Discussion on:

The 10 best IT certifications: 2012

Here is the issue with those certs. Money. Most of those certs are not cheap. Microsoft Certs can be expensive to get depending on which you want. While the article mentions Windows Server, there is also certs on others like SharePoint and Exchange.

Cisco is cheap if you go through the academy, but if you don't it can easily cost you close to $1000 for the test and study materials.

As a person who has their VCP, I will tell you that I will never go after that certification again. The cost for the courses ($6000 per course), study materials, and test cost me just as much as a bachelors degree from my local university.

The same thing goes for the PMP (PMBOK). While in the military you read the PMBOK, getting the cert is nothing but difficult and expensive.

From that list the only ones that are considered inexpensive are the A+/N+ certs but if your looking for anything higher than Help Desk then those certs are considered useless.

So many different certifications, so little time to study for them all. When you look at job descriptions posted by employers it seems they want someone who knows everything, AD, LDAP, DNS, Exchange, SharePoint, Server 2008, SQL, Linux to name a few. And yet they are not wiling to pay decent wages for all this "expert knowledge". Many companies are still running Server 2003. And now Microsoft is confusing everyone by changing the meaning of some of their certifications. For example, MCSA (Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate from MS Systems Administrator), MCSE (Systems Engineer to Solutions Expert). I have both CompTIA Network+ & A+ and also MCP, MCSA 2003, and am studying for Security+. Next after that I would like to get the CCNA from Cisco. Then maybe go back and get Linux+? But I also want to learn more about Exchange and SharePoint.

As my heading says - your list is Bollocks.
Would love to see where the actual facts and numbers were gleaned from?
And who sponsored that information gathering?
Or is this merely your private opinion?
Regards

Just because you have a drivers licence doesn't mean your a good driver. In my experience, a solid history in any role will look better then any peice of paper.

I am a windows developer by profession, like most of you out there. As all of you know, completion of a project requires a lot of leg-work to be done like creating professional looking UI, creating the ORM layer, etc. Doing leg-work doesn't sound like a problem, but doing the same work again and again for different projects is a problem because you always missout certain aspects. As Larry Wall once said - "The three chief virtues of a programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris."

I was lookin for a job change, found this company (Incognito Technologies Pvt Ltd), met Adi, he told me about the platform (Appfloat) they were using for software development. All these problems were fixed up as Appfloat generates applications with a built in ORM, caching service, access rights manager, auditing module, professional looking UI and many more desired features to deliver a polished LOB application in much less time as Appfloat handles all the leg-work which a developer has to do. The code generated by Appfloat platform is also well structured and has a high mentainability index. So we thaught, lets ease life of other developers out there and make Appfloat usable for general public. We came up with a cross platform solution, the datastory builder (runs over Mac and Windows in browser): tool for designing datastories (basically a datamodel constrained to Appfloat rules), managing projects, generating and downloading source code and executables. Source is always there to etend and modify generated application. Now it is easy for me to design my application datamodel and hit generate button, and Appfloat generates everything for me, source, executbles just in a couple of minutes. Thats whai i was looking for, so you people, developers like me, may also ease your lives with Appfloat.

Now let me tell you some cool features, it will start making sence and you will know, why shall you start using Appfloat.


Build cloud based applications: Cloud based software applications reduces your hardware, networking management and overall IT expenses. In addition, with cloud computing, you pay for what you use. You can scale as and when you need rather than having to invest upfront. Moreover, users can access the application from wherever. With Appfloat you have the option to build such cloud based applications without getting too technical.
Reduce development time: Coding can be a lonely and boring job, especially if it involves writing
similar code segments repeatedly. To keep your talented developers motivated by reducing repetitive tasks as Appfloat automatically produces all the repetitive code blocks your applications will ever need. Rushed software development usually leads to defective products as people start cutting corners. This will leave enough slack in the schedule.
Design professional applications: Appfloat intelligently designs the user interfaces, drastically reducing the number of errors and their related costs. If users find a software application usable, then the possibility that they use the application again improves drastically. Many support calls and more expensive support consequences (such as application failures) are caused because of inadequate usability design.
Increase after-sales support: Often it is not the initial development of the software that is difficult. It is much trickier to keep up with their changing and make appropriate changes in your software application. With high attrition rate in the software industry this is scary, as once the software is built it is generally best supported only by the developers that built it in the first place.

