Babbage Simmel

Monday, October 24, 2011

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

Thursday, October 13, 2011

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

Friday, September 30, 2011

Hot IT Skills for 2012

Slowly but surely, many U.S. companies are loosening their vise-like grips on IT hiring and looking to add new staffers to bolster business growth in the year ahead. That trend is reflected in Computerworld's annual Forecast survey. Nearly 29% of the 353 IT executives polled said they plan to increase IT staffing through next summer. That's up from 23% in the 2010 survey and 20% in the 2009 survey. Altogether, it's a 45% increase in hiring expectations over the past two years.

Here are a few areas that Computerworld talks about.

Programming and Application Development

• 61% plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months, up from 44% in the 2010 survey.

This large year-over-year jump doesn't surprise people like John Reed, executive director of staffing firm Robert Half Technology, who sees demand for a variety of skills in areas ranging from website development to upgrading internal systems and meeting the needs of mobile users. "Web development continues to be very strong" as companies try to improve the user experience, he says, adding that there will also be a lot of effort to develop mobile technologies to improve customer access via smartphones.

A great course on our schedule for Programming and Application Development is the M-10264 on 11/14/11.

Project Management

• 44% plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months, up from 43% in the 2010 survey.

Big projects need managers, but they also need business analysts who can identify users' needs and translate them for the IT staffers who have to meet those needs and complete projects on time. "The demand has been more for business analysts than project managers," Reed says -- in other words, those who can help deliver projects rather than merely oversee and monitor them.

That's what Sean Masters discovered when he embarked on a job search in March. "When I was framing myself as a systems, network, security or other administrator role, I was hardly getting any attention," says the IT professional from Worcester, Mass. "As soon as I shifted my résumé to list those specific technologies used in accomplishing specific projects, I was suddenly framing myself as an engineer who could not only manage systems, but also plan, design and implement them."

We have an amazing Project Management class with an Amazing instructor, Dave Wirick. Our PMP class scheduled for next week is nearly full, but there are still a couple spots available. If you can’t make it next week we have one more offering before the end of the year on 12/12/11.

Networking

• 35% plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months, down from 38% in the 2010 survey.

Robert Half's Reed says IT professionals with networking skills continue to be in high demand and have been "for a few quarters." That demand has been fueled, in part, by virtualization and cloud computing projects. In fact, during his recent job search, Masters says he saw heavy interest in virtualization skills.

Reed says hiring managers are looking for people with "practical work experience" in the networking arena, especially if they have worked in an organization that has migrated to a virtualized or cloud-based environment. In particular, they're looking for people with VMware and Citrix experience.

For Networking, check out our VMware 4.1 class on 11/7/11, as well as our Citrix course on 10/24/11.

Security

• 17% plan to hire for this skill the next 12 months, down from 32% in the 2010 survey.

The one-year drop may be surprising given that information security threats are a moving target, but security is a top-level concern for many organizations, especially those that are considering cloud computing as part of their IT strategies, says Reed.

Corey Peissig, senior vice president of technical operations at Mortgagebot, a Web-based mortgage software provider, says security is a top priority at his company. "Strong technical security and auditing skills are in high demand in our business," he says. "The challenge is that good talent in this arena is sometimes difficult to find."

For security we offer a great CISSP class, and it’s scheduled for 10/31/11.

You can view the entire Computerworld article by Rick Saia here.

-Matt

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Introducing Live Distance Learning with QuickStart Intelligence

Last week we had another great ITIL v-3 Foundation class. Our congratulations to the students attending class last week. Eric Tisdale was perfect again with every single student passing the exam! By my count, that’s now four classes in a row with Eric where every single student was successful on the exam. If you’ve been considering taking the ITIL v3 Foundation class and at the same time getting the exam out of the way, there’s no better place to be than here at babsim. Below is our next available date. Sign up now to reserve your seat.

11/9/11-11/11/11

We are excited to announce that beginning the week of September 26^th, we will partner with QuickStart Intelligence for our babsimLIVE Distance Learning schedule. QuickStart is recognized in the industry as a leader in Microsoft technical training and has offices throughout the Western United States. Unlike other distance learning options, babsimLIVE/QSLive brings the classroom learning experience to you, by seating you virtually into a real-life instructor-led classroom taught by award winning world-class instructors with other IT professionals like yourself. From the comfort of your home, workplace, or at the Babbage Simmel Marble Cliff Campus, you acquire the training you need, when you want it, in the environment that is most comfortable for you to be successful. When you visit one of our course pages, babsimLIVE deliveries will be marked in blue. These classes will begin at 11:00am EST and end at 7:00pm EST, and they are all Guaranteed to run!

I also wanted to remind everyone out there how easy it is to take advantage of the weekly discounts and promotions we offer her at babsim. All you have to do is “like” Babbage Simmel on Facebook to reveal our exclusive offers, and then check back each week for the promo code.

See you next week!

-Matt

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Let's Welcome OSUMC and Run Some Promotions!

Hey everyone.

This week I wanted to take some time to let you know about a special initiative we are taking part in here at babsim. The Ohio State University Medical Center (OSUMC) is currently in the process of training 14,000 plus employees on their new Integrated Healthcare Information System (IHIS). The Babbage Simmel Campus was selected as one of the facilities where the training is housed, so for the last month and all the way through October, our lobby has been full of those special people that save lives every day. Per OSUMC; “IHIS is a single, integrated and personalized health record across the continuum of a patient’s interaction with the Ohio State’s Medical Center. All members of the Medical Center Team will use the same system to access and enter information in the patient’s clinical and financial record.” By the way; IHIS goes live October 15, 2011.

It’s great to be part of something so important in the medical/healthcare industry. So a big welcome to the OSUMC team, and we hope your training continues to go well here at Babbage Simmel.

Something else that we’ll be starting soon here at babsim will be regular promotions listed on our Facebook page. All you have to do is “like” our page, and you will be eligible to receive the promo code(s). This code will get you special pricing on various classes when you sign up. So in the meantime, head on over to our page and hit that little thumbs up button.

To close out the blog this week I wanted to list some of our upcoming classes for the next two months. There are still seats available on all of these classes, so peruse the list below, and then sign up ASAP to reserve yours now!

Business Analysis, Project Management, ITIL, Scrum

BAB520: PMP 1-2-3: A Guide to Preparing for the PMP Exam 10/3/11-10/7/11

AGM: Agile Practices for Managers 11/22/11-11/23/11

CSM: Certified ScrumMaster 9/24/11-9/25/11 Weekend Class

ITIL-RCV: ITIL Release, Control and Validation 9/19/11-9/23/11

BAB608: Business Analysis Essentials 10/17/11-10/19/11

Cisco Authorized Courses

Babbage Simmel brings a full schedule of authorized Cisco training to our Columbus Campus.

ICND1: Interconnecting Cisco Network Devices Part 1 v1.1 10/10/11-10/14/11

ICND2: Interconnecting Cisco Network Devices Part 2 v1.1 10/17/11-10/21/11

ACUCM: Administering Cisco Unified Communications Manager v8.0 9/26/11-9/30/11 and 10/31/11-11/4/11

VPN: Deploying cisco ASA VPN Solutions v1.0 10/17/11-10/21/11