What's new with Cisco?

We have a great partnership with Sunset Learning for our schedule of guaranteed to run authorized Cisco training classes.  This week we wanted to take a few minutes and show you what’s new and remind you about some recent important updates to Cisco’s associate level certifications. 

What's New in CUCM 9.0 Video

 

In this prerecorded webinar, Sunset Learning Instructor Maren Mahoney demonstrates new features in Cisco Unified Communications Manager 9.0 and discusses some of differences from earlier versions.

 

Topics include: LDAP and Manual User Support, Native Call Queuing, Deterministic Codec Selection, Enhanced Locations Call Admission Control, CUCM URI Registration and Dialing, CUCM IM and Presence, Extend and Connect, New User Pages, and Pause in Speed Dial.

 

Administering Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Unity Connection v8.0

 

Administering Cisco Unified Communications Manager (ACUCM) v8.0 provides system administrators and networking professionals with an understanding of the Cisco Unified Communications Manager System. This course teaches the concepts of IP telephony based in system administration, including its function, features, and configuration. This is an entry-level course that begins with the basic concepts of IP telephony and very quickly moves the learner forward into an understanding of system concepts: clustering, creation of phones and users, route plans, digit manipulation, media resources, and phone features, which are all important to supporting IP telephony in the enterprise network. The course focuses on Cisco Unified Communications Manager version 8.x.

 

Advanced Administration of Unified Communications Manager and Features 9.0

 

Advanced Administration for Unified Communications Manager and Features 9.x (AAUCMF) is a 5-day instructor led course that is intended for experienced unified communications administrators who need in-depth knowledge of Cisco Unified Communications Manager advanced features, services, and troubleshooting. This course is intended to be a follow-on course to ACUCM+AUC, and combines elements from off-the-shelf courses CVOICE, ICOMM, CIPT 2 and TVOICE as well as additional material developed exclusively by Sunset Learning Institute.

 

Reminder: Recent Changes in Cisco Associate Level Certifications 

 

On March 26, 2013, Cisco redesigned the Cisco Associate-level Certification programs and evolution of the CCNA On March 26, 2013, Cisco redesigned the Cisco Associate-level Certification programs and evolution of the CCNA certification to CCNA Routing and Switching certification. Cisco Associate-level certifications such as Routing and Switching, Security, Wireless, Voice and Design are aligned with evolving industry job roles. These alignments will enable candidates to pursue advanced technology Associate-level certifications in an accelerated manner.

 

CCNA certification has evolved from a foundation certification to a concentration certification, and renamed CCNA Routing and Switching. Cisco has redesigned the training curriculum for ICND1, ICND2 and CCNAX and has introduced new exams

 

Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices Part 1 v2.0

 

Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices, Part 1 (ICND1) v2.0 is a five-day, instructor-led training course that teaches learners how to install, operate, configure, and verify a basic IPv4 and IPv6 network, including configuring a LAN switch, configuring an IP router, connecting to a WAN, and identifying basic security threats.

 

Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices part 2 v2.0

 

The Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices, Part 2 (ICND2) v2.0 course provides entry-level network administrators, network support, and help desk technicians with the knowledge and skills needed to install, configure, operate, and troubleshoot a small enterprise network. ICND2.

 

Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices Accelerated v2.0

 

Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices: Accelerated (CCNAX), is a course consisting of ICND1 and ICND2 content in its entirety, but with the content merged into a single course. Overlapping content between ICND1 and ICND2 is eliminated and content is rearranged for the purpose of the course flow.

 

-Matt

Are you ready for SharePoint 2013?

SharePoint 2013 is nearly in full swing so I wanted to take a closer look at all the new features available.  Take a look below at some of the best new features SharePoint 2013 can offer your organization.

