Resource Library

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.

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.

The past months have seen the release of both the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA)'s long-awaited A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK® Guide) v3 and the Project Management Institute® (PMI®)'s Business Analysis for Practitioners. While both represent interesting developments in the field of business analysis, they also provide lots of information to process. There's no need to go it alone! Join Global Knowledge instructors Cheryl Lee and Adam McClellan for this complimentary, hour- long webinar to learn about the differences between the two guides, how both guides compare to the previous version of the BABOK ® Guide, and where all this might be going.

The project manager (PM) and business analyst (BA) have to be key allies in the management of any project. That can be difficult when project work is duplicated because of the overlapping tasks defined by the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA®) and the Project Management Institute (PMI®). Still, as long as roles are clearly defined and understood, the two can cooperate and collaborate, instead of competing. In this hour-long webinar, Global Knowledge instructor and PMP-certified project management expert Daniel Stober will explain how to delineate the roles.

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.

When creating products, providing services and achieving results, consistency is the goal of quality management. This white paper gives you a basic overview of the tools and techniques you need for quality planning and quality assurance. Learn which resources help you to evaluate programs, prioritize objectives or discover problem areas. Featured within this white paper are Kaoru Ishikawa’s seven quality tools which include flowcharts, histograms and cause-and-effect diagrams. 

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.

Global Knowledge Course Director Samuel Brown introduces the Work Breakdown Structure and why it matters to project management.

Enterprises, whether they are commercial, non-profit, or government entities, are operational organizations that operate through the execution of hundreds of processes. The quality of these processes affects every aspect of the enterprise and these processes are rarely static. Business Process Analysis (BPA) is the discipline of examining processes so that they may be changed to align with enterprise objectives.

During a recent ITIL foundation class, a student asked an interesting question. She wanted to know: “What is the difference between a project and a service?” To be honest, I haven’t spent much time thinking about this distinction. However, I think that those of us who practice ITIL consulting and training should have good answers to questions such as this. Here’s how I answered this question.

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.

Each year as the data from the Global Knowledge IT Skills and Salary Survey is put through the analysis process, certain trends become clearer. One of those is the prevalence of IT professionals who pursue certifications across multiple categories.

Projects are often complex, made up of a large number of moving pieces. This brings numerous challenges. By using the three key steps mentioned in this white paper, your projects will run more smoothly from start to finish.

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.

Whether you are just getting started in business analysis or want to gain a better understanding of certain aspects of business analysis, we have compiled a list of frequently used terms to help you get started.

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.

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.

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.

As organizations look to do more with fewer resources and better leverage scarce knowledge across their entire organization, they have found that the traditional hierarchical management structure no longer meets the needs of the business. Enterprises have turned to the matrix organizational structure for increased flow of information across departments and greater flexibility and responsiveness.

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. 

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

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.

Kirsten Lora, Global Knowledge Senior Product Director, discusses the benefits of our IT Project Management course.

The triple constraints model has been one of the main staples for teaching project management for as long as I can remember. The model is generally represented by a triangle with Scope on the horizontal leg, Time on the left leg, Cost or Resources on the right leg an...

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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

ITIL describes a service portfolio as a collection of the overall set of services managed by a service provider. A service portfolio describes a service provider’s boundaries and promises across all of the customers and market spaces it serves. I like to think of a service portfolio as describing the past, present, and future collection of services offered by a service provider. The figure below shows a high-level view of a service portfolio.

Modern quality management and project management are complementary. They both emphasize customer satisfaction and the underlying belief that quality leads to customer satisfaction. The main objective in quality management is making sure that the project meets the needs it was originally created to meet—nothing more, nothing less. In other words, to ensure quality, you must meet the needs of the stakeholder.

No matter what book or manual you use to study for the CCNA examination, you will see various protocols and processes referencing an RFC. And, although frequently referenced, the RFCs are seldom actually included in the documentation. So, the logical question becomes...

Everyone has been involved in a learning program or project that has not delivered its intended impact. Across organizations, remarkably similar but preventable missteps are made in needs identification, learning strategies, program development and implementation.  Instructor Tom Gram, Senior Director of Professional Services at Global Knowledge, will present six classic mistakes learning professionals make that reduce chances for success along with evidence-based practices to help prevent them.