Microsoft ends top Masters certification exams for IT pros

Microsoft plans to retire its Masters level certification exams by Oct. 1 this year, generating strong protests on blogs and community forums from IT professionals.

The Redmond, Washington, software company, however, defended the move, with an executive stating that the Masters program reaches only "a tiny proportion of the overall community," and only a few hundred professionals had bagged the certification in the last few years. The certification was designed so that professionals could aspire to it as the peak of the Microsoft certified program.

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The company said in an email to IT professionals that Microsoft will no longer offer Masters and Architect level training rotations and will be retiring the Masters level certification exams as of Oct. 1.

"The IT industry is changing rapidly and we will continue to evaluate the certification and training needs of the industry to determine if there's a different certification needed for the pinnacle of our program," Microsoft said in an email, reproduced in a blog post on TechNet by Neil Johnson, a Microsoft senior consultant.

The certifications that will be ended are Microsoft Certified Master, Microsoft Certified Solutions Master and Microsoft Certified Architect. These are top certifications for IT professionals working on Microsoft's products.

"As a Microsoft Certified Master, Microsoft Certified Solutions Master, or Microsoft Certified Architect, you have earned one of the highest certifications available through the Microsoft Certification program," Microsoft said in the mail. "Although individuals will no longer be able to earn these certifications, you will continue to hold the credential and you will not be required to recertify your credential in the future."

The criticism from professionals came fast and strong over the weekend. "It is a clear sign of how Microsoft values the skills of on-premises administrators of all its products (because all the MCSM certifications are going away, not just the one for Exchange)," wrote IT professional and author Paul Robichaux in his blog. "If all your messaging, directory, communications, and database services come from the cloud (or so I imagine the thinking goes), you don't need to spend money on advanced certifications for your administrators who work on those technologies," he wrote.

The decision to end the Masters program was a painful one, wrote Tim Sneath, senior director of Microsoft learning at Microsoft. The cost of running the program did not allow scaling further, and the US$20,000 program was limited to English and the U.S., creating non-technical barriers to entry, he wrote. Microsoft has decided to take a pause from offering the program, and see if there is a better way to have a new pinnacle certification, Sneath added.

Microsoft could not be immediately reached for further comment.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com

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Microsoft ends top Masters certification exams for IT pros

IDG News Service - Microsoft plans to retire its Masters level certification exams by Oct. 1 this year, generating strong protests on blogs and community forums from IT professionals.

The Redmond, Washington, software company, however, defended the move, with an executive stating that the Masters program reaches only "a tiny proportion of the overall community," and only a few hundred professionals had bagged the certification in the last few years. The certification was designed so that professionals could aspire to it as the peak of the Microsoft certified program.

The company said in an email to IT professionals that Microsoft will no longer offer Masters and Architect level training rotations and will be retiring the Masters level certification exams as of Oct. 1.

"The IT industry is changing rapidly and we will continue to evaluate the certification and training needs of the industry to determine if there's a different certification needed for the pinnacle of our program," Microsoft said in an email, reproduced in a blog post on TechNet by Neil Johnson, a Microsoft senior consultant.

The certifications that will be ended are Microsoft Certified Master, Microsoft Certified Solutions Master and Microsoft Certified Architect. These are top certifications for IT professionals working on Microsoft's products.

"As a Microsoft Certified Master, Microsoft Certified Solutions Master, or Microsoft Certified Architect, you have earned one of the highest certifications available through the Microsoft Certification program," Microsoft said in the mail. "Although individuals will no longer be able to earn these certifications, you will continue to hold the credential and you will not be required to recertify your credential in the future."

The criticism from professionals came fast and strong over the weekend. "It is a clear sign of how Microsoft values the skills of on-premises administrators of all its products (because all the MCSM certifications are going away, not just the one for Exchange)," wrote IT professional and author Paul Robichaux in his blog. "If all your messaging, directory, communications, and database services come from the cloud (or so I imagine the thinking goes), you don't need to spend money on advanced certifications for your administrators who work on those technologies," he wrote.

The decision to end the Masters program was a painful one, wrote Tim Sneath, senior director of Microsoft learning at Microsoft. The cost of running the program did not allow scaling further, and the US$20,000 program was limited to English and the U.S., creating non-technical barriers to entry, he wrote. Microsoft has decided to take a pause from offering the program, and see if there is a better way to have a new pinnacle certification, Sneath added.

Microsoft could not be immediately reached for further comment.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

View the original article here

Microsoft ends top Masters certification exams for IT pros

Microsoft plans to retire its Masters level certification exams by Oct. 1 this year, generating strong protests on blogs and community forums from IT professionals.

The Redmond, Washington, software company, however, defended the move, with an executive stating that the Masters program reaches only "a tiny proportion of the overall community," and only a few hundred professionals had bagged the certification in the last few years. The certification was designed so that professionals could aspire to it as the peak of the Microsoft certified program.

The company said in an email to IT professionals that Microsoft will no longer offer Masters and Architect level training rotations and will be retiring the Masters level certification exams as of Oct. 1.