Better branding for Your Web Presence. What used to be an arduous process that involved complicated designer assets, style sheets and a confusing packaging process has now been made much easier. Now, any Web designer with proficiency in HTML, CSS and JavaScript can in a short amount of time brand a SharePoint site and create a public-facing or internal site that looks good. This will reduce your internal support expense, as well as make it less costly to use SharePoint itself as a platform for public-facing websites.

Improved public-facing website hosting. Hosting a public website (e.g., your .com site) on SharePoint 2007 was an exercise in frustration. Hosting that same site on SharePoint 2010 was better, but that product wasn't as full-featured as some competing platforms.

Enhanced business intelligence. Using SharePoint as a platform to expose business intelligence and big data reports had its coming-out party with the 2010, but the capabilities have expanded in the 2013 release to really make SharePoint the choice to dig deeper into business insights and analytics. Integration between SharePoint and Excel is even tighter, too.

Now let’s take a look at some 2013 SharePoint courses!

55033 SharePoint 2013 Site Collection and Site Administration

This five-day instructor-led course is intended for Power Users who are tasked with working within the SharePoint 2013 environment. This course will provide a deeper, narrowly focused training on the important and popular skills needed to be an Administrator for SharePoint Site Collections and Sites. SharePoint deployment or farm administration skills and tasks required for IT Professionals to manage SharePoint 2013 are available in separate, Microsoft Official Courseware.

Advanced Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013

This five-day course examines how to plan, configure, and manage a Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 environment. Special areas of focus include implementing high availability, disaster recovery, service application architecture, Business Connectivity Services, social computing features, productivity and collaboration platforms and features, business intelligence solutions, enterprise content management, web content management infrastructure, solutions, and apps. The course also examines how to optimize the Search experience, how to develop and implement a governance plan, and how to perform an upgrade or migration to SharePoint Server 2013.

20331 Core Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013

This course will provide you with the knowledge and skills to configure and manage a Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 environment. This course will teach you how to configure SharePoint Server 2013, as well as provide guidelines, best practices, and considerations that will help you optimize your SharePoint server deployment.

If you’re not ready for SharePoint 2013 yet, we still have a large selection of SharePoint 2010 classes at your disposal!

-Matt

The Rise in Mobile Computing

A recent article on Infoworld goes into detail about how Yahoo wants to accelerate its development of mobile products geared toward delivery of personalized content, as the company works to stay relevant in a world where smartphones and tablets are becoming dominant.

Everything seems to be going mobile these days.  Everyone is on the go and in constant contact with their mobile devices.  This means that many organizations need to be able to develop a presence for mobile products.  Consumers may be going mobile more rapidly than just about anyone in the computing industry could have predicted. Two new reports show sales of desktop and laptop machines dropping sharply in the first quarter of 2013.  The good news is that here at BabSim we can get you started on the right path.  Let’s take a look at some of the classes we offer that can get your company’s mobile programming off the ground.

Enterprise iPhone and iPad Programming

For: Developers and architects responsible for iOS application development.

This 5 day iPhone training course teaches application development for the iOS platform. It covers iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices. This course starts off by building a solid foundation in Objective-C. It then goes into details of application user interface development. After that the class teaches network access, SQL database, multimedia and graphics programming.

After completing this iPhone training course, a student will be able to build robust, high performing and compelling applications for iPhone and iPad.

What students will learn?

·         User friendly GUI development

·         Network communication

·         Multi-tasking and multi-threading

·         Data storage in file system and database

·         Multi-media programming

·         Detecting memory leaks and resolving them

·         Performance tuning

Programming for Android

For: Developers and architects who will be developing applications for Android devices.

Prerequisites: Basic knowledge of Java. Familiarity with Eclipse is a plus but not necessary.

Android is an open source platform for mobile computing. Applications are developed using familiar Java and Eclipse tools. This Android training course teaches students the architecture, API and techniques to create robust, high performance and appealing applications for the Android devices. While many classes focus on the mobile device, this course also deals with the server side architecture. This makes the class ideal for enterprise class businesses. After taking this Android training course, students will be able to build robust and high performance applications for the enterprises.

