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 29th

CompTIA Security+ 501 vs 601

New CompTIA Security+ (SY0-601) exam launching in November 2020!
CompTIA Security+ addresses the latest cybersecurity trends and techniques – covering the most core technical skills in risk assessment and management, incident response, forensics, enterprise networks, hybrid/cloud operations and security controls, ensuring high performance on the job. Let’s break down some of the highlights.

CompTIA Security+ 501 vs. 601 Exam Domains
The CompTIA Security+ (SY0-601) exam now covers five major domains instead of six, guided by a maturing industry job role.

CompTIA Security+ 601 focuses on the most up-to-date and current skills needed for the following tasks:

• Assess the cybersecurity posture of an enterprise environment
• Recommend and implement appropriate cybersecurity solutions
• Monitor and secure hybrid environments
• Operate with an awareness of applicable laws and policies
• Identify, analyze, and respond to cybersecurity events and incidents

CompTIA Security+ 501 vs. 601 Exam Objectives
Although the exam objectives document is longer, the new exam has fewer objectives. CompTIA Security+ (SY0-601) has 35 exam objectives, compared to 37 on SY0-501. The difference is that the exam objectives for SY0-601 include more examples under each objective – the number of examples increased by about 25%.

This was intentional to help you better understand the meaning of each exam objective. The more examples and details we provide, the more helpful the exam objectives are for IT pros to prepare for their certification exam and the job itself.

But remember, exam objectives are not exhaustive: you may encounter other examples of technologies, processes, or tasks on the exam. The exam questions are not based on these bulleted examples, but on the overarching exam objectives themselves. CompTIA is constantly reviewing exam content and updating questions to ensure relevance and exam integrity.

How to Train for CompTIA Security+
It may seem like CompTIA Security+ covers a lot of ground, but don’t worry, we’ve got you! Babbage Simmel offers training solutions, including study guides, online self-study tools and instructor-led courses, which are designed to cover what you need to know for your CompTIA exam. No other content library covers all exam objectives for all certifications.

CompTIA Security+ Certification Support Skills (Exam SY0-501) – *LAST TIME* 12/7/20
CompTIA Security+ Certification Support Skills (Exam SY0-601) – 1/25, 2/22, 4/5, 5/3

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!

Oct 20th

Cybersecurity Best Practices – Passwords

Managing passwords is the easiest, most impactful thing you can do when it comes to IT security. (And it’s free!)

RESET EVERY 3 MONTHS

• Windows login
• Email/Office 365
• Routers and firewalls
• Other hardware
• Customer relationship management (CRM)
• Marketing automation

PASSWORD MUST-HAVES

• Uppercase and lowercase letters
• Numbers
• Symbols – i.e . !@#$%^&*()

Characteristics of a Strong Password

Long: The longer the password, the harder to crack. While your account may only require 6 to 9 characters, expanding to 12, 16 or more will give you a stronger password.
Passwords to avoid: Superman, Batman, Sunshine, Princess

Not in the dictionary: Avoid single words or common phrases that can be found in the dictionary or vernacular.
Passwords to avoid: 123456789, 111111, Abc123

Character substitutions: Substituting characters for letters is a good practice but think outside of the box. Don’t substitute zero for the letter O and assume you are safe. A better option would be using the ampersand (&) for O.
Passwords to avoid: Football, Baseball, [names of sports teams]

Illogical phrases: While you wouldn’t want to use a common phrase like “ThankYouVeryMuch,” you could string together completely random words like “ThankCheeseBoatsNetwork.”
Passwords to avoid: [personal information], [social media profile content], Iloveyou, welcome

Acronyms and abbreviations: Instead of spelling out words, abbreviate them or replace phrases with acronyms that you can remember. “ThankYouVeryMuch” could become “TkYVreM.” Then add more to it so it’s longer and has a variety of characters.
Passwords to avoid: Qwerty, Password, Password21, Admin

Next Steps for You

Interested in sharpening your Cybersecurity skills, either for upskilling or with the idea of starting a new career? Babbage Simmel’s Comprehensive NIST Cybersecurity Framework (NCSF) Training & CompTIA CySA+ Cybersecurity Analyst Certification Cybersecurity training options will equip you with the skills needed to become an expert in the security field. You will learn comprehensive approaches to protecting your infrastructure, including securing data and information, running risk analysis and mitigation, architecting cloud-based security, achieving compliance and much much more.

Questions about Cybersecurity?  Get in touch!

Oct 19th

ITIL 4 Foundation

As a reminder, attend all classes from home with our
Virtual Classroom Live.