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IT organizations could benefit from degree deflation. By deemphasizing college degrees during the hiring process, an open pipeline to more candidates could emerge, leading to diminished skills gaps and potentially lower payroll.

ITIL 4 education has been undergoing its slow reveal for almost 12 months.  As the process is passing the halfway point, I’m committing my own and Global Knowledge’s thoughts to print. I’d also like to share with you some tips for continuing your ITIL education journey.

A Project Manager Professional (PMP) is an individual who has earned an industry-recognized project manager certification from the Project Management Institute (PMI). 

The demand for professionals who can successfully manage a project to completion is rising. Heavy demand means you will be able to command a higher salary and have the flexibility to choose projects you are passionate about.  

Scrum serves as a framework for the development of software and other products. It helps teams collaborate and provides a way to address challenges and changes in order to deliver a high value product. The Scrum Master promotes and supports the framework (Scrum). A Certified Scrum Master (CSM) helps everyone understand Scrum theory, practices, rules, and values.

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

We asked Global Knowledge’s tech enthusiasts for their ideal wish list items this year. Check out our list of the top 12 tech gifts of 2019.

Ask any executive today about digital transformation and they’ll likely tell you about their organization’s plans to integrate cutting-edge technologies. 

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.

Cybersecurity is a top technology investment area around the globe, with over half of our survey respondents saying it’s a priority. It’s no longer a niche skill—every IT professional needs some cybersecurity knowledge.

As IT professionals gravitate away from classroom training and toward on-demand courses and e-learning, IT skills gaps have spiked. Instructor-led training is still the best option to fill critical skills needs and shouldn't be pushed aside entirely for more convenient and cost-effective options.

Explore how IT decision-makers’ training views have changed since we first released our annual IT Skills and Salary Report 12 years ago. Once viewed as an expense, IT leadership now sees professional development as an investment. Even with shrinking budgets and a recent rise in skills gaps, the value of training is currently at an all-time high.

The value of IT certifications has grown considerably over the last decade. Examine the evolution of certification trends, see the top-paying certifications and learn how decision-makers are struggling to hire certified employees.

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. 

Google Cloud certifications had a breakout year according to the Global Knowledge 2019 IT Skills and Salary Report. GCP Cloud Architect is the top-paying IT certification in North America and Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), while Google Cloud salaries are 34% higher than the average for North America. As more IT departments adopt multi-cloud strategies, Google Cloud skills are increasing in popularity.

What we love about our annual IT Skills and Salary Survey is that IT professionals are thoughtful and honest with their answers … well, sometimes a little too honest. Here are actual open-field comments from the 2019 survey. #ITGetsReal

If you’re worn out by daily road rage—how many middle fingers can you see in one day—or irked at the prospect of being taxed to death, maybe it’s time for a change. Future job opportunity, salary, cost of living and quality of life are a balancing act. We can’t tell you what to do, but we can let you know where IT professionals are making the highest average salaries in the U.S.

ISACA certifications are some of the most popular and highest-paying in the Global Knowledge 2019 IT Skills and Salary Report. Eleven percent of IT professionals in the United States and Canada are ISACA-certified, and their salaries are 12% above the North American average.

There’s undeniably good news for Citrix-certified IT professionals this year. Pursuing at least one Citrix certification has the potential to unlock a host of benefits ranging from above average salaries to greater prestige in the workplace thanks to improved knowledge and capabilities resulting from certifications. Simply put: Citrix certifications pay big dividends according to the Global Knowledge 2019 IT Skills and Salary Report.

There’s a reason why one out of four certified IT professionals in North America hold at least one CompTIA certification. IT professionals who hold at least one certification have higher salaries, are more productive and generally are more satisfied in their job than their non-certified peers.

This year, CISSP-certified IT professionals have the third highest global salary ($116,573) and the 10th highest in North America ($123,815). This is nothing new—CISSP has ranked in the top 10 in the U.S. each year since 2015, even coming in first in 2018. CISSP is a top-paying certification year after year. But how has it remained so relevant and valuable?

There are two types of networks: those that have been hacked and those that will be. To defend against hacks, cyber professionals can benefit greatly from ethical hacking programs.

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.

Online instructor-led training provides an accountability partner, providing you with the highest likelihood of acheiving your desired certification.

Five tips for staying above the office drama that could cost you your job.

There’s a lot to experience whether you are a Cisco Live vet or newbie. Here are a few things I’m looking forward to seeing at Cisco Live 2019.

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.

Should an organization that is the victim of an intentional nefarious hacking activity resort to retaliation? It’s a question that has been gathering a lot of attention. Retaliating against bad actors might seem appealing, but what are the legal ramifications? In this article, find out if there is a legal precedent to "hacking back."

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.

IT professionals comment on all aspects of the tech industry in responses to Global Knowledge 2019 IT Skills and Salary Survey. Hot topics this year include training obstacles, skills gaps, leadership and digital transformation.

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.

In the world of corporate technology training, blended or hybrid learning is a recent introduction. While a few learning providers have launched offerings, only Global Knowledge has implemented a solution—Blended Live—that utilizes the true potential of a blended learning delivery model.

As organizations struggle to balance budgets and prioritize training, skills gaps are growing—75% of North American decision-makers report existing skills shortages. And the impacts are potentially disastrous. With so much on the line, initial and ongoing training are instrumental to project and organizational success.

To help set you up for training success, here are 4 tips to select the right instructor-led course.

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.

Ask yourself these four questions and you'll pick the best course for your needs.

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. 

In support of software-defined networking, Cisco has introduced several products to strengthen networks and meet the increased demand for flexible and cost-efficient solutions. The Cisco SDN solution in the data center is ACI. Outside the data center the primary Cisco solution is DNA.