Here is what students will learn:

•The architecture of Android OS.
•Using the Eclipse based development environment.
•GUI development.
•Supporting multiple languages.
•Accessing data from files, network and SQL database.
•Audio and video playback.
•Automated testing of your applications.
•Selling your applications in Android market.

Building Mobile Web Sites

For: This course is designed for someone who is already proficient with Web 2.0 style programming. That means, good knowledge of Ajax, JSON, DOM API is assumed. As a result, the following topics are not covered in details. We assume that students know these topics well: Ajax, DOM API, and jQuery

This course teaches how to use the new features of HTML5 in a mobile platform. Two key aspects of this training class are:

-Architecture options. For example, do we need two separate web sites for mobile and desktop or can we render the same HTML markup using two different CSS files?

-New features of HTML5 in details.  For example, Canvas and Offline.

You can read the full article on Yahoo’s mobile plans here.

-Matt

New Linux training

We are proud to present our partnership with Guru Labs for Linux Training.

The founders of Guru Labs, Bryan Croft and Dax Kelson, are experts in their fields. They had successfully deployed Linux in many environments from the early 1990s. Bryan and Dax recognized the limitless possibilities of Linux and open source contribution. With the rising exposure and popularity of Linux, a large number of potential users and existing users were seeking in-depth, specialized training.

These Linux courses will be GARUNTEED TO RUN and offered multiple times throughout the year.  Each course is currently supported on the latest releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with additional support for Fedora Core Linux and SUSE Linux Professional.

Let’s take a look at a few of these classes:

Linux Fundamentals

SL120 is a challenging course that focuses on the fundamental tools and concepts of Linux and Unix. Students gain proficiency using the command line. Beginners develop a solid foundation in Unix, while advanced users discover patterns and fill in gaps in their knowledge. Like all Guru Labs courses, the course material is designed to provide extensive hands-on experience. Topics include: basic file manipulation; basic and advanced filesystem features; I/O redirection and pipes; text manipulation and regular expressions; managing jobs and processes; vi, the standard Unix editor; automating tasks with shell scripts; managing software; secure remote administration; and more.

Enterprise Linux Networking Services

This is an expansive course that covers a wide range of network services useful to every organization. Special attention is paid to the concepts needed to implement these services securely, and to the trouble-shooting skills which will be necessary for real-world administration of these network services. Course material is designed to provide extensive hands-on experience. Topics include: Security with SELinux and Netfilter, DNS concepts and implementation with Bind; LDAP concepts and implementation using OpenLDAP; Web services with Apache; FTP with vsftpd; caching, filtering proxies with Squid; SMB/CIFS (Windows networking) with Samba; and e-mail concepts and implementation with Postfix combined with either Dovecot or Cyrus.

Enterprise Linux System Administration

This is an in-depth course that explores installation, configuration and maintenance of Linux systems. The course focuses on issues universal to every workstation and server. Course material is designed to provide extensive hands-on experience. Topics include: installation and configuration; the boot process; user and group administration; filesystem administration, including quotas, FACLs, RAID and LVM; task automation; client networking; SELinux; software management; log files; troubleshooting; and more.

-Matt

Cisco Unified Communications Manager 9.0

 

Today we are going to take a look at an exciting webinar hosted by our partners over at Sunset Learning Institute.

Sunset Learning Institute, a top-tier Cisco Learning Partner that are experts in providing and developing authorized Cisco training, is hosting a free demonstration and discussion covering New Features in Cisco Unified Communications Manager 9.0.

In this free one-hour webinar, Maren Mahoney, a Sunset Learning Unified Communications Specialized Instructor, will showcase new features in CUCM 9.0 and cover some of the major differences in versions.

This presentation is intended for a technical audience who is currently using an earlier version of Cisco Unified Communications Manager and wants to learn more about the new features in 9.0 and how it can benefit their Collaboration architecture.

