Microsoft Drives Interest

Sunday Business Post - Computers in Business Magazine - Jan 07 2007

Two new Microsoft software releases will form the basis for many training courses this year, but there is also much more on offer for those willing to expand their IT knowledge, writes Dermot Corrigan

Probably the most important development in Irish IT departments in 2007 will be the next wave of Microsoft product releases. The Windows Vista operating system was launched in December 2006, while Office 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 boxes will be hitting shelves and arriving on IT teams’ desks in the coming months.

There is generally a certain time lag between the product going on sale and its full introduction across an organisation. This time is usually filled with training and development courses for staff, so that the IT department can implement these products succesfully and troubleshoot them immediately. Irish training providers are gearing up to meet this demand, with the official Microsoft training programmes and curriculum set to be rolled out by Irish training providers on a gradual basis throughout 2007.

“In 2007 we are going to see a lot of interest in Microsoft Vista, obviously the product was just launched recently. We are going to get a lot of demand for training of both engineers and developers alike. We will also get a lot of call for the user community of Office 2007,” said Etain Delaney, Corporate Account Manager with Sureskills.

“To date we have already offered a few tailored workshops on Microsoft Vista and Microsoft Exchange 2007, but as the official curriculum is launched by Microsoft in 2007 we will start running those as well.”

Calyx are another certified Microsoft training partner who are putting in place a number of introductory training courses to meet the release of the new Microsoft products.

“We do not expect to see Vista courses for a number of months while people get to grips with it and plan their own deployments, but we are offering a number of previews and half day and one day courses looking at the planning of Vista deployment,” said Richard Glavin, Managing Director of Calyx Training.

“There is also the release of Microsoft Exchange 2007 – the new email platform from Microsoft – and we have run some courses on that already, sort of first look courses where people can come in and have a play around etc. Again we are seeing that people will be deploying the latest Exchange in the first half of the year and we would expect to see significant training business as a result,” said Glavin.

Microsoft products already established in the market will also be the focus of much attention from Irish IT training managers in 2007.

“Microsoft SQL 2005 – we have been getting a lot of demand for this now. We would have traditionally provided a lot of training on Microsoft SQL 2000, and a lot of the curriculum has been recently updated so we are providing a lot of those courses as well,” said Delaney.

The concept of VMware is another of the major developments to have exploded on the IT scene in recent times. VMware is such an innovative technology that even technical staff are having to learn the ropes almost from scratch. As more and more organisations incorporate VMware into their server infrastructure and processes in 2007 the demand for relevant training courses is set to increase.

“Virtualisation as a technology is completely new and end users would attend the course pre-implementation just to understand the technology itself, because it is a complete change in their infrastructure and also to give them hands on experience in managing the new virtualised infrastructure,” said Enda Fitzpatrick, Sales Manager with Commtech Distribution.

Sureskills are also putting in place VMware courses.

“We offer a four day course entitled ‘VMware Infrastructure Version 3 Install and Configure’ and this course also prepares for the VMware certified professional exam as well. Students who take the course can also take the exam at our centre. We also offer training upgrade sessions as well from older versions of the product,” said Delaney.

Security is going to be a huge issue in 2007 across all aspects of IT in business. While threats continue to multiply and become increasingly sophisticated, training providers are simultaneously updating their course offerings.

“We do security solutions courses in three name products - SonicWALL, McAfee and Blue Coat,” said Fitzpatrick. “These are very very high end enterprise security courses. We are running them both for partners and for end users. We ran our first McAfee course last month and it was very successful because they have made a number of changes and also come out with a number of new products”.

The area of security is of course not just about dealing with external threats. Companies have to protect themselves from issues and scandals around inappropriate staff behaviour. Merely installing anti-virus software or sending circulars to staff members is not sufficient. Management have a legal and moral responsibility to develop in-depth security policies, and one important aspect of this is to have a highly trained member of staff who can make sure their network is safe and clean.

One new and novel course which is being introduced in 2007, is the postgraduate certificate in Information Security and Penetration Testing from Ashfield Computer Training. This is the very first FAS approved postgraduate course in Ireland. It was designed by the University of Glamorgan and Ashfield are the sole Irish college offering the programme.

“It is the first course in the world that offers a university qualification for people who are doing ethical hacking and cyber forensics,” said Eileen McGinn, MD with Ashfield. “Ethical hacking is where you get permission from an organisation to look at the vulnerabilities that exist in their system so that you can mitigate against a dangerous or black hat hacker breaking into the system. We get there first so people are aware of the possibilities.”

