Category: Featured

Apr 12th

5 Skills Learners Master with CompTIA Security+

CompTIA Security+ is a global certification that validates the baseline skills necessary to perform core security functions and pursue an IT security career. Here are 5 skills that learners will master with CompTIA Security+ certification.

#1 ATTACKS, THREATS & VULNERABILITIES

Includes updated coverage of the latest threats, attacks, and vulnerabilities, such as IoT device weaknesses, newer DDoS attacks, and social engineering techniques based on current events.

#2 ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN

Includes coverage of enterprise environments and reliance on the cloud, which is growing quickly as organizations transition to hybrid networks.

#3 IMPLEMENTATION

Has been expanded to focus on administering identity, access management, PKI, basic cryptography, wireless, and end-to-end security.

#4 OPERATIONS & INCIDENT RESPONSE

Includes organizational security assessment and incident response procedures, such as basic threat detection, risk mitigation techniques, security controls, and basic digital forensics.

#5 GOVERNANCE, RISK & COMPLIANCE

Expanded to support organizational risk management and compliance to regulations, such as PCI-DSS, SOX, HIPAA, GDPR, FISMA, NIST, and CCPA.

Get in touch with us!
Questions about Security+ or any other training?  Call (614) 481-4345 or e-mail info@babsim.com.

Source: comptia.org/security

Apr 8th

Cloud Computing – A Beginner’s Guide

What is Cloud Computing?

Simply put, cloud computing is the delivery of computing services—including servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence—over the Internet (“the cloud”) to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale. You typically pay only for cloud services you use, helping you lower your operating costs, run your infrastructure more efficiently, and scale as your business needs change.

Benefits of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a big shift from the traditional way businesses think about IT resources. Here are seven common reasons organizations are turning to cloud computing services:

Types of Cloud Computing

Not all clouds are the same and not one type of cloud computing is right for everyone. Several different models, types, and services have evolved to help offer the right solution for your needs.

First, you need to determine the type of cloud deployment, or cloud computing architecture, that your cloud services will be implemented on. There are three different ways to deploy cloud services: on a public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud.

Public Cloud

Public clouds are owned and operated by a third-party cloud service providers, which deliver their computing resources, like servers and storage, over the Internet. Microsoft Azure is an example of a public cloud. With a public cloud, all hardware, software, and other supporting infrastructure is owned and managed by the cloud provider. You access these services and manage your account using a web browser.

Private Cloud

A private cloud refers to cloud computing resources used exclusively by a single business or organization. A private cloud can be physically located on the company’s on-site datacenter. Some companies also pay third-party service providers to host their private cloud. A private cloud is one in which the services and infrastructure are maintained on a private network.

Hybrid Cloud

Hybrid clouds combine public and private clouds, bound together by technology that allows data and applications to be shared between them. By allowing data and applications to move between private and public clouds, a hybrid cloud gives your business greater flexibility, more deployment options, and helps optimize your existing infrastructure, security, and compliance.

Get in touch with us!
Questions about Cloud Computing or any other training?  Call (614) 481-4345 or e-mail info@babsim.com.

Apr 1st

The 7 ITIL Guiding Principles

The ITIL® Guiding Principles are recommendations that guide an organization in all circumstances, regardless of changes in its goals, strategies, type of work, or management structure. They interact and depend upon each other. Not all principles will be critical in every situation, but they should all be reviewed on each occasion to determine how appropriate they are.

The ITIL® Guiding Principles
1. Focus on Value
2. Start Where You Are
3. Progress Iteratively with Feedback
4. Collaborate and Promote Visibility
5. Think and Work Holistically
6. Keep IT Simple and Practical
7. Optimize and Automate

#1 – Focus on Value

This guiding principle when applied effectively will enable an organization to identify and stay focused on what is truly valuable to the customer. And like in the service definition, when part of your culture, it can reduce the chaos and keep staff focused on value and help them to understand how what they do contributes to the co-creation of value. A service is a means of enabling value co-creation.

• First Step: Know who is being served
  • Who the consumer is and who the key stakeholders are
• Next: Understand what is truly of value to consumer
  • Focus on overall Customer Experience (CX) and User Experience (UX)

 #2 – Start Where You Are

This principle will help an organization get the most out of what they already have in terms of all their assets. It helps to eliminate waste and organize what you already have. It works closely with the Optimize and Automate guiding principle.

• Consider what is already available to be leveraged
  • Avoid temptation to begin totally anew
• Assess where you are
  • Measure—direct observation is always preferred method
• Apply the principle
  • Have a proper understanding of the current state of services and methods

 #3 – Progress Iteratively with Feedback

This incorporates DevOps and Agile practices and enables your organization to produce products and services consumers need more quickly and with less errors. It supports organizations that have a bit of a risk appetite.

