Amazon Web Services Launches New Certification
Cloud computing looms large on all horizons of the modern IT industry. IT processes, tools, software, apps, and services are increasingly cloud-based, data storage and data backup is almost entirely cloud-dependent, and the implications of the clouds-all-around forecast have turned up the dial all the way to 11 on the development and improvement of cloud security technology. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is way out in front of all competitors in the cloud services/cloud facilitation marketplace, so any new credential that takes root in the AWS certification ecosystem is worth noting. That brings us to this week's (relatively) big cloud certification news, as AWS unveiled a new cloud credential at the end of last week, AWS Certified SAP on AWS - Specialty. SAP, a multinational business applications and business technology provider based in Germany, has software that has become so widely integrated with AWS that now we need people who can zero in on SAP-AWS interconnection as an area of professional expertise. Earning the new credential requires completion of a three-hour exam (minus 10 minutes) with 65 questions; the exam fee is $300. AWS has a variety of training and review materials available to help candidates prepare for the AWS Certified SAP on AWS - Specialty exam.
(ISC)²: Beware the Second Half of Your E-mail Address
Let's consider the formulation of a standard e-mail address: [YourUsername]@[Name of provider].com. Now ask yourself how recently you've heard the moderately derisive term "free-mail"? Free e-mail has become so ubiquitous that we tend of to think of it as just being e-mail. Nobody thinks too hard about the @gmail, @yahoo, @hotmail, or @aol — to cite a handful of the most obvious examples — component of their e-mail address. And that broad-based dismissal, according a recent post to the official blog of cybersecurity professional association (ISC)², is ill-advised at best. Blogger Greg Anderson envisions the United States Postal Service behaving the way that a typical free e-mail provider does, and the comparison is both stark and chilling. Once upon a time free e-mail may have been viewed as simply providing another avenue to shovel advertising in the face of the average consumer, but that era has passed and the manner in which your supposedly private e-mail communications are mined for data about you the individual is disturbing to contemplate. In a nutshell, the commoditization of the average computer user is growing unchecked and your free e-mail account is among the biggest means of exploiting you (sideye at social media here) that big tech companies have.
Don't Fear the IT Skills Shortage
One of the most consistent observations about the state of IT employment is that there are not enough skilled IT professionals to go around. Whether you call it a skills "gap," "shortage," "crisis," "dearth," or whatever else, employers want to hire more skilled IT professionals, and education systems aren't providing them fast enough. A new post to the official blog of tech employment facilitator Training Industry says the solution to the problem is an obvious one. As expressed by blogger Don Jones. the key ia as follows: "For the majority of organizations, the best way to weather the current tech skills shortage is to invest in developing your existing workforce." You don't necessarily need to find new workers, in other words, you just need to teach new skills to the ones who are already on the payroll. That's potentially good news for IT workers who would like to improve their lot in (work) life. If you want to step up to a better job, then it might pay (both figuratively and literally) to consult a supervisor and find out whether your employer might be willing to invest in your career.
CompTIA Says That IT Support Skills Are More Important Than Ever
Tech industry association CompTIA manages the foremost IT certification for IT support professionals. So it's not exactly surprising that CompTIA would have a pro-IT support skills message. Which it does: A new post to the official CompTIA blogs affirms, in fact, that the need for competent tech support professionals has never been greater. As blogger Seth Robinsons puts it, "Technical support is basically the bedrock of the entire IT effort. From an operational standpoint, it’s the first line of defense for user problems. And if employees are using technology more and more for their day jobs, any hiccups can have big downstream effects." Sounds like a solid point to us.
That's all for this edition of Certification Watch. Please keep your certification news and tips coming to the GoCertify News Editor.