What’s New in Cisco Unified Communications Manager 9.0 Topics

· Mixed End User Accounts LDAP and Local

· SIP URI Dialing

· Appending Codes with Speed Dial

· Deterministic CODEC Selection – Location CACs

· Native Call Queuing

· Redesign of End User Web Interface

· Updated CUP Integration

· Cisco Enterprise License Manager

Space is limited to 100 participants/session. Here are the dates and registration links.

Monday March 25th at 3pm EST – https://www.go2myevent.com/Invite.aspx?code=503114

Tuesday March 26th at 3pm EST – https://www.go2myevent.com/Invite.aspx?code=503116

Take a look at the video below as Maren goes over in great detail what the class entails and why it is different than all other training to date.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-skk6HuF8zo

Here is a look at one of our Communication Manager 9.0 courses:

Advanced Administration of Unified Communications Manager and Features 9.0

4/15/13 and 6/17/13

Don’t about all of our guaranteed to run Cisco Courses here at BabSim!

-Matt

Business Analysis Training

Today we are going to take a look at Business Analysis training.  With BabSim’s business analysis training courses, you will be able to identify and improve business processes in your organization through requirements gathering, analytics, communication skills, and data modeling. We provide preparation for several IIBA business analysis certifications and training designed to give you a skill set that includes brainstorming, managing contracts, and developing and maintaining vendor relationships.  Most importantly, Babbage Simmel is an IIBA Endorsed Education Provider, Charter Member.  Now let’s take a look at what kinds of BA training we can offer you.  Remember all of these courses will provide you with continuing development units (CDUs) that you can use as you continue with your education.

Business Analysis Theory and Practice

There is no more critical function in the management of successful projects than identifying a clear project scope, which includes identifying the requirements of the product the project will create. Unfortunately, identifying those requirements is difficult under even the best circumstances. Often, requirements are poorly understood even by business users of the systems or products to be created by the project and by the project designers and developers. Users often have a difficult time articulating requirements, and, frequently, the requirements will need to be changed during the course of the project. Those who develop the product of the project may also bring their own biases to product design, which may further complicate the ability of the project to produce deliverables that meet user needs.

Essentials of Business Analysis for Project Managers

Though a critical role in requirements elicitation and management is played by the business analyst, project managers have to understand the purposes, methods and tools of managing requirements so that they can play a productive role and supervise the work of
the business analyst. Business analysts serve as the link between the business interests served by the project and the technology that will be employed to deliver the functionality required by it. They are responsible for translating business needs into language that systems analysts can turn into a solution, for framing the problem and identifying the most appropriate solution. They keep the project focused on the needs for which it was initiated.

Business Analysis Principles and Techniques: CBAP Exam Prep

This workshop is intended to provide knowledge of what a business analyst should do and how they should do it. More importantly, however, this workshop is designed to build a strong foundation in business analysis that can allow participants to understand why something should be done. It's that "why" element that allows for understanding and
answering test questions.  This workshop is compliant with the standards for business analysis and requirements definition detailed in the BABOK® Guide.

Business Analysis Essentials

The best way to ensure that projects meet the needs for which they were initiated is to apply a consistent requirements process and requirements management methods and tools. The goal of this workshop is to enhance the skills of project teams including those engaged in requirements elicitation and management and to increase the capability of an
organization to deliver products and services that meet user and stakeholder needs. It provides an overview and application of the processes of requirements management and is intended to allow participants to build requirements management processes that can help them increase the success of their projects.

Business Analysis Fundamentals and Enterprise Analysis

This workshop provides an introduction to and overview of the critical skills and competencies of the business analyst and an introduction to enterprise analysis, the pre-project and organizational roles of the business analyst. It provides an understanding of the roles of the business analyst and knowledge of the basic skills used by the business analyst to support the functions of the organization. The material covered in this workshop will provide a solid base for other workshops that describe the role of the business analyst and the methods employed to plan for, elicit, document, analyze, communicate, and verify business requirements.

