The document discusses cloud computing training programs from ITpreneurs, including their Cloud Credential Council (CCC) certification programs. It describes various role-based cloud certifications that ITpreneurs offers, such as Cloud Technology Associate, Professional Cloud Security Manager, and Professional Cloud Developer. It outlines the audience and positioning strategies for each certification. The document emphasizes how ITpreneurs' cloud training can help clients maximize ROI on their existing technology investments and complement other IT frameworks.
When we ask the question what is cloud computing - everybody has their own answer - consulting firms, High tech companies, everyone.
That's why I like what the (The National Institute of Standards and Technology) NIST says, Cloud Computing is “Anything and Everything“ until a formal definition is in place, Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g. Networks, servers, storage, applications and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management or service provider interaction.
According to the official NIST definition, "cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction."
With the constant Evolution of Information Technology we see Cloud computing as the great paradigm shift in computing as we know it the 3rd wave of information technology advances, following the initial mainframe explosion, and client/server. Cloud “offers users economies of scale and efficiency that exceed those of a mainframe, plus modularity and agility beyond what client/server technology delivered, More importantly it has changed the way consumers use and consume data.
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History has a funny way of repeating itself, or so they say. So it may come as no surprise that for the last three decades, one trend in computing has been loud and clear: big, centralized, mainframe systems have been "out"; personalized, power-to-the-people, do-it-yourself PCs have been "in." Before personal computers took off in the early 1980s, if your company needed sales or payroll figures calculating in a hurry, you'd most likely have bought in "data-processing" services from another company, with its own expensive computer systems, that specialized in number crunching; these days, you can do the job just as easily on your desktop with off-the-shelf software. Or can you? In a striking throwback to the 1970s, many companies are finding, once again, that buying in computer services makes more business sense than do-it-yourself. This new trend is called cloud computing and, not surprisingly, it's linked to the Internet's inexorable rise.
http://www.explainthatstuff.com/cloud-computing-introduction.html
This shift toward cloud computing is a clear cost and convenience win for consumers, who can now access all their digital "stuff" anytime and from almost any device. Many consumers are using applications which are run in the cloud everyday. Streaming music and videos, to make payments, and social networks. Business are too. ( Better Known as Software as a Service)
Consumers and businesses also make use of cloud services to maintain files, contacts (such as Salesforce or other CRM platforms), and build their own applications on these platforms (Platform as a Service). A Gartner estimated global spending on Infrastructure as a Service would reach almost $16.5 billion in 2015, which was an increase of 32.8 percent from 2014. Many companies are shifting their enterprise infrastructure to platforms to Infrastructure as as Service from major(IaaS) players such as on Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google and others.
Ironically, hackers are also making use of many of these services.it was suspected the hacker group ‘Anonymous’ made use of Amazon Web Service, much like any business today, to run their operations and store data back when they hacked Sony Playstation in 2011. (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/14/playstation_network_attack_from_amazon/)
For IT Executives (or key Decision Makers), despite its challenges and inhibitors, cloud is viewed as a positive development for IT organizations. Virtualization, the technology backbone of cloud computing, coupled with high speed Internet and advent of service providers with data centres across the world has brought about a significant growth in this business model.
As per Forrester’s survey, cloud computing’s growth potential can be gauged by the fact that by 2020 it would be worth a huge 157 billion pound industry. The capabilities and benefits offered by the cloud are now being incorporated into the overall business strategy of organizations and not limited to only delivering efficiencies and cost savings. And a critical element is getting people trained to support and deliver cloud technologies.
However, security, privacy, governance and data protection still figure as prominent issues to cloud adoption.Cloud education and certifications are important for organizations that are deploying Cloud based services and application in the market- important for the provider, but also important for the end-user in companies adopting cloud based solutions.
With cloud, organizations are able to easily make use of IT infrastructures which in the past would have steep costs for acquiring and implementing the hardware and software infrastructure locally, and maintaining these services to operate.
Organizations are adopting cloud at a rapid rate through development of in-house applications to purchasing off the shelf cloud based applications. The Cloud Market is estimated $204 billion this year, a 16.5% increase over the $175 billion market in 2015, according to analyst firm Gartner. http://www.computerworld.com/article/3026396/cloud-computing/global-public-cloud-market-expected-to-hit-204b-in-2016.html
So what is the State of the Cloud? Lack of resources/expertise has become a number 1 concern.
Going into 2015 there were over 18M cloud positions open on the market, according to Forbes who did an analysis of the jobs WANTED database which houses over a billion job postings.
LinkedIn analysis at the end of 2015 found Cloud and Distributed Computing as the top skill of 2015. Followed by Statistical Analysis and Data Mining. - companies were still recruiting and hiring for these skills well into the final months of 2015, so we naturally expect these skills will remain in-demand in the early part of 2016. http://blog.linkedin.com/2016/01/12/the-25-skills-that-can-get-you-hired-in-2016/
NR* refers to data that was not recorded in 2014.
As indicated on this slide 85% of enterprise organizations have a multi - cloud strategy. Which I believe highlights the importance and the benefits of vendor neutral cloud training.
Today, companies have the option of several Cloud Service Providers, each with their own value proposition. The recurring pattern is that they are working with several providers and often a hybrid mix of (private and public cloud). Which essentially drives the need for IT professionals with broader understanding of cloud computing to ensure vendor neutrality and avoid vendor lock-in for these organizations.
Let's take a look at ITpreneurs Cloud Portfolio.
The Cloud Credential Council portfolio offers role-based, vendor-neutral, certifications. It is the international standard for cloud certifications which can address the key concerns your clients. And at the same time, it offers you the opportunity to cross-sell and up-sell these related certifications to your clients so they can educate and empower their team critical to their cloud deployments
The Benefits of being vendor-neutral are two-fold.
For the individual, it means that their skills won't become obsolete as technology vendors change. That balance between (Traditional IT and Cloud Based IT)
For employers, it means that their staff will be able to support a wider choice of solutions. It offers a broader perspective and that reduces vendor lock-in.
Vendor-neutral means less vendor lock-in.
The biggest advantage with vendor-neutral certification is it gives you or your clients a complete, balanced, approach and a knowledge base to all the aspects of cloud computing.
What are the best ways to explain the advantages of Role-based certifications to your prospective clients? One of the key things is asking them what are their challenges? Is it the same as the ones you see on this slide? If so with confidence you should share with them how role-based certifications can provide them a patch to addressing their challenges head on.
Address key challenges with a specific role-based certification, while alleviating overarching competence development lags. Each CCC certification touches on key areas of focus, so there maybe overlap, the image above simply illustrates the main areas.