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Tag: devops certification

  • How DevOps Training and Certification Benefits the Team

    How DevOps Training and Certification Benefits the Team

    Cisco Systems recently announced sweeping changes to its training and certification programs to increase the real-world value of both. Cisco’s move demonstrates a trend by organizations that provide training and certification to place more value on the practical aspects of educating technology professionals—which, in turn, should have a major impact on those looking to build DevOps teams.

    “Advances in network technologies have enabled new applications and business models—converged IP networks enabled voice over IP, 3G networks enabled mobile applications and 4G networks enabled mobile video,” said Susie Wee, senior vice president and CTO of DevNet at Cisco Systems. “DevOps has become a key factor for bringing those new networked applications to life. Training and certifications for network professionals and software developers have become a must. The goal here is to bring enhanced software skills to networking, enabling application developers to write applications that leverage the full capabilities of the network.”

    Cisco’s realization that real-world knowledge brings demonstrable value to businesses has culminated in new DevNet Certifications, which are designed to demonstrate an individual’s ability to bring software skills to evolving network technologies. “The only way to fully leverage the capabilities of the network is to build DevOps teams with both networking and software skills that can address the intricacies of both software-defined networking and physical networking solutions,” Wee added.

    Cisco is not the only company pursuing a change in training and certification processes. Industry group CompTIA recently revamped its certification programs. For example, the latest version of the CompTIA Linux+ exam has been redesigned to validate the competencies and skills required of early career IT professionals supporting Linux systems.

    “For certifications to have real value today, people must immerse themselves in the technology,” noted James Stanger, CompTIA chief technology evangelist. “The new Linux + certification uses performance-based testing that presents candidates with real-world scenarios, meaning that achieving certification demonstrates the ability to function in the real world.”

    CompTIA may very well be one of the leaders in the movement to bring real-world relevance to the certification process. The company has been using performance-based testing and has been embracing certification pathways to build teams. “For DevOps teams, critical skills, including project management, both agile and waterfall, are important. Developers will need to know the operating systems they are developing in, so they’ll need to understand Windows and Linux,” Stanger said. “The idea is that for DevOps, you need to get deep into the guts of operating systems and understand them well. You can specialize in one area, but you’ll also need to understand databases, relational databases and object-oriented databases.”

    Cisco also understands the importance of educating DevOps professionals. “Our new Cisco Certifications, with new DevNet Certifications, are designed for training and certifying network professionals and software developers, so they can bring software skills to networking,” Wee noted. “This new education process teaches application developers how to write applications that leverage the full capabilities of the network, and it helps build IT teams with network skills and expertise and software skills and expertise so they can leverage the full capabilities of the network, helping to support the DevOps process.”

    Cisco is also investing in the idea of building a community in the form of the company’s DevNet offering. DevNet was created some five years ago to help network engineers and application developers take full advantage of the revolutionary changes shaping the industry. The company is now focusing its efforts on what it sees as its customers’ biggest problem—network automation—and has created the DevNet Automation Exchange, a community-based developer center where networkers and developers can learn to “walk, run and fly” with network automation using Cisco’s products and the full capabilities of the new network.

    According to Wee, those three processes can be broken down into:

    • Walk: Get visibility and insights into their networks in a read-only way. This enables use cases such as gathering telemetry and insights from running networks and performing audits to ensure the ongoing security of the network.
    • Run: Activate policy and intent across different network domains. This enables use cases such as providing self-service network operations that comply with security policies and operational guidelines.
    • Fly: Proactively manage applications, users and devices with DevOps workflows. This enables use cases such as deploying applications in continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines while configuring the network in accordance with new application policies.

    Wee noted Automation Exchange has been seeded with more than 50 code repositories, many contributed by Cisco’s engineering teams and SEs. Now, she said, the company is inviting DevNet community members to submit code that solves their use cases.

    Updated certification and training resources from the likes of Cisco and CompTIA will go a long way to helping build DevOps teams that can hit the ground running.