Knowledge transfer to avoid after sales problems is very time consuming and expensive. With Appfloat you can get the flexibility and code separation from business logic to make sure you can give your customers unparalleled after sales support.
Build on top of a solid foundation: Poka-Yoke is application of a Japanese manufacturing technique to software development Software. Applications built using Appfloat employ the Poka-Yoke design. Poka-Yoke (mistake-proofing) is a design approach which seeks to prevent problems by making applications less prone to miscoding.
Increase profitability: A professional looking, bug-free and robust application with advanced features which is supportable results in easier sales cycle. Appfloat also makes it possible to develop such applications atlas 5x faster reducing development costs significantly. All this along with a great after-sales-support will no doubt result in increased sales and profitability for your organization.
Keyboard based navigation: In a business environment the software users can reach speeds of more than 100 words a minute. Therefore, if the entire software can be used without touching the mouse the speed of data entry can be increased phenomenally. Certain keys are configured to perform specific repeated tasks using Appfloat built software. Such shortcut keys allow users to perform useful functions. This enables users to use the software with much more ease than using the mouse to navigate through menus and click icons.
Declarative business logic: Declarative Business Logic separates the business definition from its code counterpart, making the business application survive beyond current technologies. This provides more freedom for customers. Moreover, you can keep up-to-date with the changing needs of the business your application is supporting and provide with better after-sales support.
Completely customisable: Once Appfloat framework generates the application, developers can download the source code and extend the applications much as they need to in order to fulfil the business requirements. All code written is very clearly formatted, easy to understand and extend. Developers can also utilize extensive library of videos that will explain the source code and help them in customization. Once all necessary reports and customizations have been implemented the application can be deployed for the end-users to use.
Multiple themes: Developers can customize the look and feel of the application by changing the themes by either selecting the available themes in the Appfloat applications or by specifying individual colours. This way they can offer aesthetically pleasing applications to their customers as per their liking.
Audit trail: Audit trails are useful both for maintaining security and recovering lost transactions. It serves as electronic evidence that can be used to trace transactions and verify their validity and accuracy. Applications generated using Appfloat platform comes with an in-built audit trail feature that can be filtered by User, Module, Action Type and Dates. This can be used further to generate advanced Audit Reports for compliance.
User access rights: Developers and application administrators of Appfloat based applications can configure multiple levels of security for their users. They can give as much or as little access to each user for each module. The modules for which users do not have "no rights" will not appear in the application. This means the sections and menus auto-configure based on access rights of the users.
Excel import & export: Data migration is a key element to consider when adopting any new system. Although migrating data can be a fairly time-consuming process, the benefits can be worth the cost and might mean "live or die" for your application. Additionally, old applications need not be maintained if all legacy data is ported. Appfloat generated applications have Excel Import feature built into them which can be used to put data in exported templates and imported back into the new application. This can save hundreds of data-entry hours for your end users.

Almost all data that you see on your application can be filtered and exported to Excel as well. You can therefore leverage a familiar, powerful tool to analyse and report on your results.
Workflow: Workflows in Appfloat based applications enable end-users to reduce the amount of unnecessary interactions between people as they perform business processes.
For example, to reach a decision, groups typically follow a series of steps, representing a business process. The number of human interactions that occur in business processes can inhibit speed and the quality of decisions.

Our in-built workflow simplifies and manages this "human workflow" enabling automation of interactions among users who participate in the process.
This results in more speed, overall effectiveness of the interactions, and often a reduction in errors. All workflow actions like Submitting a record
creation or updation for Approval, Approving a Request or Rejecting one are also maintained in the Audit. Requests pending approval for a long time, can also be Escalated.
Powerful search: Search is a core component of the Appfloat based applications, providing powerful search functionality. All modules have a Search-grid at the bottom which helps users type regular text in the search box and perform search across all records in the module. Moreover, users can search based on Exact or Partial Match on All or Specific columns of the grid. We know that empowering the end-users to quickly and easily find the specific information they need, when they need it, is one of the most critical benefits provided by any application.
Repository: Appfloat based applications have a file repository in-built using which users can stores documents against records of specific modules. This repository feature can be turned on for specific users of the applications for specific modules by the developers very easily. While a repository may sound like an upgraded file system, it is much more. The entire lifecycle of your documents can be managed with a good document repository system in place. Benefits of document repository are access control, improved document search and compliance.
Module search: You cannot just easily search for data within modules in Appfloat based applications, you can just as easily search for the modules themselves. This might not sound a lot for smaller applications but for larger applications that have hundreds of modules in them users tend to forget the module location i.e. under which menu and sub-menu does the module appear. With module search you can easily search for the
modules using "partial text" search.
Favourites menu:Users of Appfloat based applications can also mark the modules they work on as favourites.
When marking "favourite" the module can also be given a friendly name for the user to remember.
The marked modules now will also appear on the "Favourites" Menu for easy access.
Package and publish to third party: Once your application is completely built it can be published for third
party use using our App Gallery.
You can configure the payment details as well so
that your clients can use Appfloat's App Gallery to purchase your
application license.
We will credit your account after deducting the
App Gallery hosting charges when we receive the payments from your
clients.
Users will be able to write comments about your
applications as well as rate them on our App Gallery.
Pay as-you-go pricing: Appfloat gives you a pay-as-you-go pricing option where you pay monthly
on a usage basis and can create unlimited applications with unlimited
users.
We also work with our customers to co-create
innovative pricing models to accommodate large user base and help them
offer a strong value proposition to the end user.
With us you have the ability to start small and
yet dream big without any upfront investments.
Easy billing: In the "My Appfloat" section developers will be able to get the exact
break-down of the hosting charges by Application and their Versions.
This is useful for developers that build
applications for third party as they can use this information to charge
their clients.

