TOGAF 9 Certified
I recently took the TOGAF 9 Enterprise Architect course and exam. I'd previously done the TOGAF 8 programme a few years back. It was interesting to see how little things have changed in this space.
Sure, TOGAF 9 has dropped some of the unnecessary bias towards software and data architecture. TOGAF 8 seemed more relevant to programmers than IT Architects.
Now, TOGAF 9 is more concise but it's got a way to go before it becomes to IT Architecture what PRINCE2 is to Project Management or ITIL is to Service Management.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Friday, February 03, 2012
EMC Cloud Architect
I finally found the time to sit the Cloud Architect exams recently and so have now achieved EMC Proven Professional status at the Specialist Level.
The exam was relatively straight-foward. Most of the terms and concepts will be generally familiar to anyone working in the space. Specific knowledge of VMware, EMC and Cisco technologies and products (at a positioning level) would be a massive help - but the exam is certainly not about feeds and speeds. I did the course way back in September and so most of my prep for the exam was reviewing the course materials and the practice exams.
In order to become a Proven Professional, one also has to have passed a foundation exam. The previous exam was very storage related and I wasn't looking forward to it. Thankfully, EMC has released an alternative exam (Cloud Infrastructure and Services) which was much more familiar to me. If you've passed the Cloud Architect exam, the CIS exam would be a doddle. There is lots of overlap between the two.
I'm now looking forward to progressing to the IT-as-a-Service based 'Expert' certification
The exam was relatively straight-foward. Most of the terms and concepts will be generally familiar to anyone working in the space. Specific knowledge of VMware, EMC and Cisco technologies and products (at a positioning level) would be a massive help - but the exam is certainly not about feeds and speeds. I did the course way back in September and so most of my prep for the exam was reviewing the course materials and the practice exams.
In order to become a Proven Professional, one also has to have passed a foundation exam. The previous exam was very storage related and I wasn't looking forward to it. Thankfully, EMC has released an alternative exam (Cloud Infrastructure and Services) which was much more familiar to me. If you've passed the Cloud Architect exam, the CIS exam would be a doddle. There is lots of overlap between the two.
I'm now looking forward to progressing to the IT-as-a-Service based 'Expert' certification
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Government ICT
I was proud to represent EMC at the UK Government ICT conference in London today. It was certainly a well attended event and I had many good conversations with fellow delegates around the challenges they face with issues like Workforce Mobility, Cloud Services, Strategy Development, ICT procurement and so on.
It is clear to me that the IT community within Public Sector are proactively exploring new ways to deliver services in their organisations. Of course, cost avoidance was probably the number one driving force - but closely followed by a desire to do things quicker and better.
Skyscape Cloud Services also featured quite prominently today. Skyscape are a start-up I have closely been involved with as EMC are central to their Skyscape Cloud Alliance - providing our full suite of technology, consultancy and managed services. Many of the delegates I spoke with seemed genuinely excited by Skyscape's proposition and ambition, which gives credence to the idea behind the G-Cloud Framework.
It is clear to me that the IT community within Public Sector are proactively exploring new ways to deliver services in their organisations. Of course, cost avoidance was probably the number one driving force - but closely followed by a desire to do things quicker and better.
Skyscape Cloud Services also featured quite prominently today. Skyscape are a start-up I have closely been involved with as EMC are central to their Skyscape Cloud Alliance - providing our full suite of technology, consultancy and managed services. Many of the delegates I spoke with seemed genuinely excited by Skyscape's proposition and ambition, which gives credence to the idea behind the G-Cloud Framework.
Monday, October 03, 2011
Blog is Back
So my Q4 resolution is to restart this blog and aim for a weekly update.
The first update is around EMC's Cloud Architect certification - a course I took last week. The Cloud Architect certification is pretty unique right now, especially the way EMC have implemented it as an 'open' course rather than a vendor or product specific course. This is entirely consistent with EMC's strategy of enabling open clouds which reduce customer lock-in by allowing them to move their workloads to any compatible cloud platform. Compare this to Cloud offerings from Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, IBM and HP which all have greater degree's of lock-in.
So going into the course, you are expected to have a decent working knowledge of Cloud components, specifically the network (CCDA equivalent) and hypervisor (VCP equivalent). This implied to me that the course might get quite technical, but far from it. As the course assumes candidates already know VMware and Cisco technology it never gets so technical. Instead, the course introduces issues, considerations and challenges which are inherent in Virtual Data Centre and IT-as-a-Service architectures. Working examples help bridge the theory with the practice by highlighing features and products such as Cisco OTV, EMX VPLEX and the VMware suite of products.
I was disappointed as I don't think completing this course serves to create Cloud Architects anymore than passing the old MCSE exams created good engineers (paper MCSE's!). I was hoping that this Cloud Architect certification might be something like TOGAF for the Cloud or similar.
However, there is still value in this course, especially for those that are looking for a broad introduction to Cloud Solutions. It is likely that the forthcoming IT-as-a-Service certification will provide the missing guidance on 'how' to go about creating a Cloud based architecture (i.e. what a Cloud Architect would need to know) whereas this course provides a good level-set that might benefit those stakeholders that revolve around the Cloud Architect - including customers.
The first update is around EMC's Cloud Architect certification - a course I took last week. The Cloud Architect certification is pretty unique right now, especially the way EMC have implemented it as an 'open' course rather than a vendor or product specific course. This is entirely consistent with EMC's strategy of enabling open clouds which reduce customer lock-in by allowing them to move their workloads to any compatible cloud platform. Compare this to Cloud offerings from Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, IBM and HP which all have greater degree's of lock-in.
So going into the course, you are expected to have a decent working knowledge of Cloud components, specifically the network (CCDA equivalent) and hypervisor (VCP equivalent). This implied to me that the course might get quite technical, but far from it. As the course assumes candidates already know VMware and Cisco technology it never gets so technical. Instead, the course introduces issues, considerations and challenges which are inherent in Virtual Data Centre and IT-as-a-Service architectures. Working examples help bridge the theory with the practice by highlighing features and products such as Cisco OTV, EMX VPLEX and the VMware suite of products.
I was disappointed as I don't think completing this course serves to create Cloud Architects anymore than passing the old MCSE exams created good engineers (paper MCSE's!). I was hoping that this Cloud Architect certification might be something like TOGAF for the Cloud or similar.
However, there is still value in this course, especially for those that are looking for a broad introduction to Cloud Solutions. It is likely that the forthcoming IT-as-a-Service certification will provide the missing guidance on 'how' to go about creating a Cloud based architecture (i.e. what a Cloud Architect would need to know) whereas this course provides a good level-set that might benefit those stakeholders that revolve around the Cloud Architect - including customers.
Monday, March 09, 2009
ITIL v3
I took the ITIL v2 to v3 bridging paper last week following a one day course that highlighted the key changes.
It was nice to see that ITIL had started to touch on Enterprise Architecture concepts rather than remaining stuck on Operations. I'm currently looking at refreshing our Architecture lexicon to include more ITIL v3 terminology from Service Strategy and Service Design components of the ITIL lifecycle.
It was nice to see that ITIL had started to touch on Enterprise Architecture concepts rather than remaining stuck on Operations. I'm currently looking at refreshing our Architecture lexicon to include more ITIL v3 terminology from Service Strategy and Service Design components of the ITIL lifecycle.
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