    — Frank Ohlhorst

  • The Official, Official DevOps

    The Official, Official DevOps

    It seems a little storm has blown up regarding the use of the term “Official DevOps Awareness Training” as used by the ITIL training company Axelos. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be long in coming after I saw the announcement at the DevOps Enterprise Summit and had a chance to interview Kaimar Karu there. Before I go any further on this though, in the interest of full disclosure, let me state that I am a co-founder of the DevOps Institute (DOI), providers of DevOps training and education. So obviously I have a dog in the race and if you want to stop right here, you are more than welcome to.

    The Background

    This story really starts about 18 months ago when we first announced the DOI launch and the fact that we would be offering training and certification based on the emerging practices around DevOps. At the announcement there was a firestorm of controversy and opinion as duly noted by IT Skeptic Rob England. Many in the community objected to the idea of even training for DevOps but the biggest push back was on the idea of testing and certification. Many in the community said it was repeating the mistakes made by other IT movements such as ITIL, ITSM, etc.  In fact some people went so far as to mock the DOI by making up silly certification post its and handing them out at DevOps conferences. In fact I believe that some of those folks were from Axelos itself.

    DOES 2016

    So imagine my surprise when I saw at this years DOES, Axelos announce that they were entering the DevOps training market with a free course based on the IT Revolution (Gene Kim, et al) books among other sources. I was really blown away when on stage Kaimar of Axelos said, “The Official DevOps Awareness Training syllabus is flexible and powerful, allowing training providers to develop their own value-add training programmes, either as simulations or extended classroom-based courses, which can be accredited against the syllabus.” They went even further, putting this up on their website:

    Official now are we? By whose measure? That is a good question.

    The Storm Brews

    I guess I wasn’t the only who took exception to this. IT Skeptic Rob England has once again spoken up, questioning by what right Axelos has to say they are the “official DevOps Awareness training”.  Evidently, Rob and Kaimar had a little twitter exchange on this. You can head over to Rob’s article to read the exchange, but the gist of it is that by official Axelos meant to say they are the official training based on IT Revolution writing.

    Here is the thing though, official would seem to connate some sort of exclusivity. Now I have not spoken to Gene Kim or the other IT Revolution team members, but I have spoken to people who have and if you want to put credence in this hearsay, IT Revolution never said anything about Axelos training being the exclusive or even the “official” DevOps awareness training.  It seems Axelos has perhaps overstepped their bounds here in trying to claim the official monicker. There may well be other DevOps training based on IT Revolution writings and how many official DevOps training classes do we need?

    Don’t blame the Tiger for his stripes

    Now you might ask yourself why would Axelos go to all that trouble for a class they are offering for free? Well the answer to that one is pretty simple really. Axelos will not offer DevOps training for just free forever. In fact I would bet that they will be developing formal DevOps training and wait for it, DevOps certification training in the not so distant future. After all they are in business to make money. Don’t blame the tiger for having stripes.

    I interviewed Kaimar at DOES this year and brought up this very issue. I asked him how after mocking the DOI, giving out post it notes stickers claiming DevOps certification, he could now stand here and offer training that we all know is headed towards some sort of certification. To be fair to Kaimar said the issue is that it is pre-mature for DevOps certification now. That best practices are not in place yet, just emerging practices (hmm where did I hear that before?).

    It is easy to see Axelos path here. They will continue developing their “free” class until they think it is good enough to charge for it. Shortly thereafter, lo and behold the time will be right for DevOps best practices to emerge and Axelos will offer certification in DevOps.  You don’t have to read tea leaves or the innards of goats to see that future.

    The Conclusion

    But alas by then it could be too late. Between DevOps training and certification from the DOI (and many new courses and roles, now available and coming out soon), training and certification by Red Hat, AWS and others, there is no shortage of DevOps training and certification courses available. To call any of them official is probably not a great idea.

    Another point is that for all the people who bemoaned that official training and certification had come to DevOps and that it was in danger of being like ITIL seem to have either changed their mind or chosen not to speak out on this (that I have seen anyway).

    If you read to this point though, here is my bottom line. Like everything else, getting some training and education on a subject is never a bad idea. You as a consumer can pick whichever provider you choose. But don’t be fooled by “official” titles. You may find out they are more like fake news sites on Facebook.