• Resist the temptation to do everything at once
• Each iteration should be both manageable and managed
• Continually re-evaluate
  • Revise to reflect any changes in circumstances
• Seek and use Feedback
  • Before each iteration
  • During each iteration
  • After each iteration
  • Analyze feedback to identify improvement opportunities, risks, and issues

 #4 – Collaborate and Promote Visibility

This guiding principle helps to create and maintain a safe environment where staff and consumers are enabled to be open and honest. They can be when all are focused on the same goals and objectives and have the mindset of value co-creation as in the definition of a service. It helps to break down barriers between staff and customers.

• Inclusion is generally a better policy that exclusion
  • Creative solutions and important perspectives can be obtained from unexpected sources
• Engage stakeholders
  • Maintain solid communication and visibility
• Isolated work creates Silos
  • Silos can prevent information sharing
  • Assumptions and rumors can prevail
  • Note: Frameworks such as Agile and Lean require collaboration

#5 – Think and Work Holistically

This principle recognizes the complexity of systems and how holistic thinking ensures you’re not missing something in the co-creation of value for the customer. It can, for example, expidite the handling of problems… especially the more complex and impactful ones

• Taking a holistic approach to service management includes establishing an understanding of how all the parts of an organization work together in an integrated way
• All the organization’s activities should be focused on the delivery of value
• Integrated methods should be used to handle activities as a whole

#6 – Keep IT Simple and Practical

This helps organizations to reduce and minimize waste. This is a significant challenge for most organizations. It applies to just about everything in the service value system. Especially to value streams and processes.

Cloud services help with this. You can use only what you need

• Always use the minimum number of steps needed to accomplish an objective
• Use Outcome-based thinking to produce practical solutions
• If something provides no value, eliminate it
• Always ask if what is being considered contributes to value creation
• Create and use rules to handle exceptions
  • Designers need to think about exceptions, but they cannot handle them all

#7 – Optimize and Automate

This applies to the Service Desk in handling incidents and requests. For example, Automation helps to get the most of a service desk. Some incidents can be handled directly by the users with proper automation and the same for service requests.

• Use technology to scale up and take on frequent and repetitive tasks
• Before automating, optimize to whatever level is possible and reasonable
  • Optimization is the means to make something as effective and useful as it needs to be

Automation can save the organization in the following:

• • • Lowered Costs
    • Reduced human error
    • Improved employee experience

Ready to learn more about ITIL4? Give us a call at 614-481-4345 or email info@babsim.com.

Mar 25th

Microsoft Identity and Access Administrator

Microsoft is launching a new portfolio of security training and certifications! Today we are going to introduce you to the next offering.

SC-300: Microsoft Identity and Access Administrator
Do you design, implement, and operate an organization’s identity and access management systems by using Azure AD? Do you manage tasks such as providing secure authentication and authorization access to enterprise applications? Do you troubleshoot, monitor, and report the identity and access environment? If so, you are the right person to be taking the new Microsoft Identity and Access training and exam.

Learn more about the training HERE.

Learn more about the exam HERE.

Stay tuned for information on Microsoft Information Protection Administrator certification training.

Mar 22nd

Microsoft Security Operations Analyst

Microsoft is launching a new portfolio of security training and certifications! Today we are going to introduce you to the next offering.

SC-200: Microsoft Security Operations Analyst
Do you collaborate with organizational stakeholders to secure information technology systems for the organization and reduce organizational risk by rapidly remediating active attacks in the environment? Do you advise on improvements to threat protection practices and refer violations of organizational policies to appropriate stakeholders? Do you investigate, respond to, and hunt for threats using Microsoft Azure Sentinel, Azure Defender, Microsoft 365 Defender, and third-party security products? Welcome to the world of Security Operations Analyst. 
Learn more about the training HERE.

Learn more about the exam HERE.

Stay tuned for information on Microsoft Identity and Access Administrator certification training.

Mar 15th

Microsoft Security, Compliance, and Identity Fundamentals

Microsoft is launching a new portfolio of security training and certifications! Today we are going to introduce you to the first offering.

SC-900: Microsoft Security, Compliance, and Identity Fundamentals
Are you looking to familiarize yourself with the fundamentals of security, compliance, and identity (SCI) across cloud-based and related Microsoft services and demonstrate to others that you have that knowledge? Be one of the first to do just that by taking the new Microsoft Security Fundamentals training and exam

Learn more about the training HERE.

Learn more about the exam HERE.

Stay tuned for information on Microsoft Security Operations Analyst certification training.

