Does IT certification mean higher pay?

According to NetworkWorld, no, but that doesn’t mean the IT profession is in trouble.  Indeed, the premium pay gap between non-certified and certified IT skills is the largest it has been since late 2000. Employers are paying 8.5% more for employees with non-certified IT skills, compared to 7% more for employees with IT certifications. 

"It seems that when it comes to IT hiring, employers may prefer demonstrated experience over certification, plus they are seeking more skills in areas where there are no certifications," said David Foote, CEO of Foote Partners, who surveys the IT field. 

Even though employers aren’t paying extra as much for certifications, the IT field will have a larger budget for companies across the United States in 2012 than it did in 2011 or 2010, and that’s a great sign for IT professionals.

Here at Babbage Simmel, we prepare you for a certification, but more importantly we prepare you for a career.  The knowledge and experience you gain from our classes and top notch trainers will allow you to flourish in your current position or any future positions you may seek.  Whether it’s for a big deployment of new technology you’re rolling out in your organization, or just for a refresher, we’ve got you covered with just the class you need.

"In general, what CIOs are looking for in IT workers are understanding of the customer or the solution set, subject matter expertise and customer know-how," Foote said. "The tech skills are fourth or fifth on their list of priorities."

When it comes to subject matter expertise, we have that covered with Certified Instructors who have real world experience and years of practice on these same technologies.

Our partnerships with Quickstart Intelligence and Sunset Learning allow us to run nearly any technology class you might need for your profession.

You can check out the full articles about IT Certification and IT budgets on NetworkWorld here and here.

-Matt

Virtualization, VMware vSphere 5.0, IT Trends 2012

Virtualization, VMware 5.0, IT Trends 2012

Of the top ten key IT trends for 2012, Network World ranks Virtualization as number one. 

At the Gartner Symposium IT/Expo, David Cappuccio, managing vice president and chief of research for the Infrastructure teams with Gartner, said the Top 10 Trends show how IT is changing in that many of them in the past been outside the traditional purview of IT, but they will all affect how IT does its job in the future.

The evolution of virtualization: Cappuccio says virtualization will ultimately drive more companies to treat IT like a business. The danger during the next few years will be in following a specific vendor's vision, though it is unlikely that any one vendor's vision will prevail. Users should have their own visions of architecture control, and build toward it with a constantly updated strategic plan.

The good news is that here at Babsim we recognize this, and we have just what you need to get your virtualization skills up to par.  On November 7^th, we will have our brand new VMw-1300: VMware vSphere 5.0 with ESXi and vCenter course. 

This class is suitable for:  

-Anyone who wants to learn how to extract the maximum benefit from their investment in Virtual Infrastructure including System architects or others who need to design virtual infrastructure. 

-Security specialists responsible for monitor managing securing and administering Virtual Infrastructure. 

-Operators responsible for day to day operation of Virtual Infrastructure.  Performance and capacity analysts who need to understand provision monitor and performance tune Virtual Infrastructure. 

-Backup Administrators who need to understand the impact of existing and new back up strategies in a virtual environment. 

-Business Continuity specialists responsible for disaster recovery and high availability.

-Storage administrators who need to understand how VMware ESX uses Fibre SAN and iSCSI.

-SAN volumes and NAS data stores.

-Managers who need an unbiased understanding of virtualization before committing their organization to a virtual infrastructure deployment 

Social Networks were number 6 on the list, which is very fitting, as this week’s Facebook promotion is for the VMware 5.0 class.  Like our page and get some savings on the class price.  Now there is no excuse for you not to sign up!

You can check out the full article from Network World here.

-Matt

Windows 7 and Virtualization

With the fall semester in full swing here at Babsim we are filling up classes fast!  This week I wanted to highlight a few popular classes that still have a couple seats available.

First let’s start with our Windows 7 class on 11/2/11. 

The primary audience for this course is the Enterprise Desktop Support Technician (EDST) providing Tier 2 support. The secondary audience for this course is the Desktop Support Technician (DST) in an Upper MORG Organization.

In addition to their professional experience, students who attend this training should already have the following technical knowledge:

·         Networking fundamentals, including TCP/IP/User Datagram Protocol (UDP), Domain Name

·         System (DNS)

·         Microsoft Active Directory principles and management

·         Microsoft Windows Server 2008 fundamentals

·         Microsoft Windows Client fundamentals

·         Fundamentals of using the 2010 Microsoft Office system or the 2007 Microsoft Office system

This course is also eligible for our promotion this week if you’re following us on Facebook.  If you aren’t following us then you’re missing out on all kinds of great offers and savings on great training!

Next I want to talk about our newly released VMware 5.0 class on 11/7/11.  With courseware from ESX Labs this is what students can look forward to:

This powerful 5-day class is an intense introduction to virtualization using VMware’s vSphere™ 5.0 including VMware ESX™ 5.0 and vCenter™. Assuming no prior virtualization experience, this class starts with the basics and rapidly progresses to more advanced topics. More than 40% of class time is devoted to labs so concepts, skills and best practices are developed and reinforced.

Initial labs focus on installation and configuration of stand-alone ESXi servers. As the class progresses, shared storage, networking and centralized management are introduced. The class continues on to more advanced topics including resource balancing, high availability, backup and recovery, troubleshooting and more. Disaster recovery, rapid deployment, hot migration and workload consolidation are also covered.

Another great class available on 11/14/11 is the M-10264: Developing Web Applications with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010

In this course, students will learn to develop advanced ASP.NET MVC and Web Forms applications using .NET Framework 4 tools and technologies. The focus will be on coding activities that enhance the performance and scalability of the Web site application. ASP.NET MVC will be introduced and compared with Web Forms so that students know when each should/could be used. This will also prepare the student for exam 70-515.

-Matt