    — Alan Shimel

  • Rep Spotlight: Global Lynx

    Rep Spotlight: Global Lynx

    DevOps Institute: Tell us a little about your organization:

    Global Lynx: Global Lynx is a leading and fast-growing IT consulting and training company that assists companies and government agencies improve the competence and skills of their IT organization, enhance the maturity of their IT governance and improve the quality and effectiveness of their IT operations, services and processes.

    Since 1996, Global Lynx experts have helped organizations in five different countries, improving—and often transforming—their IT operations through the implementation of effective frameworks for IT governance, ITSM (IT services management), PMO (project management office) and information security.

    As an Accredited Training Organization (ATO), Global Lynx also offers a wide variety of IT courseware covering different areas, standards, frameworks and methodologies, and at various levels of expertise.

    Global Lynx trainers are experienced consultants, certified in multiple IT disciplines. They have actual firsthand experience in their areas of IT expertise, as well as experience in delivering training programs.

    DOI: What other topics do you teach or consult on?

    Global Lynx: IT service management, IT corporate governance, IT audit, information security, cyber resilience, IT risk management, cloud computing, project management, SCRUM, business continuity, process design and implementation, and enterprise value creation.

    DOI: What type of interest in DevOps are you seeing in your region?

    Global Lynx: Companies are interested in obtaining a common understanding of DevOps concepts and best practices, and they are focusing on deploying these practices organization-wide.

    DOI: How do you think that DevOps contributes to the business’s value stream?

    Global Lynx: The digital disruption all industries are experiencing, has created the need for IT to be embedded in every single business unit. Solid DevOps practices will help IT organizations deliver higher value to their customers, as value is delivered through operations, but it is defined and enabled in the development stages. Value should be managed not only in operations, but rather from the early stages of the service life cycle. A mature IT organization cannot have a poor collaboration and communication culture; without this, value creation will be limited to technical value instead of real business value.

    DOI: What topic area in DevOps excites you the most?

    Global Lynx: How DevOps interfaces other frameworks and how all of them can work together toward creating value to the customer.

    DOI: Why should enterprises and individuals consider formal DevOps training?

    Global Lynx: DevOps is all about people, and it is enabled by people. If a person is not committed, that person will do little to support the DevOps initiative. People need to go through formal DevOps training to learn what DevOps is, and how their role impacts the initiative and how they contribute to value creation. Certification is a plus, as it gives people a personal benefit. People will naturally react positively to something they own, because they will believe in it.

  • Introducing PEOPLECERT, DOI’s Examination Partner

    Introducing PEOPLECERT, DOI’s Examination Partner

    The DevOps Institute (DOI) is proud to introduce you to PEOPLECERT, our strategic examination and accreditation partner. Since DOI’s inception in 2015, PEOPLECERT has been supporting our Registered Education Partners and administering DOI’s certification exams worldwide. To date, these certifications include DevOps Foundation®, Certified Agile Service Manager (CASM)® and Certified Agile Process Owner (CAPO)®. Going forward, PEOPLECERT will help DOI create additional DevOps qualifications as emerging practices highlight the need for the assessment of specific knowledge, skills and expertise.

    For the past 15 years, PEOPLECERT has been the global leader in the assessment and certification of professional skills by developing and delivering leading qualifications around the world.  In fact, you may already be familiar with PEOPLECERT – it currently offers certification schemes in several IT frameworks including ITIL®, COBIT 5®, PRINCE2®, PRINCE2 Agile® and Lean Six Sigma. PEOPLECERT focuses on both the individual candidate and the business organization. It helps IT professionals reach their full potential by achieving certification that demonstrates proficiency. PEOPLECERT also helps organizations achieve their goals by certifying that staff have the skills and knowledge to contribute to the business value stream.

    The DevOps Institute chose PEOPLECERT as our strategic partner because of its unwavering commitment to continual improvement and innovation. The organization has demonstrated these values by meeting the rigorous requirements several ISO standards. Working together, DOI and PEOPLECERT will ensure that all DOI certifications meet the highest levels of quality, integrity and relevance. In addition, PEOPLECERT’s state-of-the-art assessment system provides candidate support from exam registration to exam delivery and the issuance of the certificate. Its award-winning online proctoring services provide flexible solutions for REPs and candidates while addressing the growing trend of virtual training. It has worked hard to ensure that the candidate experience is positive and professional.

