduces a new supply chain attack, which provides a fascinating glimpse into the incredible skills of state sponsored professional hackers.

Gaining access is the most important phase of an attack in terms of potential damage, although attackers don’t always have to gain access to the system to cause damage. For instance, denial-of-service attacks can either exhaust resources or stop services from running on the target system. 

Learn how to boost your visibility on LinkedIn by listing your skills and certifications and leveraging the courses you’ve taken for professional development. This is especially important to catch the eyes of recruiters and when applying for jobs.

Once an attacker gains access to the target system, the attacker can choose to use both the system and its resources and further use the system as a launch pad to scan and exploit other systems, or he can keep a low profile and continue exploiting the system.

The SolarWinds cyberattack is one of the most sophisticated and broad cyberattacks in history and will likely be studied for years by cybersecurity researchers as a case study for a supply chain attack.

ISACA’s role is to help those in the field of cybersecurity get greater utilization out of the people already in the fold. This means enabling IT professionals to take a leadership role and increase their depth of knowledge. 

Attackers use a method called scanning before they attack a network. Often attackers use automated tools such as network/host scanners and war dialers to locate systems and attempt to discover vulnerabilities.

Every second of every day, data is being sent and received. Billions of data packets are processed by your company’s network every day. In fact, you received dozens of packets just to read this article, but the vast majority of us have no idea how this works. People have no clue as to what goes on behind the scenes to ensure data actually gets to the right device.

This certification profile covers the job functions and titles held by the professionals who hold the certification, views on job security and satisfaction, CISSP salary information, along with other certifications held and tenure. The data is from Global Knowledge’s annual global IT Skills and Salary Report so you won't find it anywhere else.

Many companies have a so-called five-nines goal, meaning that the network needs to be available to the users at least 99.999% of the time. To achieve that goal, IT professionals must consider high availability in the network design, including both physical and logical redundancy.

Follow these four troubleshooting tips to help you work through a challenging repair and reach a solution without much wasted time and resources.

Here's an introduction to encryption. What is it? Why do we need it? It's a complicated area, so we're here to help get your started. You'll understand the general function of three categories of mathematical ciphers: Symmetric, Asymmetric and Hashing. 

Many certification roadmaps include (ISC)2’s CISSP (Certified Information System Security Practitioner) as a crucial cybersecurity certification to consider in a career and education plan. One example is the CompTIA IT Certification Roadmap, which places CISSP in the “Expert” column of the Information Security pathway. The CompTIA roadmap of IT certifications is not alone in recognizing the importance and value of the CISSP.

The 2021 revised and updated version CISSP (Certified Information System Security Practitioner) certification exam will be released on May 1, 2021. This new version of the popular CISSP exam will include a modest revision and re-organization of previously included topics, but will integrate a significant number of new topics.

The Ethernet switch has become an integral part of the world’s LAN infrastructure. At its core, the Ethernet is a shared network, each node contending for access to precious bandwidth and dealing with the repercussions of collisions.

Learn about the five types of area networks.

An quick fundamental overview of layer two devices.   To learn more about this and similar topics, enroll in our exclusive Understanding Networking Fundamentals course.    

Cybersecurity is one of the most important fields of work in our world today. It’s an ever-changing discipline that requires ongoing education and adaptability, even for cybersecurity experts.

The cloud has been around for over a decade, but great cloud engineers are in short supply. What sets a great cloud engineer apart from simply a good one? Experience plays a big part, and the general expectation seems to be that you will become great by putting in your time. However, the truth is that to be a great cloud engineer you do not just slowly grow into your role. You actively aim for ways to improve both your skills and your approach to using technology. Here are three examples of what great cloud engineers do to be highly successful.

The field of cybersecurity is growing, and it is no wonder. Global Knowledge’s 2020 IT Skills and Salary Report confirms the value of security experts, with those functioning in the Cybersecurity/IT Security field in the U.S. reporting an average annual wage of $153,655. Here’s an exclusive Security+ certification profile.

COVID-19 has had a significant impact on businesses. Cost-cutting efforts have resulted in organizations having to do more with less. Safety protocols and social distancing guidelines have meant that more employees are working from home. The reality of remote workers and the access, reliability, and security issues that they create are at the forefront of the challenges facing IT departments.

The IT Skills and Salary Report covers a lot in the published report, and that’s only the surface. Here are four snippets of AWS data that weren't included in the published report.

Systems engineers are the men and women responsible for keeping your applications running and databases responsive, and while the cloud has removed much of their responsibilities regarding hardware, their jobs are by no means easy. Lack of attention to details is always a factor in most mistakes, but these issues stem from misperception and a lack of understanding regarding the cloud itself.

Cybersecurity has matured into a complex and diverse set of functions. Each of these functional specializations represent different roles requiring different knowledge, skills, and abilities.

It is everyone’s job, not solely cybersecurity professionals, to consider how their work affects security.

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.

