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The technology industry has been through some turbulent times recently, quickly expanding from a historical focus on businesses to now touch nearly every facet of our lives. Not a day goes by without a headline centered on technology, whether it’s a positive development like a new product launch or something less happy like another major security breach. Against this backdrop, CompTIA’s 2019 IT Industry Outlook looks at a technology landscape that is rapidly changing but still needs skilled workers. Here are six takeaways from the report that will shape tech careers in the year ahead. System thinking is absolutely critical. The underlying theme of the report is that there is no “next big thing,” no single technology that will change the face of IT. Instead, the trend is toward stackable technology, using different combinations to create a new result. Cloud computing will combine with edge computing and 5G networks to form a new infrastructure for economic activity. IoT and AI will be ...

To streamline the deployment of 5G’s small-cell infrastructure, the FCC has been freeing up spectrum and updating regulations to make them more accommodating to 5G. In November 2018, the FCC made spectrum in the 24 and 28 GHz bands available for private companies and is scheduled to auction off another 24 gigahertz of spectrum in March. The FCC has also been changing existing infrastructure policies that only include provisions for tall, antiquated cell towers rather than the small cell towers needed for 5G. Updating such regulations will allow 5G infrastructure to be deployed more rapidly in urban and rural areas alike. Closing the Digital Divide In addition to faster downloads on your smartphone, 5G will bring high-speed Internet service into the home a hundred times faster than 4G and at minimal costs. Already, Internet Service Providers are offering 5G home Internet options, and the federal government is adopting policies to ensure that rural areas are not excluded from the opport...

Be prepared to address how cybersecurity certifications can improve performance in your current role and address weaknesses in the organization. Extend this analysis to the security team's short-term goals to tell a compelling story. For example, if gaps in your analytical skills are a barrier to using more security metrics, training for cybersecurity certifications and getting certified could teach you how to use tools to better measure risk and performance. Back up your objective ratings with data to successfully make your case. Use tools such as CompTIA CertMaster Practice to assess your knowledge level and identify opportunities for improvement. Objective practice tools like these can also help you figure out how long you will need to prepare for an exam. If you need more guidance on understanding what showing your value means, Ellis breaks this down with a couple of questions you can ask yourself during your internship: What is your professional superpower? What problem are y...

Life can get the best of us all. My wife and I are expecting our fourth child, so it’s impossible to focus on a certification right now. But, thankfully, our family functions as a team. When you are working on a certification, be sure that your life has a support system that will encourage you on your journey. The #LabEveryday Community is a great place to go to find people that will help you get to where you want to be. In 2019 our goal in IT has to be to learn, improve and automate. This goes for IT processes and your career. Whether you are chasing certifications or building your skill set, work to create balance. That will give your career agility and resilience. Will this IT certification improve my skills? Let’s be honest. Some certification exams are a bunch of memorization questions. Once the exam is out of the way, so is the information we obtained. CompTIA performance certifications require you to not only answer questions, but to also demonstrate your skills through perform...

Achieving IT certifications offers a number of benefits, including personal fulfillment, financial growth and a boost in confidence. But most of all, they show employers that you have the ability to focus and learn and that you take your career seriously. So, what does it take to climb the ranks of IT? I spoke with a colleague of mine not too long ago, and he made an interesting point. “If you want to take your career into your own hands, you need a trifecta.” He was referring to these three things: Certifications Experience (Skills) A Degree IoT and Linux Finally, artificial intelligence (AI) is necessary to help automate the many moving pieces of IoT. AI itself is an emerging technology, and many companies are exploring the trend separately as they build out architecture that has AI as part of the stack. Combining IoT and AI might be a little advanced at this point, but CompTIA Linux+ covers scripting, which is the first step toward IT automation. With a broad ecosystem that include...

These strategies for bringing on, cultivating and keeping the right kind of skilled, reliable tech talent are being honed and proven in a tight job market. But these emerging best practices would seem to have value no matter what the labor market looks like – in a year or a decade. As for the technological needs on the horizon, these experts see some definite developments and suggest that to really thrive in 2019 and beyond, tech companies would be wise to keep them in mind. Rockoff notes that businesses will likely be looking for more data-related positions as areas like AI and machine learning continue to take off. For solution providers, bridging the gap between what clients want and what up-and-coming IT talent is interested in offering is crucial. In 2019 and moving forward, that means cybersecurity. “I think companies that offer cybersecurity services are going to be the most attractive and then everybody else has to figure out how to build that cybersecurity toolbox,” Hensley s...

Experts largely agree that automation is an important ingredient for managing cloud services and technology. Typically, this means a battery of pre-defined processes and procedures run according to a well-defined schedule and set of policies. It also means adopting a set of best practices to make sure that you stay on top of resource consumption, errors, alarms and alerts, and compliance matters. Cloud Technology Metrics In planning, designing, implementing – and, of course, managing – cloud technology, metrics are not only important, they can spell the difference between success and failure at many levels. Certain items, including the following, need to be baked into the cloud lifecycle process from initial design to its end: Bandwidth consumption* Application/webpage latency and response time, usage and visitation tracking Uptime and availability percentages Cloud resource consumption: CPU, storage, infrastructure (SDN, NFV and virtualization)* Asterisked items usually provide the b...

When it comes to internships, the purpose is to not only get real-world experience in your desired field, but also to learn how to be on a team and work with others, how to be managed, and most of all, what professionalism looks and feels like. Whether your internship was not what you expected, or was the most rewarding and valuable learning experience, how to close out your time is another stepping stone to becoming a well-rounded, valuable and hireable professional. Here are a few must-dos when you're wrapping up your internship. Tie up loose ends. In other words: Don’t leave your old company hanging with projects and agenda items. Finish up what you can, mark or note where you left off, and type up a status report on where all your projects currently are and probable next steps. Your supervisor may have been actively involved in your work during your internship or left you to your own devices. Either way, sharing the intel (and this includes passwords, file locations, important...

While we just saw how Git can perform version control for your local files and how other users can download (or clone) copies of your Git repos on the same computer or across a network (LAN or Internet). Those users can then create commits periodically after making changes to the files in their cloned repo and push those changes back to your original repo. Any computer running Git can clone a Git repo from any other computer running Git, regardless of the operating system used. There are many free sites you can use to host Git repos online, including GitHub and GitLab. Let’s experiment with this using another user (root) on the same computer – the only requirement is that the other user has read/write access to your repo folder. The following commands run by the root user (the other user) create a cloned copy of the myscripts repo (/home/jason.eckert/myscripts) within the root user’s home directory (/root) using the git clone command: Look back at the output of the git status command...

The pathway is intended to help people get into the field of cybersecurity. IT pros can enter at any point, depending on their IT experience, existing certifications or course of study. There are no required prerequisites for these CompTIA certifications. For example, if you have two years of IT security experience or equivalent knowledge, you might start with CompTIA Security+ to prove your knowledge. If you already have CompTIA Security+, you can move ahead to CompTIA CySA+, CompTIA PenTest+ or CASP+. Find your place on the CompTIA Cybersecurity Career Pathway. Do I need to take these certifications in order? Do I need to take all of them? No. This is a recommended pathway, but it’s not a requirement. It depends on your job needs or interests. In general, the pathway follows a hierarchy of skills needed for IT security; each certification builds upon the skills from the previous one. You can find the recommended level of experience for each certification on the page, Which Certifica...

When I asked her how she avoids the checkbox approach, she said she uses several teams, including penetration testers and cybersecurity analysts quite heavily, to get the most context and perspective possible. This is why she made sure to talk with me about my compliance comments. She loved my presentation about the need for using red teams and blue teams properly because it reflected her need to have proper context and improvement metrics. She was especially interested in my observations about how these teams are context engines that allow organizations and their leaders to create more situational awareness. Even with all the wonderful security controls and technologies, such as security incident and event management (SIEMs), most organizations struggle to create good context and metrics. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had the good fortune to talk a bit more with that compliance officer. I’ve also had some time to really think about what a good compliance officer can do, as long...

Digital partners need to learn from and partner with suppliers on the operational technology (OT) side of IT. These people are often not traditional IT people but come from a background of building maintenance, healthcare, fleet management, etc. The channel community therefore needs to partner with non-traditional IT partners to bridge the gaps. Blockchain is a tool that facilitates “disruption innovation” which, once understood, has almost universal application possibilities, said Neeraj Satija, a co-chair of CompTIA’s Blockchain Advisory Council and CEO/CTO at Concordus Applications, a Roseville, Calif.-based company. Satija realized the implications for blockchain while researching a problem his organization had paying commissions to agents. Namely, the company was issuing a large number of service tickets around commission payments, more than any other area, Satija said. The issue affected employee productivity and impacted the whole business. ANZ is ahead of the game compared to...

Now, some of things that I usually tell students is that the Security+ is a really good certification to get your foot in the door. Now does this mean that every employer is going to require that you have a Security+? No, absolutely not, but there are plenty of them out there that do. Whether you‘re talking about a government position or if you‘re in the military —especially if you‘re in the military — there‘s a [Department of Defense (DoD)] requirement that states that if you work in certain fields of technology, you have to have a Security+. There is no if, and, or but about it. This can certainly help you move up into your career, whether you‘re in the military or whether you work within the government; or if you even work in the private sector. Having a Security+ certification will do nothing but help your career. Why the Security+? Well, you can always start off with the CompTIA A+ and the CompTIA Network+ certification. If you happen to be working in a help desk-type position, s...

Artificial intelligence is poised to be one of the more disruptive technologies of the upcoming decade. But adoption won’t take place overnight. In order to eventually use AI to discover new insights and handle large problems, companies must first build the right processes around this game-changing technology. As a key part of digital strategy, solution providers can help their clients not only implement new AI tools today but also maximize AI operations in the future. To learn more about the state of AI adoption, general perceptions around the concept, current implementation status, and hurdles in the way of future success, download Emerging Business Opportunities in AI. You can also connect with likeminded industry thought leaders who are encouraging the adoption of new and emerging technology in CompTIA’s Emerging Technology Community. Does Making an Impact Matter to You? The study also provides insight into what the youngest tech workers look for in a career – and the answer isn’...

One of the things I typically recommend is learn a programming language. There’s lot of them out there. If you want to start with something simple, maybe look at something like JavaScript or VBScript. Definitely some very good foundations of learning the basics of programming. I happen to be a PHP fan myself. I tend to like writing PHP. But I do also write JavaScript and VBScript and I also teach a VBScript class in addition to a VBA class. So that’s visual basic for applications. If you’ve ever seen kind of the backend interface to Microsoft Excel or Word or PowerPoint, they have this interface that you can actually go in and write code to be able to do all sorts of different things. And that’s where things like macro viruses and those little warnings that pop up if you’ve ever opened a Excel spreadsheet that says, “Beware of a potentially malicious code.” So that’s the type of area that you can go in and actually look at that type of thing as well. Learning a programming language ca...

A mere 19% of IT employees feel highly satisfied with their job, and just 26% believe they have a significant opportunity for professional growth at work, per The State of Employee Engagement in Tech. Pursuing the best IT certifications on the market can be empowering as you are actively creating your own opportunity for professional growth, as well as earning the credentials needed to switch jobs within IT. Gaining CompTIA certifications not only optimizes your IT career by increasing your pay, but also by renewing your excitement about what you do for a living. Small local governments may benefit the most from outsourcing their IT as they are more likely found to be lacking in-house expertise/resources. But one can also argue that some mid to larger jurisdictions may also benefit outsourcing if they too find they do not have the staff leadership and are facing aging equipment replacement. Of course, the theory is that a larger entity that certifies people and equipment -- be it fro...

CompTIA’s Drone Market report reveals that 62% of respondents view drones as a separate solution, and only 33% view drones as a device on a network. Those numbers concern council members, who said any business should look to attach drones to existing IT. “Drones are simply data gathering devices,” Schaefer said. “They are no different than any other data device. Your networks should be leveraging data from drones to make better business decisions.” “At the end of the day, where does any data, pictures, video, sensor-captured information reside? In any business, it resides on a server. Who is responsible for regulatory compliance for that data? The IT department,” Spotted Eagle said. Photos, video or other data can be captured on a thumb drive or in the cloud, which may not be associated as being IT, even though it is. “Drones are part of IoT and if you don’t get that, you need to get educated quickly,” Spotted Eagle said. As with every new and margining technology, it takes time for b...

The report reveals that IT pros are not just looking for one amazing job, but for a sustainable career. They want to live in communities that offer career opportunities and growth. “People without higher-level degrees look more-so for job security,” Carrado said. “It’s very important to them.” Job security even outweighs salary considerations. In the report, 73%of IT pros said job security is very important, followed by salary at 69%. 4. Housing Prices Tech pros are flexible on where they live — 37% have moved for a job and nearly a quarter (26%) said they would consider moving for a new job. Communities hoping to draw in the tech industry should pay attention to how much it costs to buy a house. “The study asked IT pros to select the top things that mattered most from a list of 25 considerations, like lifestyle, environment and amenities,” Carrado said. Affordable housing came out on top over city-wide perks like walkability and public transportation. 5. IT Salaries When it comes to ...

But the thing about those other three certs that I mentioned is that they’re all on the DoD 8570certification list, meaning that they’re approved for you to have those certifications to get a DoD [Department of Defense] clearance job or a security job in the DoD, which goes across not only DoD, but pretty much in the security field period. So with it being a counterpart to the CySA+, I believe this certification will be valuable. Okay, so when we talk about the DoD 8570 and what’s approved for baseline certifications for you to work with in a DoD security environment, there’s a list of CompTIA certifications that are on there. In multiple areas, the Security+ is on this list. The CASP that we mentioned before is on the list. The CySA+ is already on the list. In multiple domains within the DoD, it’s approved. So with those certifications already being approved for DoD, I don’t see a reason why the CompTIA PenTest+ won’t also make it on this list. It just hasn’t been listed publicly yet...