    DOI is so confident in PEOPLECERT’s capabilities that we have expanded our partnership to include the accreditation of training organizations and instructors. Not only does PEOPLECERT’s global presence extend DOI’s learning community, its accreditation processes are thorough, expedient and conform to internationally accepted standards. This ability will allow us to be more responsive to the needs of the learning community.

    Coupled with DOI’s go-to-market training materials, our Registered Education Partners are able to stand up DevOps certification courses quickly and often to enable more individuals and organizations to gain access to the latest training,certification and knowledge about emerging DevOps practices.

    DevOps Foundation®, Certified Agile Service Manager (CASM)®, Certified Agile Process Owner (CAPO)® & Agile Service Management® are registered marks of the DevOps Institute.
    ITIL®/PRINCE2®/ PRINCE2 Agile® are registered trade marks of AXELOS Limited, used under permission of AXELOS Limited. RESILIA™ is a trade mark of AXELOS Limited, used under permission of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved.
    COBIT® 5 is a registered trademark of ISACA in United States and other countries.
  • Why I became DevOps Certified

    Why I became DevOps Certified

    I usually do not care too much about diplomas or certifications. To me, one’s value isn’t reflected by a piece of paper but rather by his or her actions, dedication, motivation and efficiency. And yet, I decided to become DevOps certified and furthermore, become a teacher for that very same certification. Have I gone insane or did I make a choice based on reasons that could appeal to you? Read further to find out.

    Set up a standard.

    I have been advocating DevOps for years now, reading everything I could about it when it was just a fun word created by Debois and recently writing quite a lot and giving conferences about it too. One thing that always strike me is that, no matter the context, no matter the experience of the people I’m speaking to, there is always one person asking me: “but can you tell me what exactly is DevOps?”.

    DevOps strength is also its weakness. By not defining a manifesto, a chart of good conduct or even a clear definition, DevOps leaves room for improvement over time but also creates what it tries to break down: silos. By being so undefined, you end with people “in the know” and the others who are desperately trying to get a grasp of an idea that’s clear to many.

    A certification, while arguable, brings exactly that level of standardisation we needed. By enabling me to have a clear definition of what DevOps is, it gives me the opportunity to spread it further but not only that, I also finally talk about the same thing as others around the globe. Gone are the days where you would see a new definition a minute, now that we all know – and agree on – what we are talking about, we can finally start to actually do it.

    I could have stopped here, taking the certification, being all knowledgeable about that topic but it would have been a bit against DevOps’ philosophy. Sharing is caring and if I get people to understand at least the basics of I what I preach, then we understand each other better and I make others better at their job (hopefully). And that’s exactly why I became a teacher: to spread the word and get people who don’t know to finally know. People over everything else, right?

    The DevOps Institute.

    Ok this part will sound a bit like a commercial but I’m just going to explain the reasoning behind my decision to go with that one.

    There are many certifications about the topic popping up these days so it was not necessarily an easy decision to make. After all, since we are still discussing whether or not to have a certification on that specific field, nobody was more legitimate than another. And then I read this article by our dear Alan Shimel: here.

    The fact that his name was associated with a certification intrigued me and I went to check it out. Then I realized that names I was already familiar with were also a part the institute (Lisa Schwartz and Jayne Groll) which made me think I was actually facing serious people.

    I read a bit more about them and discovered that both Gene Kim and Sanjeev Sharma, two persons I highly respect and read a lot from, were part of the institute’s board.

    That was it! It all went super-fast after I took contact with the institute. I filled up the usual forms and in no time, I was in the program, training myself to become the trainer, reading even more about DevOps, learning some new things and exchanging with brilliant minds before taking the final exam.

    What it all means

    While it won’t change your life, those of you who wanted to become unicorns still have to buy a costume for that, becoming a certification trainer gives you the opportunity to meet and help people who want to know more. Whether or not they take the actual test does not really matter. What matters is that you hold the same speech as others around the world and that people who come to you with questions might leave with a bit better understanding of what it is that you talk about.

    Before comments rain down on me, telling me that this is heresy and that I should be condemned to watch Nyan cats for 48 hours non-stop, I just want to precise that I do not have any interest in anything other than my job. I am just advocating for a certification and explaining why I took this one more than another.