Last but not the least, their is also an exception reporting module in the datastory builder which will help you to monitor any exceptions on end-client's machines regarding your application. It provides you with all the necessary details required for debugging as a developer like stack traces, exception details, etc.
So now we have got a couple of reasons to switch to appfloat. Stay tuned and happy coding.

How about Apple certifications? Laugh as much as you want, but Apple is encroaching on Microsoft's territory in terms of sales, with a stable desktop OS and less variations of it across different hardware platforms (as is the case with Windows). Plus, there are no blue screens of death to worry about...

I agree with BlackHawk_EH - Databases? I find that almost all authors' recommendations are strongly influenced by their own particular bent. Many who aren't directly involved in database work have little knowledge of the real demand for certified database professionals. Not even a mention about them is quite curious.

The OCP (Oracle Certified Professional), OCE (Oracle Certified Expert) and many other database credentials from other vendors, are very much in demand. I have four certifications: one Unix and three Oracle Database, including OCP DBA, OCP Advanced PL/SQL Developer and OCE SQL. These certifications, especially the OCPs, were very challenging to achieve made a huge difference once I did.

I once took a course in SQL Server Administration. It was to be the first in a series that would lead to certification. After paying almost $1000 for the Microsoft book and courseware, I was highly disappointed that as the course work became more complicated, the instructions in the book would not work. As most of us were neo-phytes in SQL Server Admin, the instructor, who was certified had to spend about 30 minutes hacking in order to figure out how to get the exercise to work. One of my fellow students who was a newly minted administrator with about 6 months of experience was working under the tutlage and supervision of an Administrator with about 5 years of experence. His comment was that his supervisor had to spend a lot of time hacking and trying to figure things out just as our instructor had. Unless Microsoft's QA has improved, which I seriously doubt, they are selling for primo bucks, training materials that fail to perform as advertised. It seems if IT hiring managers are going to use certifications to discriminate, that the industry is sorely in need of an agency that guarantees that training materials provide training and not just the thousands of dollars necessary to keep Gate's yacht under way or Ellison's figter jet in the air.

Microsoft Azure is a good certification.

Why choose CISSP over CASP? CASPs prerequisites are 10 years experience while cissp recommends 5?

Note that Microsoft is bringing back the "MCSE" moniker, but with a slightly different definition - "Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert" - If you're currently an MCITP on Windows Server 2008, you've been grandfathered into the new program - with just two more exams you can earn the new MCSE: Private Cloud certification.

There's free study guides for the new MCSE Private Cloud exams at http://aka.ms/studyguides. Might be worth a look!

Hope this helps,

Keith

http://KeithMayer.com - IT Pros ROCK!

Where are Java/ J2ee certifications? I don't thing this list achieves anything but misleads the masses...

Certifications only prove one point... under an time pressured/ unrealistic exam condition someone passed the score set by the vendor... What else does it say about the person's ability to really solve problems and get hands dirty?

Very great article, nice certifications to gain to improve knowledge of recent problems within IT, good luck to my fellow techs whose planning on taking either one of them and just be tough...."DANIEL"

Le site du forex c'est http://www.forexgratos.com/.

I think everyone in development should learn this. This will help with doing development right from the beginning and start saving money as well as weekends off with the family.

ITIL v3 certifications are very popular in the federal circuit

I don;t see any mention of CSM, CSPO, CSP or PMI-ACP. Giving how more and more processes are adopting agile - I expected to see atleast a SCRUM certification.

ITIL and CBAP are hot in my country at the moment. I'm surprised these are not on the list.
-Tim

If you haven't included the Cloud Certification, you are missing the hottest trend in the current IT market. Cloud and Big Data are on the top of organizations in 2012 and will get more steam in 2013.

TestOut Corp. new NetworkPro and PCPro certifications are also very good.

I would like to know the must certifications for 3-4 yrs of Dot Net experienced professionals.I am good at coding and developing the systems but want to shape up my career in management/consultancy area.