-Matt

 

What's the deal with Agile?

Agile training has become pretty popular here at Babsim over the last couple of years, so I wanted to take some time to discuss some of the current understanding of what Agile methodology is.

Agile software development is a group of software development methods based on iterative and incremental development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams. It promotes adaptive planning, evolutionary development and delivery, a time-boxed iterative approach, and encourages rapid and flexible response to change. It is a conceptual framework that promotes foreseen interactions throughout the development cycle. The Agile Manifesto^[1] introduced the term in 2001.

Here is a look at the Agile Extension to the BABOK Guide by the IIBA. PMI also goes into detail about Agile techniques here.

Now that we’ve got that down, let’s take a look at what Agile course offerings we have that can fit in with your organization.

Agile Practices for Managers

This course introduces managers to management principles in an Agile environment. Students learn the paradigm shifts that occur when organizations move from traditional environments to Agile environments. Students learn the different management dimensions to examine the organization, and the appropriate techniques which should be used to assist and support Agile teams to successful implementations.

Improving Customer Satisfaction and Creating Better IT Solutions: Agile requirements and Development

This two-day workshop provides an introduction to those agile methods. Rather than detailing one of those methods as a reputed “cure” for every organization and situation, it provides an overview of several methods with the goal of allowing participants to pick and choose among the methods to identify those that will work for them.

Agile In-Depth Experience

Learn about iteration planning, product roadmap and backlog, estimating practices, user story development, and iteration execution.

Agile Certified Practitioner PMI-ACP Prep Course

The purpose of this course is to prepare the students for the ACP^SM certification exam. The class begins with an overview of Agile approaches. It includes Scrum, XP, Agile Earned Value, Kanban, and hybrid approaches to implementing Agile on projects. The class also reviews Agile tools techniques such as story prioritization, backlog management, Agile estimation, personas, TDD, Information Radiators, and other tools. The class ends with a practice quiz to simulate the experience of taking the ACPSM exam. Although the class is intended for those with some Agile experience who wish to prepare for the certification exam, those experienced project managers with are curious about Agile and want an introduction.

XP: Acceptance Test Driven Development

The Testing & Refactoring Workshop offers a comprehensive, hands-on introduction to evolutionary design and automated testing. Over the past decade, practices like Test-Driven Development (TDD) and Refactoring have helped many teams significantly improve development speed, code quality and responsiveness to changing requirements. This workshop explores the foundations of TDD, microtesting and automated refactoring with the help of various patterns, strategies, tools and techniques.

3/13/13-3/15/13 and 3/27/13-3/29/13

-Matt

Advanced System Center 2012 courses

 

To start things off this week I wanted to let everybody know about our Babsim Alumni group on LinkedIn. This is a place to connect with your peers and have discussions about important trends or new technologies in the IT industry. We will also be posting some promotions in the group from time to time so be sure to look out for that as well!

Now let’s get down to business. We are going to offer some advanced System Center 2012 courses throughout the year and I wanted to give everyone a first look at those here. I should also mention that we have a few seats still available for the M-10747 Administering System Center 2012 Configuration Manager coming up on 2/25 so sign up quick before we fill up! Here’s a sneak peek at these NEW System Center 2012 courses:

Mastering Configuration Manager 2012 Advanced Training

Being able to plan, deploy and manage Configuration Manager 2012 SP in your environment. The class is always based on the latest available public Service Pack and Cumulative Update.

Mastering System Center 2012 Data Protection Manager

During four days you will learn the concepts of how to meet your company needs to reflect its RTO, RPO and RLO. Robert will take you through deployment and configuration of System Center 2012 Data Protection Manager (SP 1) and start protect your private and public cloud with its advanced features.

System Center Service Manager 2012 Boot Camp

This four-day course is a mix of in-depth instructor led training and hands-on labs where you will learn about the features, server roles and components included in System Center Service Manager 2012.

