Resource Library

vSphere 5.5 is now available with myriad small improvements such as a faster Web Client, LACP, Autoscale and higher configuration maximums. In addition, there are changes coming such as VSAN, which may be ground-breaking in regard to VM storage of the future. Since the release of vSphere 5.5, they have not yet announced a change to the blueprint for the test. That being the case, I will say, for now, that the VCP-510 test should remain unchanged as well. My goal here is not to reeducate you on everything that you need to know for the test; instead, it is to point out the few changes that might apply in your company or organization.

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.

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.

The technologies examined reduce operational expenses (OpEx), not capital expenses (CapEx) that has traditionally been the focus of virtualization. Many companies implemented virtualization with the goal of saving money in the form of fewer servers to buy with a side benefit of reducing the footprint of the servers and lowering the required power and cooling. Most of the savings were in capital, but do not expect the same with many of the technologies listed here, because some may even require some additional capital expenditures, at least for software, in order to save on the day-to-day operations of IT. The bigger cost in running an IT department is in the OpEx category anyway, so savings there are recurring.

In 2013, VMware announced VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN), which is VMware's native version of Software Defined Storage (SDS). It is simple, easy to setup and managed by user-defined policies. This paper explains VSAN, its basic requirements and how it works.

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.

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.

The Open Group Architectural Framework (TOGAF) provides a structure for describing all transformational work within an enterprise. While TOGAF focuses on the role of an enterprise's architects, it also very much addresses the space in which business analysts (BAs) play. This can lead to role confusion, blurred deliverables, and duplicate work. In this one-hour webinar, business analysis expert and Global Knowledge instructor Adam McClellan will focus on those parts of TOGAF in which the business analyst is typically the most active, and he will outline how the analyst's work contributes to the broader architecture. He will also provide perspective for architects who work with BAs and for BAs interested in the architecture disciplines.

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 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.