PMP? Really. My company, the company I own, actively rejects PMI/PMP (PMI Need Not Apply) in favor of senior BA-types with an understanding of how technology works, not how management functions. GE, IBM, MS,... I've been employed by them all and none recognized PMP as a valuable certification. In fact, we work with GE at the highest level and have enjoyed PMP jokes.

How do you spot a good PM? First, that person is probably too busy to spend time/money on a certification I accomplished in a weekend (literally,... a book, a weekend and we both passed the exam - this ain't a Microsoft cert).

Second. Respect and membership. The PM's spreadsheet should have useful artifacts, not mundane milestones (screen names, table design). How about Business Process Identifiers and valuable milestones.

I also pimp out a few dozen developers. Every PMP has "User Screen" on a spreadsheet.

I'll say it again and one day I'll certainly be justified: "PMI Need Not Apply".

I believe the new MCSA and MCSE certifications for Server 2012 will start to be invaluable within the next 1-2 years.

I wonder why ITIL is not listed. I though Information Assurance was a hot item right now.

I realized that Cisco certifications are in very high demand, but Microsoft is still a top player. The newest MCSE (Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert) certifications will cover newer technology like cloud computing and virtualization. It focuses on Microsoft's newest Server operating system. I still believe that when a candidate shows up with an MCSE or MCSA for Windows server 2003, they still grab attention. After all even though the new MCSE is 5 exams, the old MCSE: 2003 was 7 exams and that shows some dedication of an individual who went through those sleep-less nights.

TechRepublic is Microsoft centric i.e Linux is bad for business.

I'm really surprised that VDI is not on the list. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure is going to be a hot ticket occupation with the advent of cloud computing and smart mobile devices.

Not too many VDI "experts" out there. And many will learn how to do VDI the hard way. Big impact to networks/clouds and the Internet. And some applications are not VDI compatible.

Benefits with VDI are improved maintenance, security, collaboration, and backup logistics, and minimal support overhead for nodes.

Cons are big network hit, lost session recovery, and front-end investment costs are very high. Buy in requires new networking hardware infrastructure, middle-ware costs, new node hardware and software licensing costs, and new server and storage investments.

CompTIA is pretty good for beginners who want a break in the IT industry. There's a computer technician training at CareerStep that can be completed in a self-paced program format. I hear that vouchers for the test are included in their program as well.

http://www.careerstep.com/

Reviewing a plethora of certifications now available, I've come to the conclusion the certification area is now a business - a revenue cash grab for these technology companies. How valued are they or relevant they are....constant upgrades to keep you coming back to stay relevant. Sometimes I wish I were in a different industry.

Any IT managers advise in here - I'm up for a promo to IT manager, and looking at the ideal certification to complete next year. Any IT managers in here got a suggestions / advice that combines certification around technology and new management training?

Also - any suggestions for 2013 certs?

I am a current student in the CIS field, and this was a great article for me. It shows me some of the many certifications and also reinforced what some of my professors have said about them. Healthcare is gonna be a hot field, and I was also shocked to learn that the A+ and Net+ aren't that popular. I do agree about Citrix, as our school uses their system in our library and other areas.

What about the Oracle certifications ? There are plenty of it, but is Oracle BI EE a good one, or should one rather go for a non-brand--specific BI cert ?

how about ISTQB certification in the field of testing????

The Google Apps Certification Program is for IT professionals who sell, deploy, administer, and support Google Apps.

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You missed Scrum and Agile certifications. These are gaining wide spread acceptance in the IT industry. These help in getting good jobs and also salary. Scrum certification is offered by SCRUMstudy, ScrumAlliance and Scrum.org. To know more about the Scrum and Agile Certification courses visit: http://www.scrumstudy.com/index.asp

I think this list would be incomplete if Scrum Master Certification is not included. Scrum is the most widely used technique for product development in the IT industry. Almost 80% of the IT companies in the world use Agile out of which 65% follow Scrum.

• http://www.scrum-master.info

has a comparison of various Scrum Master courses.

Appin technology lab , started a new program in the world of ethical hacking. It has started a three year graduation in cyber security. Student after 12th can opt for their career in cyber security. It is a diploma course in information security and ethical hacking. Its the first time in India that a diploma course is provided in Meerut at companys level to have a career in cyber security. APPIN TECHNOLOGY LAB is worlds 5th largest IT Company which is providing this opportunity for 12thies.

Even though Redhat should be a good certification. It is not readily accessible to as many as would love to obtain the certification. At least not to us in Nigeria. And RedHat's contact mails have not been helpful either in providing support and information necessary as to acreditted partners.