This class begins with an introduction to Service Manager 2012 followed by a detailed architectural discussion that explains how to design your Service Manager 2012 environment. Next, students will walk through an advanced installation of Service Manager 2012 and learn how to install the database, Management Server, Data Warehouse, and the Self Service Portal. Once the setup is complete, the students will perform other critical post installation configurations.

Advanced System Center Operations Manager 2012

After completing this course, students will be able to:

•Describe and understand the logical architecture of an SCOM infrastructure

•Configuring a distributed SCOM installation and defining resource pools

•Modeling Applications in a way so it will be possible to monitor each layer

•Deciding the best Authoring solution and using the correct type of monitoringobject

•Defining and using different tools to Create Management Packs

•Using any object to author a Management Pack

•Articulate the functions of the components and services in the System Center suite and Working with SCOM in conjunction with other System Center products

•Digging into the Data warehouse database and using the aggregated tables for reporting.

•Troubleshooting issues with SCOM components and Agent Monitoring

•Design and creating end-to-end monitoring of Services – Multi layered application design

•Creating and Using Web Services to communicate with other Monitoring Targets

•Creating and using your own XML connector to communicate with Helpdesk systems

-Matt

SharePoint 2013 is on it's way!

Let’s look at SharePoint 2013

This week I want to take a look at a product that’s coming out later this year. Let’s take a look at SharePoint 2013.

What’s new in SharePoint 2013?

SharePoint 2013 is the new way to work together. A simplified user experience helps you organize sync and share all your content. New social capabilities make it easy to share ideas, keep track of what your colleagues are working on, and discover experts you never knew existed.

Put social to work

Share ideas, discover answers and keep track of what your colleagues are working with new social features throughout SharePoint.

Share your stuff

Publish content to SharePoint from any Office application and share with people inside and outside your organization in a few simple clicks.

Take SharePoint on the go

Share documents, update your activity feed and keep in touch with your colleagues from your mobile phone or tablet.

Keep projects on track

Organize all your projects and tasks to get visibility into upcoming deliverables across SharePoint, Outlook and Microsoft Project.

Keep your team connected

Set up a new team site in minutes track meeting notes and bring together all your team’s email and documents in one place.

Store and sync your docs

Sync your content in SharePoint to your desktop with SkyDrive Pro, so docs are just a mouse click away, even if you’re offline.

Find experts you never knew existed

Connect with people across your organization and easily discover interests, past projects and documents they’ve worked on.

Discover insights and answers

Turn raw data into gorgeous interactive reports with Excel 2013 and publish to SharePoint to share insights with the people you work with.

Find what you’re looking for

Customize and narrow your search to deliver more relevant results, and get recommendations on people and documents to follow.

Build apps in the cloud

Build apps on common web technologies like JavaScript, HTML and oAuth with the new Cloud App Model for SharePoint.

Publish apps to the SharePoint store

Make your apps available to everyone to try and buy through the public Store or only available to your employees through the corporate catalog.

Build eye-catching sites

Use familiar design tools and flexible controls to create dynamic intranet and internet sites to share your organization’s vision with everyone.

Manage costs

Reduce your infrastructure costs and extend the boundaries of sharing by running SharePoint in the cloud with Office 365.

Manage risk

New archiving, eDiscovery and case management capabilities extend across SharePoint, Exchange and Lync.

Manage your time

Spend more time delivering innovation and less time managing infrastructure with advances in SharePoint scale, performance and management capabilities.

You can try SharePoint 2013 for free here!

