Stacy Collett

Author Archives: Stacy Collett

Hot network certifications: Multi-skill certs to dominate 2021

In March, IT professional association CompTIA nervously pondered what affect COVID-19 and work-from-home mandates would have on its members and its core mission of delivering training and vendor-neutral IT certifications. "When you have this kind of upheaval, what does that mean in terms of education?" says James Stanger, chief technology evangelist at CompTIA. Surely it would take a back seat to more pressing business issues. Turns out, certifications have "massively continued" their upward trend, he says. Learn more about tech trends and certifications:To read this article in full, please click here

VMware certifications, virtualization skills get a boost from pandemic

CEO Yves Sandfort is bullish on certifications. His company, Comdivision Consulting, uses VMware's NSX network virtualization and security platform on its own network and implements NSX for its clients. He not only encourages all employees to get VMware certs, but he also earned his own VCDX-NV, the Ph.D. of VMware certifications, in April."We see a constant demand [for networking skills]. Most of our people were certified on NSX-V and have in the last 12 months also recertified on NSX-T as we see constant, growing need for highly qualified resources," Sandfort says. "For me, certification is one level to prove my skillset and experience with the product."To read this article in full, please click here

Network monitoring in the hybrid cloud/multi-cloud era

Network monitoring in the enterprise has never been easy. Even before organizations began moving software and infrastructure to the cloud, a typical enterprise used four to 10 tools just to monitor and troubleshoot their own networks, according to analyst and consulting firm Enterprise Management Associates.The public cloud adds another complex wrinkle to network visibility. Traditional monitoring tools center around the health and performance of individual network elements. Today’s digital business era requires a more holistic view of networks with the ability to glean and correlate data from diverse cloud environments using big data analytics and machine learning. To read this article in full, please click here

How to shop for CDN services

Content delivery networks have been around for more than a decade, but many enterprises are taking a new look at the perks and specialization that today’s CDN services have to offer.Why the renewed interest? The cloud-first movement, all-things-video, IoT and edge computing are all bringing sexy back to CDNs. The content delivery network market was valued at $7.3 billion in 2017 and is expected to reach $29.5 billion by 2023, a compound annual growth rate of 26 percent, according to ResearchAndMarkets.com.To read this article in full, please click here

What’s hot in network certifications

Network certifications typically serve as a litmus test of a network professional’s knowledge of technologies that most company already use. Increasingly, however, network professionals are looking beyond what is, and they’re getting a leg up on certifications that will set them apart from their peers in the near future.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)

What’s hot in network certifications

Network certifications typically serve as a litmus test of a network professional’s knowledge of technologies that most company already use. Increasingly, however, network professionals are looking beyond what is, and they’re getting a leg up on certifications that will set them apart from their peers in the near future.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)

What’s hot in network certifications

Network certifications typically serve as a litmus test of a network professional’s knowledge of technologies that most company already use. Increasingly, however, network professionals are looking beyond what is, and they’re getting a leg up on certifications that will set them apart from their peers in the near future.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)

How enterprises can prep for 5G

Chevron Corp. disclosed plans in September to add predictive maintenance in its oil fields and refineries by arming thousands of pieces of equipment with sensors by 2024 that will predict when equipment in the field will need to be serviced.  To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)

What is hybrid cloud really, and what’s the best strategy?

Ask a group of IT leaders to define what a hybrid cloud is, and their answers are likely to be as diverse as the companies they work for. Once a black-and-white definition describing organizations with a mix of apps that reside in both the public cloud and in enterprise data centers, a hybrid cloud has now become much more complicated as the number of apps used in the enterprise grows and their integration requirements mount.  The average company uses more than 1,400 cloud services, according to Skyhigh Networks, often because lines of business are being pressured to innovate, leaving little time to develop a strategy for the most efficient and cost-effective way to run them.To read this article in full, please click here

What is hybrid cloud really, and what’s the best strategy?

Ask a group of IT leaders to define what a hybrid cloud is, and their answers are likely to be as diverse as the companies they work for. Once a black-and-white definition describing organizations with a mix of apps that reside in both the public cloud and in enterprise data centers, a hybrid cloud has now become much more complicated as the number of apps used in the enterprise grows and their integration requirements mount.  The average company uses more than 1,400 cloud services, according to Skyhigh Networks, often because lines of business are being pressured to innovate, leaving little time to develop a strategy for the most efficient and cost-effective way to run them.To read this article in full, please click here

