Certification - June 2006 - (Page 22)

CM0606.qxd 5/5/06 6:11 PM Page 22 Business Analysis as Cisco, CheckPoint or Microsoft, and you'll likely have success. The fastest growing job-role in IT today is a senior role called the business analyst. These professionals work Storage with various business units to assess areas of greatest Once the red-headed stepchild of the IT industry, business need for IT services. They determine the rel- ative financial benefits that can accrue to the organi- storage has become a central issue in most large zation for different types of projects, and they recom- organizations and a key specialization. The emer- mend the projects that will create the most positive gence of storage networking, in both SAN and NAS, impact for the business. Business analysts work with has created a role for people who can specialize in business-unit leaders to capture requirements for setting, managing, protecting and supporting storage services whether the services are software, access infrastructure. With the vast growth rates of data- or other capabilities that will enable organizations to storage needs and the proliferation of rich-media be more competitive , and then they work with IT solutions, this need will only grow. organizations and project leaders to translate busi- To support the growth of storage-area networks sup- ness requirements into technical requirements. porting fibre channel, the Storage Networking Ultimately, business analysts are responsible for mak- Industry Association SNIA provides a core SAN ing sure the right projects get the investment, people certification called Storage Networking Certified and resources needed to deliver results for an organi- Professional SNCP . Recent advances have broken zation, and typically they are compensated based on this out into three job-role functions, including foun- delivering the promised results. dational skills, practitioner and specialist. These pro- Although there are a few small organizations provid- grams will continue to evolve and will likely have the ing business-analyst certification, the forthcoming most impact when combined with key vendor pro- International Institute of Business Analysis IIBA grams from storage leaders such as EMC, Network certification appears to be the one to watch because Appliance and Brocade. it is being built from a comprehensive and industry- backed Body of Knowledge BoK , similar to the Project Management process that formed PMI's PMP. Make this the year to Long before IT got religion about project management, get training in business analysis to get ahead of the the broader industry saw the need to pull together the curve on this important area, and make sure your vast array of methods, tools, processes and terminolo- provider will support the IIBA certification when it gy project managers use to ensure communications comes out. would be sustained and projects would actually be completed. Although IT professionals should consider ITIL/ITSM looking at foundation project-management certifica- The U.S. IT industry prides itself on innovation, but at tions such as CompTIA's IT Project+, the certification times it forgets to institute good processes to support family with the most impact in the industry has to be the the delivery of services with quality and consistency. Project Management Institute's Project Management Starting in the early 1990s, the United Kingdom Professional PMP certification. PMP is widely consid- invested in the creation of best-practices guidelines ered the gold standard for project managers and is for providing a number of different types of IT servic- often required to be considered for many project-man- es. The result of its efforts was the IT Infrastructure agement job roles. This certification has an explicit Library ITIL . ITIL offers the ability to provide high- experience requirement, so for those of you still work- quality, consistent processes and outcomes for vari- ing up to that, passing PMI's Certified Associate in ous types of IT services, such as application man- Project Management CAPM is certainly a way to agement, security management, service-desk provi- show that you're an up-and-comer. As IT becomes sion and many other functions. more and more an industry of managing many collec- tive projects and groups, some internal to your organi- The three levels of ITIL certification foundations, zation and perhaps others external, having this skill set practitioner and service manager have been is essential for every IT professional who wants a long worldwide standards for IT service management for career. Technologies will come and go, but the ability to a number of years, but the United States is only now manage people, resources and money to create beginning to catch up. In the near future, virtually all impact for a business will always stand the test of time. IT organizations will need to demonstrate their sup- 22 CERTIFICATION MAGAZINE June 2006 

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Certification - June 2006

Editors Letter
Table of Contents
Data Stream
Consultants Corner
Tech Careers
Virtual Village
Certification Evolution: Job-Role Certifications for Your Future
Inside Certification
Must-Have Non-Technical Skills for IT Pros
IP Telephony Engineers
Specialty Certification
Interface
Ad Index
Endtag

Certification - June 2006

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