If you’re not ready for SharePoint 2013 just yet, and you want to brush up on SharePoint 2010 make sure to check out our selection of courses:

SP726: SharePoint 2010 for Business Users, Power Users, and Site Owners

M-10175: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Application Development

M-10174: TS IT PRO: Configuring and Managing MS SharePoint 2010

M-10231: Designing a MS SharePoint 2010 Infrastructure

M-50354: SharePoint 2010 SharePoint Designer

M-50429: SharePoint 2010 Business Intelligence

M-10232: Designing and Developing MS SharePoint Server 2010 Applications

-Matt

Guaranteed to run ITIL training

Next week BabSim is again going international! We are engaged for multiple deliveries of the ITIL Foundation course for a client of ours headquartered in Haifa, Israel. It should be a fun couple of weeks. ITIL training has been pretty popular here so far this year, so I thought it would be a good idea to give a refresher on what exactly ITIL training is as well as showing you our guaranteed to run ITIL classes.

IT Service Management (ITSM) is a discipline for managing information technology (IT) systems, philosophically centered on the customer’s perspective of IT’s contribution to the business. ITSM stands in deliberate contrast to technology-centered approaches to IT management and business interaction. IT Service Management certification helps distinguish those who have a deep understanding of best practice for ITSM and are capable of implementing these concepts to some degree immediately. Certification is also the foundation for developing a career path in IT Service Management.

Here’s what we have coming up! Remember, they’re all guaranteed to run!

ITIL Foundation Certification

The ITIL 2011 Edition course is the entry level certification course for IT Service Management Best Practices training in ITIL. This course covers the latest version of core ITIL best practices presented from a lifecycle perspective. The course introduces the principles and core elements of IT service management (ITSM) based on ITIL 2011 Edition. ITIL 2011 Edition is comprised of five core publications: Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operations and Continual Service Improvement, promoting alignment with the business as well as improving operational efficiency.

3/11/13-3/13/13

ITIL Operational Support and Analysis

The ITIL Intermediate Qualification: Operational Support and Analysis (OSA) Certificate is part of the ITIL Intermediate Capability stream, and one of the modules that leads to the ITIL Expert in IT Service Management Certificate. This 5 day course immerses students in the practical aspects of the ITIL v3 Service Lifecycle and processes associated with the Operational Support and Analysis of services and service delivery.

4/15/13-4/19/13

ITIL Planning, Protection and Optimization

This ITIL Intermediate Qualification: Planning, Protection and Optimization (PPO) Certificate is part of the ITIL Intermediate Capability stream, and one of the modules that leads to the ITIL Expert in IT Service Management Certificate. This 5 day course immerses students in the practical aspects of the ITIL v3 Service Lifecycle and processes associated with Planning, Protection and Optimization of services and service delivery. You will focus on the operational-level process activities and supporting methods and approaches to executing these processes. The course is designed using an engaging scenario-based approach to learning the core disciplines of the ITIL best practices, and it helps you prepare for the associated exam offered on the last day of the course.

3/4/13-3/8/13

ITIL Service Offerings and Agreements

The ITIL Intermediate Qualification: Service Offerings and Agreements (SOA) Certificate is part of the ITIL Intermediate Capability stream, and one of the modules that leads to the ITIL Expert in IT Service Management Certificate. By implementing ITIL Service Offerings and Agreement best practices, IT departments can ensure high levels of customer satisfaction by integrating demand and supplier management with the service portfolio and service catalog. Students will learn how to plan, implement and optimize the Service Offerings and Agreement processes and gain the knowledge required to prepare for the certification exam.

2/18/13-2/22/13

ITIL Service Design

This 3-day will teach students how to plan, implement and optimize the Service Design processes. ITIL Service Design best practices enables IT departments to design services and govern practices, policies and procedures that facilitate the introduction of services into a live environment, thereby ensuring quality service delivery, customer satisfaction and cost-effective service provision. Students will gain the skills required to take the ITIL Intermediate Qualification: Service Design Certification Exam.

3/4/13-3/6/13

If you’re still confused on which ITIL classes to take, have a look at our ITIL training tracks!

-Matt

CEO IT Forecast for 2013

CEO’s are expecting a lot out of technology in 2013, and Babbage Simmel is here to exceed their expectations.

