Day: August 20, 2014

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Foote Partners: 2014’s Hottest IT Certifications

IT certifications and premium pay

With more than half of 2014 behind us, it’s that time of the year where we look at IT certifications standings in real world IT. The right certifications can help earn tech workers premium pay or land the job they’ve been aspiring to. That’s why knowing what is “hot” with employers is important when considering your professional development.

Every quarter Foote Partners compiles their data in the IT Skills Demand and Pay Trends Report, and they speak with over 2600 employers to bridge the disconnect between job titles, job content and compensation. Read on to find out where the heat is in regards to IT certifications, salaries, and employer needs.

Open Group

“Generally speaking, the market is responding to anything that has to do with architecture,” says David Foote, co-founder, chief analyst and research officer with Foote Partners. These items are in demand, and employers are willing to pay a premium for them. In fact, all three of these IT certifications made it into Foote Partner’s highest paying IT certifications. TOGAF9, for example, has increased 25 percent in the last 6 months.

Amazon Web Services

Amazon is the heavy in the cloud wars right now, and as a result, “skills pay” for these certifications are on the rise. AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional is another new entry to Foote Partners research, and already it’s made the highest paying IT certification list.

“These have just been added to our list. Amazon is hot right now. So many companies have adopted that [Amazon Cloud] solution,” says Foote.

VMware

VMware cloud certifications are all pretty hot right now. Premium pay for VCDX increased 28.6 percent in the last 12 months, while VCP-Cloud also saw a premium pay increase of 12.5 percent over the last year.

While there hasn’t been significant growth over the last year, recipients of the VCAP-CID certification are receiving 8-13 percent of base pay salary as a “skills pay” premium from employers.

Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert: Private Cloud

Microsoft has a lot of muscle in the certification arena, and its flexing it on a big push for Azure. Foote says this certification is something to consider should you find your organization migrating to Hyper-V.

“This certification is being elevated by the push they’re giving to Azure. There’s so much Microsoft out there, and they are migrating to Hyper-V,” says Foote.

PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)

The PMI-ACP tied for number three on the highest paying IT certifications. It’s currently receiving an 11 to 15 percent skills premium pay, and according to Foote’s predictions, that is likely to increase as demand for everything agile increases, not just agile project management. “We will introduce Certified Scrum Master next quarter, and that will be on our hot list for certain because it addresses the demand for agile skills,” says Foote.

Lean SixSigma

Another newcomer to the list of highest paying IT certifications, SixSigma is making its move, and it’s hot according to Foote, who says, “There is no standard certification body for Six Sigma, but instead many certification services are offered by various associations. But that doesn’t negate the fact that it’s a not certification to have.”

Master BlackBelt grew 9.1 percent in value in last 3 months, and the Black Belt gained 12.5 percent in the same period.

EC-Council Computer Hacking Forensic Investigator

It’s no secret as to why the next two certifications have made the list; security is on everyone’s mind these days with each day bringing another news story of a major data breach.

In fact, EC-Council’s Computer Hacking Forensic Investigator certification, a new entry to the highest paying IT certification list, gained an astounding 66.7 percent over the 12 months.

Certified Secure Software Lifecycle Professional (CSSLP)

In 2014, any talk of hot security certifications has to include CSSLP. In the last 3 months, it’s grown 17 percent, and in the last 12 months there has been a 40 percent growth in premium pay. It’s also tied for number two on Foote Partner’s highest paying IT certifications list.

Cloudera Certifications

The Professional: Data Scientist has only been recently included in Foote Partner’s research. In the time they have been tracking this cert, it’s hit the top of the highest paying IT certifications, coming in tied for number 5. “We just added this to our Skills Pay Index because people were asking for it. It includes a pretty tough lab/practicum where you have to really do the stuff, not simply complete a written test,” says Foote.

Number six on the list of highest paying certifications is Certified Developer for Apache Hadoop. Hadoop development and big data are both areas increasing in demand as organizations use them to simplify processes, decrease time to production, and gain a competitive advantage.

Cisco Certified Design Expert (CCDE)

Another data certification, the CCDE is hot according to Foote, but not according to the numbers. It hasn’t made any significant gains over the last 12 months but there is a reason. The CCDE is hot Foote says, “…specifically for companies moving network functions to virtualization, migrating to cloud, doing SDN, etc.”

Highest paying IT certification premiums

For those who are most interested in which IT certifications are paying the most with employers, here’s a comprehensive list. These certifications round out the top three. It’s also worth noting that CWNP, AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional, Cloudera Certified Professional: Data Scientist, EMC Data Science Associate, Certified Computer Examiner, EC-Council Computer Hacking Forensic Investigator, GIAC Certified Penetration Tester, and TOGAF 9 all are new to Foote Partner’s list of highest paying IT certifications for 2014.

[Source: InfoWorld]

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What Heartbleed Taught Us

The year 2014 has been dubbed “The Year of the Cyberattacks” before it even reached the halfway point, with aftershocks fromHeartbleed still being felt weeks later. But did you know that attacks and bugs like Heartbleed are often 100 percent preventable? Simply put, best IT practices can create red flags before damage can be done. But, when humans are involved, laziness and shortcuts can lead to missed security steps. Technology, of course, is programmed and designed by humans, so the possibility forhuman error in technology is everywhere.

And it is not just human fault here, but also the technology. This is a two-pronged fork. According to security expert Richard Kenner, programs should never read from the same place in memory where they were written. That is security safety 101, but that is exactly what happened with Heartbleed. It has already been estimated that millions of dollars are being paid out by enterprises affected by Heartbleed, but what lessons can be learned from this?

Technology: Not as cutting edge as you think
Kenner points out that the programming language involved in Heartbleed is more than 40 years old; and even though new languages have been developed (and are arguably safer), that doesn’t mean they have been adopted. In addition to keeping up with languages and improving upon them, best practices simply were not followed in order to stop Heartbleed. There is technology available that ensures programs meet key properties (like that pesky reading from memory writing issue), but most companies fail to utilize it.

“The program that contained the Heartbleed bug did exactly that and an attempt to prove that it didn’t would have quickly found the bug, as would the use of certain tools that also detect this type of error,” says Kenner.

There are also other best practices, such as ensuring that security services do not transmit private information like passwords, usernames or identifiers. That sounds like a given, but it is (unfortunately) common practice.

Moving forward
Lessons to be learned from Heartbleed include: Creating safer passwords, changing them regularly and only using one password per web site. Additionally, web sites need to make better use of one-time passwords, which can be annoying but can prevent information from being hacked.

I advise using client certificates, even if they are a bother to acquire, because they are proof that you really are who you say you are. Many of these precautions can take a little extra time, and time is notoriously what many professionals do not have.

Perhaps the biggest flaw that led to the Heartbleed outbreak is that only a small handful of executives, far from experts in technology and security, were put in charge. They had full plates, they did not understand what was at stake, and they too easily put this task on the back burner.

When a small group of people assumes someone else is taking care of things that open up a world of vulnerability. It all comes back to proper management at every level and better communication between IT and the rest of the staff to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Larry Alton
Business consultant

[Source: ISACA]

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