"The IT industry is changing rapidly and we will continue to evaluate the certification and training needs of the industry to determine if there's a different certification needed for the pinnacle of our program," Microsoft said in an email, reproduced in a blog post on TechNet by Neil Johnson, a Microsoft senior consultant.

The certifications that will be ended are Microsoft Certified Master, Microsoft Certified Solutions Master and Microsoft Certified Architect. These are top certifications for IT professionals working on Microsoft's products.

"As a Microsoft Certified Master, Microsoft Certified Solutions Master, or Microsoft Certified Architect, you have earned one of the highest certifications available through the Microsoft Certification program," Microsoft said in the mail. "Although individuals will no longer be able to earn these certifications, you will continue to hold the credential and you will not be required to recertify your credential in the future."

The criticism from professionals came fast and strong over the weekend. "It is a clear sign of how Microsoft values the skills of on-premises administrators of all its products (because all the MCSM certifications are going away, not just the one for Exchange)," wrote IT professional and author Paul Robichaux in his blog. "If all your messaging, directory, communications, and database services come from the cloud (or so I imagine the thinking goes), you don't need to spend money on advanced certifications for your administrators who work on those technologies," he wrote.

The decision to end the Masters program was a painful one, wrote Tim Sneath, senior director of Microsoft learning at Microsoft. The cost of running the program did not allow scaling further, and the US$20,000 program was limited to English and the U.S., creating non-technical barriers to entry, he wrote. Microsoft has decided to take a pause from offering the program, and see if there is a better way to have a new pinnacle certification, Sneath added.

Microsoft could not be immediately reached for further comment.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service.
More by John Ribeiro, IDG News Service

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Red Hat unveils new offerings, cloud certification at VMworld

With VMworld 2013 in full swing in San Francisco, Red Hat wasted no time today showing off its upcoming cloud and virtualization offerings. The open source solutions provider unveiled demos of its forthcoming CloudForms 2.1 cloud management technology, a new product designed to integrate Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server, and a new training and certification offering for deploying and managing OpenStack.

"We agree that an all-public cloud isn't the answer, as VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger acknowledges," says Bryan Che, general manager of Red Hat's Cloud Business Unit.

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"This is a conversation Red Hat has been leading for some time now. However, we do not buy into the premise that a private or a hybrid platform based on one vendor's technologies and products is the answer either, says Che That goes against the compelling industry trends of openness and choice that have increasingly put customers in control of their own destinies and strategic direction. Instead, we are focused on delivering what we believe customers really want: an open hybrid cloud."

For that to happen, Che says, a hybrid cloud can't just run on a homogeneous software stack. It needs to work across the enterprise's entire business and IT, spanning Red Hat, Microsoft, VMware and Amazon. That's where OpenStack comes in.

OpenStack is free open source software-actually a series of interrelated open source projects for controlling pools of processing, storage and networking resources through a datacenter-supported by a wide array of vendors, from Red Hat and IBM to Rackspace and HP.

CloudForms is Red Hat's answer to operating and managing an OpenStack environment. Its capabilities include a comprehensive cloud service catalog, chargeback and metering, service orchestration, policy and governance, reporting and forecasting and more. And, as Che notes, it can provide these capabilities from a diverse array of cloud environments-VMware, Red Hat, Amazon-all from a single pane of glass.

"This means, then, that with CloudForms, you can build and manage a hybrid cloud that spans not just Red hat technologies or VMware technologies but a choice and diversity of providers," he says. "And, you can do this all with a unified and interoperable set of tools and interfaces. In an open hybrid cloud, your cloud is not locked into a single vendor or technology stack; rather you can build and manage a cloud that spans all your important assets in an integrated and seamless way."

Red Hat also introduced a new product offering: Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Promotional Offering. It integrates Red Hat's enterprise Linux platform with its virtualization management system for servers and desktops. The Enterprise Virtualization Promotional Offering will be made available as a single subscription offering in fall 2013.

The open source solutions provider also announced its Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), a class and certification intended to ensure that enterprise customers' IT professionals can deploy and manage OpenStack.

Red Hat says the class will cover essential OpenStack skills, including installing and configuring a Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform deployment, configuring and managing images and managing storage using Object Storage (Swift) and Block Storage (Cinder).

"We built the industry's leading Linux certification program by focusing on rigorous, hands-on testing of real-world skills," says Iain Gray, vice president of Global Services at Red Hat.

"Our Red Hat Certified Professionals love this because it is a meaningful test of their skills. IT employers love it because it offers assurance that the certificate holders can apply their skills and knowledge in real-world situations, says Gray. We have applied these same principles to the Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Infrastructure as a Service. Organizations are seeking capable professionals to help bring OpenStack into their IT environments. As with Linux, we expect to set the benchmark for a technology that is rapidly proving to be a game changer in the industry."

Thor Olavsrud covers IT Security, Big Data, Open Source, Microsoft Tools and Servers for CIO.com. Follow Thor on Twitter @ThorOlavsrud. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline, Facebook, Google + and LinkedIn. Email Thor at tolavsrud@cio.com

Read more about certification in CIO's Certification Drilldown.

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