The CCNAX - CCNA Routing and Switching Boot Camp is a great option to obtain Cisco Routing and Switching skills while pursuing the CCNA Routing and Switching certification. 

Software-defined networking (SDN) is a solution that will enable your organization to meet the demands of network programmability and automation. The result will be greater network agility to support new applications while complying with increasing security needs.

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.

Do you remember that teacher that made the most difficult concepts easy to understand? The one who amazed you with their complete understanding of the subject matter. We remember those teachers too and the concepts they imparted on us. We know that a good teacher can have a lifelong impact on their students. That’s why we employ only the best and brightest instructors at Global Knowledge.

Convenience remains an alluring course feature today, as students migrate from traditional classroom environments to digital learning.

Learn more about the Blended Live delivery format from Global Knowledge.

This video focuses on the roles and responsibilities of penetration testing job functions at successful cybersecurity organizations.  

This video focuses on the roles and responsibilities of secure software development job functions at successful cybersecurity organizations.

Cloud computing has risen from relative obscurity to the No. 1 tech area of interest in the world, according to the 2017 Global Knowledge IT Skills and Salary Report.

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.

This video focuses on the roles and responsibilities of incident response and forensic analysis job functions at successful cybersecurity organizations. 

This video focuses on the roles and responsibilities of secure devops and devsecops job functions at successful cybersecurity organizations. 

If you work in IT, chances are you have your very own IT horror story. Who are we kidding? Chances are you have several IT horror stories. In honor of Halloween, we asked for the worst of the worst - the one your IT buddies tell their IT buddies. We got some good ones too. It was tough, but we compared the stories and narrowed it down to our three favorites who we present here for your (scary) reading enjoyment.

This video focuses on the roles and responsibilities of identity and access management job functions at successful cybersecurity organizations.  

This video focuses on the roles and responsibilities of governance, risk, and compliance job functions at successful cybersecurity organizations.  

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®.

This video focuses on the roles and responsibilities of cybersecurity data loss prevention engineers at successful cybersecurity organizations.  

This video focuses on the roles and responsibilities of cybersecurity architecture and policy job functions at successful cybersecurity organizations.  

Every data center has unique hardware and software requirements that can pose significant management challenges to IT. Cloud utilization, virtualization, mobile device management, app development, security, and storage networking represent just a few of the management challenges facing IT today. Add to that the responsibility of providing the infrastructure for processing an exponential increase in data and making it available to an increasingly mobile workforce on a daily basis.

It doesn't take pure imagination to realize that when it comes to your career, inspiration may come from the least likely of places. It also doesn't seem possible that four decades ago "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" hit the silver screen. Growing up, it was one of the few movies I always made sure to watch whenever it was on TV. I'm sure I wasn't alone.

Understand how password length and complexity can make your passwords easy to guess or virtually impossible to bypass.

A mobile phone is just like a small computer, that can be hacked.  Learn basic mobile phone security practices to lock down this potential entry point to your corporate systems.

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.

A firewall is a security tool which may be a hardware or software solution that is used to filter network traffic. Understand the basic functionality of a firewall where traffic is blocked or allowed to enter the network.

An incident is an event that could lead to loss of, or disruption to, an organization's operations, services or functions. Understand how an incident response team prepares, plans, and responds to a security breach.

The goal of risk management is to reduce risk down to an acceptable or tolerable level. Understand countermeasures, safeguards, and security controls that can be selected to eliminate or reduce risk.

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

Networks are under attack as hackers try to access systems to compromise or steal sensitive data and information. Understand the threats posed by malware, ransomware and social engineering.

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.

Experience the best of instructor-led and on-demand learning. Blended Live from Global Knowledge combines the expert direction of instructor-led training and the flexibility of on-demand learning and will enable you to close critical skills gaps more effectively while maintaining your day to day responsibilities.

There is a reason why Agile training methods are becoming mainstream. They can work! Although every Agile practice is not necessarily appropriate for every organization, each practice has delivered real value to many organizations, and some Agile practices can be used by anyone!

Technology trends such as these show no signs of abating, and IT administrators need to be prepared. Having a well-rounded and versatile team of IT practitioners is becoming increasingly necessary. In the following article, we examine five key skills that every IT department should have covered, regardless of the size of the company.

Have you been afraid to implement PowerShell in your environment because of security fears? The reality of PowerShell security doesn’t always match the perception. When compared to other scripting languages, PowerShell is actually more secure by default.

Discover three tips for managing IT certification and recertification requirements.

Certifications matter. A lot. That’s one of the major takeaways from the Global Knowledge 2018 IT Skills and Salary Report. The benefits, both personally and organizationally, are undeniable—certified professionals are more effective, complete tasks faster and are more sought after.

Despite a growing awareness and preparation for distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, the overall arc of DDoS attacks is not weakening, but actually gaining more attention from the companies and personnel who have experienced these threats first-hand.

Behind various Google services lies the powerful Cloud AI, a neural net-based, machine learning technology that Google has perfected for use with services like image search and voice recognition. Here are five ways you could use Cloud AI to improve your business.

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.

Google takes security to a whole new level thanks to their years of experience as one of the most popular targets on the internet for would-be hackers and denial of service bots. This led Google to build a sophisticated security infrastructure the likes of which few companies or organizations can claim. Google approaches security holistically and involves everything from the physical data centers, to the data pipelines between them, down to the training of each employee that is responsible for managing the infrastructure.

Multi-factor authentication is a method of logon verification where at least two different factors of proof are required. There are generally three recognized types of authentication factors: