IT Service Management and DevOps courses

What is ITSM and how do you get a certification?

IT service management is the key that unlocks the value from your IT investments.

Most organisations today rely upon IT to enable them to achieve their company vision, business strategy and goals.

According to Axelos, organisations use IT to:

• Revolutionise the way they operate, communicate and do business

• Develop and innovate, gain market advantage and differentiate themselves in the eyes of their end customers

• Drive increased productivity and efficiency, improve business processes, make cost savings and increase sales and growth

• Communicate with a larger, more global marketplace
  

The quality of an organisation’s IT is reflected in its reputation and brand, and has direct impact upon sales and revenue. The cost of IT is never insignificant – it is essential to get good value from IT investments, but often this value is not realised.

For an IT investment to provide benefit, the resulting IT service must be well planned, well designed, well managed and well delivered.

That is what the practice of IT service management is about.

IT service management is:

• The professional practice of planning, designing, developing, delivering and optimising IT services that are both fit for purpose and fit for use, thereby providing the best value and return on investment for the organization that uses them

• A specialised discipline, which includes the processes, methods, activities, functions and roles that a service provider needs in order to deliver IT services that provide business value for customers

• A growing profession of people, skilled and committed to delivering high-quality IT services which bring measurable value for businesses
  

Good IT service management is essential to achieving business benefits from IT at an agreed and controlled cost. Without good IT service management, it is common for IT projects to fail or go well over budget at project stage, for ongoing IT costs of ownership to spiral out of control, and for businesses to fail to achieve the benefits they expected.

Good IT service management is the key that unlocks the value from your IT investments.

IT Service Management (ITSM) certifications are for professionals looking to improve information systems processes, minimising disruptions to the business and delivering further customer value.

To attain the ITSM certification, candidates need to ensure that they get the proper IT service management course to enable them to confidently handle the examination.

ITSM courses run from three to five days. But some people do self-paced study for up to six months before taking their exam.

When booking a course, you also factor in the IT Service Management (ITSM) Tools you use in your consultancy projects or within your organisation. ITSM tools enable IT operations groups, specifically infrastructure and operations (I&O) managers, to better support the production environment. They support in facilitating the tasks and workflows associated with the management and delivery of quality IT services.

What is ITIL and what are its benefits?

ITIL is the most widely adopted guidance for IT service management worldwide. It is non-proprietary best practice that can be adapted for use in all business and organisational environments.

ITIL was created by experts who incorporated the learning experiences and practices of leading organisations, 'best-in class' practitioners and IT service providers from around the world. Since its introduction in the 1980s, ITIL has proved itself through the positive impact it has brought to businesses that adopt its practices.

ITIL provides an extensive body of knowledge, capabilities and skills. It is accessible through publications, training, qualifications and support tools, and is available in many languages.

ITIL’s value proposition centres on the IT service provider (internal IT department or external supplier) understanding a customer’s business objectives and priorities, and the role that IT services play in enabling these objectives to be met. ITIL adopts a ‘lifecycle’ approach to IT services, focusing on practices for service strategy, service design, service transition, service operation and continual service improvement.

From a business perspective, the adoption of ITIL practices by IT service providers – whether in-house providers or external suppliers – ensures many benefits, including:

• IT services that align better with business priorities and objectives, meaning that the business achieves more in terms of its strategic objectives

• Known and manageable IT costs, ensuring the business better plan its finances

• Increased business productivity, efficiency and effectiveness, because IT services are more reliable and work better for the business users

• Financial savings from improved resource management and reduced rework

• More effective change management, enabling the business to keep pace with change and drive business change to its advantage

• Improved user and customer satisfaction with IT

• Improved end-customer perception and brand image

When it comes to which ITIL certification is best, our trainers see this as a pathway beginning with the ITIL Foundation certification. From there, you can take the intermediate ITIL courses depending on your role in order to get the Managing Professional Certification. Finally, the ITIL Master is the highest level of ITIL certification.

What is DevOps and what are the best courses?

DevOps is a portmanteau or a combination of the two words “development” and “operations”. The latter is an umbrella term that describes the operation of a team collaborating throughout an entire programming production process - from the design through the development stages.

Now more than ever, organisations need DevOps professionals with validated skills and knowledge to support their digital transformation. The DevOps Institute has identified nine core competencies:

• DevOps Foundation

• DevOps Engineering

• DevSecOps

• Agile Service Management

• Value Stream Management

• Continuous Testing

• Continuous Delivery

• DevOps Leader

• Site Reliability Engineering
  

There are also eleven DevOps certifications to help advance your career and grow professionally:

• DevOps Foundation

• DevOps Engineering Foundation

• DevSecOps Foundation

• DevSecOps Practitioner

• Certified Agile Service Manager

• Value Stream Management Foundation

• Continuous Testing Foundation

• Continuous Delivery Ecosystem Foundation

• DevOps Leader

• Site Reliability Engineering Foundation

• Site Reliability Engineering Practitioner

DevOps certification is a formalised testing program aimed at making sure that professionals have achieved the level of skills and knowledge required for performing well in the convergence of software development and IT operations. Because of this, taking a DevOps course and pursuing a career here requires a knowledge of coding and programming languages.

To prepare for a DevOps certification, you need to understand the principles and practices of infrastructure automation and infrastructure as code. This is usually achieved with a combination of work experience and sitting a DevOps Course. You also need to be able to identify and explain the core roles and responsibilities of a DevOps practice. Once you have accomplished those, you can prepare to sit for the DevOps institute Foundation certification exam after completing the course and assessment exam.

DevOps Courses usually run for two full days. Although Lumify Work offers self-paced courses that you can take. Learning DevOps fully can take up to six months. This includes sitting a course, exploring the different tools e.g. learning DevOps on AWS or Microsoft Azure and applying what you learned to different projects until grow to be confident in all the basics.

To maintain the highest quality learning for the professional community, DevOps Institute Certifications expire two years from the date of completion. Members can maintain their certification by participating in the Continuing Education Program and earning Continuing Education Units through participation in learning opportunities.