Mar 8th

Microsoft Certified: Power Platform Fundamentals

If you’re a student, business user, or beginning technical professional, this certification can accelerate your progress and give your career a boost, as you use your Microsoft Power Platform skills to improve your team’s productivity. No experience is necessary to train for it—just basic familiarity with computer technology, data analytics, cloud computing, and the internet. Think of a fundamentals certification as the first step in growing your skill set and advancing to other certifications, such as Microsoft Power Platform Functional Consultant.

The Microsoft Power Platform Fundamentals certification could be a great fit for you, if you’d like to:

• Build solutions with Microsoft Power Platform.
• Automate basic business processes with Power Automate.
• Perform data analysis with Power BI.
• Create simple Power Apps experiences.
• Build practical chatbots with Power Virtual Agents.

This certification has no prerequisites. However, if you’d like to gain some more experience, you could:

• Shadow a person on your team who works with Microsoft Power Platform.
• Explore available learning paths on Microsoft Learn.
• Sign up for an instructor-led training course.

Learn more about the instructor-led training course HERE.

Questions about Power Platform – Get in touch!

Mar 1st

Deadline for ALL Microsoft SATV Training Vouchers June 30, 2021!

Don’t wait and risk losing this training opportunity!
SATV (Microsoft Software Assurance Vouchers) – these MUST be created/assigned by June 30, 2021 or you will no longer have access to them. Babbage Simmel will be happy to assist. Call us today at 614-481-4345 and we will help schedule your classes in time.

What training can I take with my Microsoft training vouchers?
Select from training in Windows 10, Microsoft Office, SQL Server, SharePoint, and other Microsoft technologies.

How do I get Microsoft training vouchers?
You probably have Microsoft training vouchers available to you now and don’t know it! SATVs are bundled in with Microsoft technology purchases. Check with the person at your organization in charge of training or software acquisition to see if you have Microsoft training vouchers available

Why Redeem Your Microsoft training vouchers with Babbage Simmel?
They can only be redeemed for MOC with an authorized Microsoft Partner like Babbage Simmel. Enjoy a seamless registration process with Babbage Simmel, your one-stop partner for all of your learning and development training.

How do I redeem my Microsoft training vouchers?
Simply provide your Microsoft SATV voucher number, company email address, and voucher expiration date to us and we will do the rest!

Other questions?
Give us a call at 614-481-4345 or email info@babsim.com.

Dec 11th

The PMP Exam is Changing

While the current PMP exam content focuses on five domains as the stages of the project lifecycle, the new PMP exam content will be based on the following three domains:

1. People          2. Process          3. Business Environment

Based on PMI’s research of current project management jobs that today’s project management practitioners work, they found that project managers work in a variety of project environments and utilize different project approaches. Accordingly, the PMP certification will be reflective of this and will incorporate approaches across the value delivery spectrum.

The exam will split equally between traditional, predictive project management (as per the PMBOK Guide) and Agile or hybrid approaches (set out in the Agile Practice Guide). And predictive, agile, and hybrid approaches will feature in questions across all domains and tasks. PMI is clear that the future is as agile as it is planned, and that its exam must balance the two approaches equally, as will its PMPs. The following figure shows the percentage of each domain on the PMP exam.

Click HERE to learn more about the PMP Exam Updates.

How to Train for the Updated PMP Exam
Babbage Simmel offers instructor-led training that aids students in their preparation for the Project Management Professional certification exam. The completion of this course provides students with 35 contact hours of formal education as mandated by the training requirement for the PMP exam application.

Learn more here PMI Authorized PMP Exam Prep

Oct 21st

Why DevOps

DevOps is a combination of people, process, tools, vendors, and partners.

DevOps is AGILITY, RELIABILITY, SCALABILITY, SUSTAINABILITY, and REPRODUCIBILITY.  

It focuses on the following:

• Knowledge sharing
• Automation
• Collaborative culture
• Time to market & value

DevOps is also an organizational culture for application development and maintenance success.  It encompasses technology and process.  It encourages transparency and candid communication between software developers and IT operations and administration to increase the agility with which applications are delivered.

By automating, monitoring, and measuring the production of code through develop, release, test, and maintenance, the process becomes more sustainable, scalable, and repeatable.

Optimally, all manual tasks are eliminated reducing the potential for human error and making delivery and roll-back less error prone.

Why DevOps

Rapidly deliver reliable, scalable micro and macro services that are critical for the business time to market and value.

Brings teams together

Technical benefits include:

• Continuous delivery
• Reduction in component complexity
• Agility in problem resolution

Business benefits include:

• Agility in the delivery of business benefit
• Increased stability
• More focus on competitive advantage, rather than “keeping the lights on”.

Want to learn more about DevOps?

Join us for the upcoming complimentary webinar on DevOps Continuous Testing Foundation (CTF) Certification Overview.

Questions about DevOps?  Get in touch!