McGinn said that the course will teach techniques and develop skills in industry which would previously only have been used in police departments or military situations.

“This is a rather niche market in terms of people who have exposure to this level of knowledge, but because it has been turned into a mainstream university academic qualification, we now have the facility and the ability to be able to teach this to network engineers, or network administrators, who want to strive to get up the corporate ladder and also look at the level of IT security in high end businesses,” she said.

The 2007 entry course is already booked up, and Ashfield are considering adding extra places. They are also looking at introducing a similar qualification in Mobile Forensics towards the end of 2007.

Internet communications and multimedia are another area where course providers are expecting significant interest in the coming year. McGinn said that the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW) qualification is becoming increasingly popular with IT professionals who are looking to add a recognised qualification to their CV and work on the latest web-related skills such as XHTML design, as well as security and administration aspects of web development.

Maybe the biggest factor in the strong growth of the technical IT training sector in Ireland over the last few years has been the implementation of the FAS Competency Development Programme, which helps businesses meet the costs of training their staff. This typically means that FAS will refund 60 to 70% of the course fees of any recognised course.

2007 will see course providers such as Calyx working proactively with FAS to develop technical IT training programmes which are pre-approved for funding.

“At the moment people have to claim a rebate from FAS after completion of the course, whereas we will be offering the discount up front and they will just have to pay the balance, which makes it even easier for companies to send staff on FAS approved courses this year,” said Glavin.

The availability of funding means that courses which were offered by providers in the last few years are now more popular as the costs have come down so much.

“One area that continues to be very popular is the Microsoft Certified System Administrator and the Microsoft Certified System Engineer tracks – the MCSA and MCSE Certification tracks,” said Delaney. “We have actually seen, even though we have always run these courses over the last few years, that courses are now filling up and we are putting on additional dates to cope with the demand. We would envisage running quite a lot of those in 2007.”

Another trend that course providers are seeing in the market, and expecting to continue in 2007, is that individuals are constantly upskilling and diversifying their skillsbase as their careers progress.

“Employees are very aware of the need to be trained,” said McGinn. “We have a lot of individuals coming to us wanting to become certified, starting out with the A+ technicians course, and then progress on to do the networking, which would be the Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA) and then on to Cisco router courses. So they are going out with that mix of qualifications that allows them to troubleshoot hardware issues, and also to troubleshoot network issues. You need multiple certifications to be taken seriously, the diversity of technology is so vast that is important you have cross platform knowledge and experience.”

Another certification that is in demand is the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL).

“This is a set of best practice standards for IT service management, which has been popular over the last few years but we are seeing an increasing demand for public courses tied into the certification,” said Delaney. “This has been very popular as it is a public domain framework and it is very scalable, so it can be put into practice across a number of organisations and they can also be adapted according to each individual organisation’s needs.”

2007 is unlikely to be the year when e-learning really takes off. While many course providers offer e-learning options and incorporate e-learning aspects into their programmes through blended solutions, we will have to wait for most of the more adventurous predictions about the emergence of the virtual classroom to be realised.

Where we will see a certain amount of e-learning in 2007 is as a complimentary add-on to existing classroom based or on-site training programmes.

“We offer customers e-learning as part of the overall package. As soon as somebody books a course we give them access to the online portal and they can go and have a look at the course content, do some pre-course assessment etc, so that when he comes into the course he is well prepared and gets more out of it and similarly then for three months after the course they have access to extra resources as well, for instance allowing revision for an exam. Definitely e-learning is complimentary to the training, but it doesn’t replace it,” said Glavin.

Looking on down the line to 2008 and further, it is safe to predict many more advances and developments in technical IT training courses and solutions. Irish course providers are keen to keep abreast of international trends and are constantly looking to ensure their programes stay bang up to date.

“New technology is really what we are looking at. We are looking to find leading edge technology which is close to the market and might be emerging in the UK or American market, but maybe a year away, and we adopt it into the Irish market and provide training.,” said Fitzpatrick.

IT is never going to stand still, and professionals working in the sector have to make sure they keep up with the latest developments in today´s knowledge economy. Irish IT training providers are working hard to put in place programmes for 2007 to meet this demand and ensure that Ireland continues to play a leading role in the global IT industry. Observers of the sector expect continued support from government and industry leaders.

“The government recognise the importance of training of high skill workers and ensuring that productivity remains high to keep the Irish IT sector competitive, because otherwise Ireland will become less attractive as a location for investment,” said Glavin.