Aside from plenty of laughs, “Groundhog Day” delivers powerful messages about change, love and being a good person. Phil is unable to break the time loop until he totally changes who he is. Unless you’re as selfish and heartless as Phil, by making incremental changes over time you’ll bring success to your life and career.

Here are five date points from the 2020 IT Skills and Salary Report that illustrate important trends in professional development, skills gaps, hiring and top-paying certifications.

Organizations rely on administrators to do a lot. If you’re admin reading this, you know this far too well.

With Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) as popular as it is in the provider space and private MPLS clouds for larger enterprise, we needed some tools to help troubleshoot and maintain these networks. With the providers in mind, the normal ping or traceroute may not be enough.

The key difference between hubs, switches and bridges is that hubs operate at Layer 1 of the OSI model, while bridges and switches work with MAC addresses at Layer 2 of the OSI model.

Let's start with defining the job of a cloud architect. You are responsible for planning, designing, migrating, and implementing cloud-based infrastructures, but the effectiveness of these specialists is not guaranteed.

These mistakes can be resume-updating events if you are not careful. Take the time to learn the skills of a cloud architect and both your career and your employer will benefit.

Early one morning, an engineer end user discovered that the Engineer servers were unreachable, and he didn’t know if he could reach the Internet. The administrator investigated the user’s PC with the IPCONFIG /ALL command and verified that the PC was a DHCP client, but it had received an address from the Accounting DHCP server, not the Engineering DHCP server.

While Apple has created many fine things, they were yet to be created themselves when Xerox PARC scientists created Media Access Control addresses. These MAC addresses are 48 bits or 6 bytes long, so they are also known as MAC-48 or EUI-48. EUI stands for Extended Unique Identifier. It is written in hexadecimal characters as shown below:

When you connect your server or storage, it will send a Fabric login (FLOGI) request. This FLOGI request serves two purposes: Fibre Channel ID is the WWPN connection to this port from the FLOGI server Exchange buffer credits with the switch To better understand the first function, it is exactly the same if I rewrite it as, “request an IP address for a MAC address from the DHCP server”.

Hackers are looking for your company’s network. Unless you are offline and have no internet connectivity, the company network is discoverable.

Finding the right job may not always be that easy. For IT and cybersecurity professionals who are searching for a new job, or would just like to hang onto their current one, there are steps you can take to improve your job position. Whether you’re looking to get better at your job or advance up the ranks of your organization, these tips are aimed at you!

With 2021 quickly approaching, you need to be ready for existing and new threats. If you want to secure your system from hackers, then you need to think like them. In 2020, we saw attacks on many companies such as Twitter, Experian South Africa, British Airlines, DigitalOcean, etc. These companies have trained security teams, but hackers continue to find ways exploit vulnerabilities.

There are several advantages to implementing a route-based VPN (a.k.a. tunnel interface VPN) instead of a site-to-site one. Learn more.

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.

Keep your project on time and within budget by controlling the baselines, budget, and schedule. View our comprehensive guide to project management, from project scheduling to cost control, from the experts at Global Knowledge.

Prepping for a Microsoft certification exam? Global Knowledge's own Tracy Wallace has you covered with these six tips for passing any Microsoft exam.

Project quality management is the process of determining the quality standards that are applicable to a project and devising a way to satisfy them. Learn more here.

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

There’s a lot of pressure on IT decision-makers to fill the cybersecurity holes in their organization. The cyber skills shortage is palpable and growing. Cybersecurity is the most challenging IT hiring area in the world. Those of you expecting to hire your way out of your cyber skills gaps, we have some bad news for you—it’s not viable.

Implementing business analysis (BA) in organizations needs to be done in a well-planned process. The three steps are contingent on the BA maturity of the organization, its vision for how BA will be used and the degree of executive sponsorship.

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.

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.

Discover what's possible with unlimited Microsoft training. The GK Polaris Discovery subscription includes access to over 100 Microsoft courses, allowing you to prep for the Microsoft certification of your choice. Learn about the value of certification, the benefits of virtual classroom training, and how GK Polaris can help boost your career.

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. 

If you’ve been wondering what are some good IT pranks for April Fools’ Day—or any other time of the year—this is the post for you. Whether you’re an IT pro with decades of experience or a noob who is about to learn that holding CTRL+SHIFT+ESC is a faster way to access the task manager (you’re welcome), we have an IT prank for you.

Those who have never trained in a virtual classroom, or haven’t trained in one for years, may have some pre-conceived notions about online training – many of which are either wrong or out-of-date. To dispel any misconceptions, let’s explore eight common myths of virtual training and the truth behind each.

The benefit of Private Group Training (PGT), particularly when it comes to high-priority or high-risk skills, is it gathers a group of like colleagues together in front of a subject matter expert. PGT, which can also be referred to as onsite training, coordinates the group, eliminating the disparity between co-worker skill sets.

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.

Based on survey responses from the Global Knowledge 2019 IT Skills and Salary Report, the highest-paying certifications reveal a strong emphasis on particular topics, such as cloud computing, cybersecurity, networking and project management. In fact, cloud and project management dominate the top five spots.

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.