Making sense of cybersecurity qualifications

IBM’s cybersecurity division has hired nearly 2,000 professionals to its security team since 2015. Leaders recognize that the skills needed to succeed don't always come in the form of a traditional degree, but “the sheer volume of new certifications being created does pose challenges,” says Diana Kelley, global executive security adviser.It’s a growing problem for many employers. Increasingly, hiring companies must sift through resumes that tout cybersecurity-related degrees, certificates, industry certifications, apprenticeship credentials, digital badges, micro master’s degrees, nanodegrees and other credentials – trying to determine what a candidate really knows and how those credentials fit together.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What it takes to become an information assurance analyst

After spending 13 years working in systems administration and network and desktop support, Simeon Holloway had reached a crossroads in his career.“I had capped out on the knowledge” required for the positions, Holloway says. “Salary-wise, I was capping out, too. I wanted to move in a different direction — something challenging and that was in high demand.” Cybersecurity was at the top of his list. In 2014, he set out on a self-guided journey toward a new career. Today, Holloway is an information assurance analyst for the Georgia Lottery in Atlanta. download What it takes to become an information assurance analyst CSO Online Getting serious about security While still a senior systems administrator for the Centers for Disease Control, Holloway kicked into overdrive, spending his evenings and weekends researching cybersecurity online. “I watched YouTube videos, joined webinars, things like that,” Holloway says. He spent four months studying for and earning his CompTIA Security+ certification, and attended a five-day Certified Ethical Hacker Bootcamp course that helped him get his CEH certification six months later. “I also built my own virtual lab — taking some of the free cyber tools available online, like BackTrack and Kali Linux, and practiced pen testing,” Continue reading

What it takes to become an IT security engineer

When Scott Copeland got his associate degree in network administration back in 2004, the community college he attended didn’t offer IT security courses, “but it gave me the foundation to learn more about network security,” he says. His determination and thirst for learning led him to his current job as an IT security engineer at FedEx Services in Memphis, Tenn. download What it takes to become an IT security engineer | PDF download CSO Online Getting started After being laid off in 2008 from his first IT job in tech support and systems administration, friends encouraged Copeland to use his networking talents to get a certification that would boost his career. He studied for three months and earned his Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) certification in routing and switching. “CCNA was the biggest helper [for my security career path],” says Copeland. “It’s one of the hardest network certifications in the industry.” Also, he notes, “because it ties networking for firewalls and VPN, it has security components to it.” He also scoured daily posts on Reddit, the news aggregation and discussion website, to learn as much as he could about network and IT security, and to keep up with Continue reading

What it takes to become an IT security engineer

When Scott Copeland got his associate degree in network administration back in 2004, the community college he attended didn’t offer IT security courses, “but it gave me the foundation to learn more about network security,” he says. His determination and thirst for learning led him to his current job as an IT security engineer at FedEx Services in Memphis, Tenn.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Why more Chief Strategy and Risk Officers need a seat at the security table

For years the evolving role of chief information security officers has increasingly required them to think more like a chief risk or strategy officer and anticipate cyber threats before they happen. Now a perfect storm is brewing that may finally push risk management and strategy roles to the forefront of cybersecurity.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Should security pros get special H-1B visa consideration?

New U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions may disagree about whether there is a shortage of skilled IT workers in America, as he has asserted at hearings over the past two years, but talk to most CISOs and they will confirm that when it comes to cybersecurity talent in particular, the skills shortage is very real.“There’s no doubt about it,” says John Masserini, CISO at equity derivatives marketMIAX Options in Princeton, N.J. “We’ve had two positions open for three months now,” a security operations center analyst and a security engineer position. The company’s location between two major metro areas – New York City and Philadelphia – makes the competition for cybersecurity talent especially tough, he says. Meanwhile, the firm’s security workload keeps growing. “I already know that by the end of this year I’m going to have a couple more openings,” he says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Should security pros get special H-1B visa consideration?

New U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions may disagree about whether there is a shortage of skilled IT workers in America, as he has asserted at hearings over the past two years, but talk to most CISOs and they will confirm that when it comes to cybersecurity talent in particular, the skills shortage is very real.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

That online job candidate may be carrying a virus

January is the month when employees are most likely to think about changing jobs, according to a survey by Glassdoor. Almost one in five jobseekers cited January as the most popular month to make a move, which means that resumes, cover letters and reference contacts are eagerly shared through social media, email and company websites.Cyber thieves are eager to take advantage of the busy hiring season, too, and they’ve come up with several ways to infiltrate corporate systems. Security pros offer their tips on what to watch out for, and how to stop them.Cyber criminals use LinkedIn and other social media sites to bypass company defenses LinkedIn and other social networks are becoming targets for threat actors since they know it's a great way to bypass company's defenses, according to cybersecurity firm Cylance. LinkedIn is typically a site that is not blocked by network filters to allow HR departments the freedom to communicate with prospective job candidates.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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