In the business context, sustainability is about taking a holistic approach to the long-term viability of an enterprise in the midst of social, environmental and economic forces. At a practical level, it involves the ability to increase revenue, improve profit margins and protect the business' future competitive advantage.

Technology will play a vital role in helping companies achieve this goal -- thanks in part to the evolving role of the IT organization, which has shifted dramatically in recent years. Where IT once focused solely on technology and "the business" focused on profitability, today business and IT functions have converged. In a sense, IT has "become the business" since virtually all business processes reside there now. And while CEOs are not concerned with the bits and bytes of technology (nor should they be), they are better informed about technology than ever before and have high expectations for how it can help improve the bottom line in 2013.

Let’s take a look at what CEO’s will focus on specifically in 2013 and what we offer to prepare IT professionals for these conditions.

Growing revenue

To achieve long-term revenue growth, however, enterprises must develop new products and services that enable them to extend their reach into adjacent and emerging markets. The mobile market is one such example, where growth is relentless and tremendous untapped potential still exists for businesses of all kinds.

Programming for Android

Enterprise iPad and iPhone Programming

With continuing technological innovation and the capacity to store unfathomable amounts of data (especially in the cloud), many enterprises are sitting on a gold mine of customer and market intelligence. Surprisingly, however, many have not even begun to realize the latent value of these IT artifacts, nor have they discovered how to use this data to their advantage. Here again is where technology -- specifically, sophisticated analytic tools -- can have a decided business impact in 2013. Companies that are able to aggregate that data and mine it for legitimate business purposes will establish a substantial lead over their competitors. This is where the most potential for business value can be realized in the coming year.

Monitoring and Operating a Private Cloud with System Center 2012

CompTIA Cloud Essentials

Security

Security is still a concern as well, but significant advances in this area are being made as vendors rush to fill security needs as quickly as they arise.

Security+ Certification

Implementing Cisco IOS Network Security 2.0 (IINS)

To go back to the original premise then, sustainability is as much about protecting the business as it is about growing revenue and profit margins. While "protection" is often equated with security -- mitigating obvious threats to systems, resources and IP -- in a broader sense, it's about ensuring that the company can maintain the integrity of its brand and ensure its competitive advantage. This is essentially what is meant by sustainability -- and it will be the focus of CEOs in 2013.  This is wonderful news for our industry as we move forward into the new year.

You can view the entire article over at It News.

-Matt

 

 

 

Looking for more training dollars?

Just in time for the start of 2013 our government has decided to make more training funds available for Ohio employees. 

The Ohio Incumbent Workforce Training Voucher Program will fill a gap in current workforce development programs by providing needed training dollars to Ohio's incumbent workforce through a unique public-private partnership. The ultimate goal of this program is twofold: allow employers to retain and grow their existing Ohio workforce and create a statewide workforce that can meet the present and future demands in an ever changing economy.

Eligible employers must demonstrate that by receiving funding assistance through the Ohio Incumbent Workforce Training Voucher Program their business will not only obtain a skilled workforce but will improve their company processes and competitiveness.

The Program provides a reimbursement up to $4,000 per employee per fiscal year (July 1-June 30).  The employer will be reimbursed for up to 50% of the cost of the training after the training is complete.  The $4,000 can be utilized in a single training or amassed over several trainings in the fiscal year.

 

Employer Eligibility

An eligible employer must operate as a for-profit entity in a state designated target industry with a facility located in Ohio.

·         Advanced manufacturing            

·         Aerospace and aviation

·         Automotive

·         BioHealth

·         Corporate Headquarters

·         Energy

·         Financial Services

·         Food processing

·         Information Technology

 

Eligible Training Costs

·         Tuition

·         Instructor or trainer fees

·         Instructional materials

 

If you qualify for these additional training dollars or know someone who does, sign up via the online application and get the process started.  More information on this great program can be found here.

-Matt