Top 15 highest paying IT certifications

I got directed to this link from Erika Flora's blog, which is based on a ZDNET Tech Republic survey which outlines the top 15 IT certifications you can get right now:

1. PMP (approx. $101k)
2. CAPM
3. ITIL Foundation
4. CISSP
5. CCIE
6. CCVP
7. ITIL Master
8. MSCD
9. CCNP
10. Red Hat Certified Engineer
11. MCITP (Enterprise)
12. CCSP
13. MCAD
14. MCITP (Database)
15. MCDBA (approx. $76K)

One major issue I have with these results is that it lists the CAPM as #2, and from what I understand it has had very little traction and seems unlikely that it would supercede the other certifications. Another minor issue is that the PMP certification is not a IT specific one, as project management can be and is utitilized accross industies and company departments. Otherwise, I would not be surprised to know that PMPs involved in IT get the best pay, since most who get the certification are experienced project managers.

Application of the Cloud

My previous post was on managing projects in the Cloud and though from a business perspective it makes sense to adopt this infrastructure (or rather non-infrastructure or disembodied infrastructure) to contain costs and receive software as a service, one of the main impediments to adopting this wholeheartedly is in my opinion the security concern. Many companies have sensitive data and if an organization is held against measures such as HIPPA, then it is even more imprative to keep you data centers secure.

An article in CIO magazine highlights how Bechtel seems to have found a practical way to adopt clould computing to manage the security concern and in addition, cherry pick the most effective aspects of it from the four current leaders in the cloud, namely Google, Amazon, YouTube and SalesForce.com:

If you could build your IT systems and operation from scratch today, would you recreate what you have? That's the question Geir Ramleth, CIO of construction giant Bechtel, asked himself three years ago.

The question — and the industry benchmarking exercise that followed — prompted Bechtel to transform its IT department and model it after Internet frontrunners Amazon.com, Google, Salesforce.com and YouTube. After all, these companies have exploited the latest in network design and server and storage virtualization to reach new levels of efficiency in their IT operations. Ramleth wanted to mimic these approaches as Bechtel turned itself into a software-as-a-service provider for internal users, subcontractors and business partners.

After researching the Internet's strongest brands, Bechtel scrapped its existing data centers and built three facilities with the latest in server and storage virtualization. Bechtel also designed a Gigabit Ethernet network with hubs at Internet exchange points that it is managing itself instead of using carriers. Now, Bechtel is slashing its portfolio of software applications to simplify operations, as well as the user experience.

Dubbed the Project Services Network, Bechtel's new strategy applies the SaaS computing model internally to provide IT services to 30,000 users, including 20,000 employees and eventually 10,000 subcontractors and other business partners.

We operate "as a service provider to a set of customers that are our own [construction] projects," Ramleth says. "Until we can find business applications and SaaS models for our industry, we will have to do it ourselves, but we would like to operate with the same thinking and operating models as [SaaS providers] do."

This is probably the most practical solution for the current situation and is probably the only viable one for the next 5 to 10 years, until the future state of ubiquitous clould computing can overcome its security, reliability and data ownership issues.

In additon, it was smart for Bechtel to look at the major players out there and adopt the best of what they have a mimic it in their implementation. Google for their server infrastructure, YouTube for the WAN, Amazon for their virtualization, and SalesForce.com for the SaaS application model. But the best take away from this article was the statement by the CIO, that "what we learned is that you have to standardize like crazy and simplify the environment." Simplification and standardization is the key in making this work.

Managing projects in the "Cloud"

The current issue of the Economist has a special report on Corporate IT and the central theme of the articles is the recent rise of cloud computing and its effects on the governance and management of IT initiatives in the corporate world:

Computing is taking on yet another new shape. It is becoming more centralised again as some of the activity moves into data centres. But more importantly, it is turning into what has come to be called a “cloud”, or collections of clouds. Computing power will become more and more disembodied and will be consumed where and when it is needed.

The rise of the cloud is more than just another platform shift that gets geeks excited. It will undoubtedly transform the information technology (IT) industry, but it will also profoundly change the way people work and companies operate. It will allow digital technology to penetrate every nook and cranny of the economy and of society, creating some tricky political problems along the way.

Because of the dot com bubble of the late 90s, I'm very skeptical to even cynical of such hyperbolie, but in this case I think a majority of the hype is justifed. The key term from the quote above is "disembodied", which is a pretty good way of describing the cloud. Terms such as decentralized, fragmented, and dispirate was and is still used to describe the networks which comprise the internet, but a more stronger term such as disembodied would need to be used to describe clould computing as it allows you to grab a software service from a totally abstracted layer that conceals a very complex infrastructure of data centers and virtualized storage technologies.

The image below from Wikipedia provides a pretty simplified pictorial of this architecture:


In addition, it list the key charactersitics of the Cloud:

• Capital expenditure minimized and thus low barrier to entry as infrastructure is owned by the provider and does not need to be purchased for one-time or infrequent intensive computing tasks. Services are typically being available to or specifically targeting retail consumers and small businesses.
• Device and location independence^[25] which enables users to access systems regardless of location or what device they are using (eg PC, mobile).
• Multitenancy enabling sharing of resources (and costs) among a large pool of users, allowing for:
  • Centralization of infrastructure in areas with lower costs (eg real estate, electricity)
  • Peak-load capacity increases (users need not engineer for highest possible load levels)
  • Utilization and efficiency improvements for systems that are often only 10-20% utilized.^[21]
• Performance is monitored and consistent but can be affected by insufficient bandwidth or high network load.
• Reliability by way of multiple redundant sites, which makes it suitable for business continuity and disaster recovery,^[26] however IT and business managers are able to do little when an outage hits them.^[27] Historical data on cloud outages is tracked in the Cloud Computing Incidents Database.^[28]
• Scalability which meets changing user demands (e.g. Flash Crowds) quickly, without having to engineer for peak loads. Massive scalability and large user bases are common but not an absolute requirement.
• Security which typically improves due to centralization of data, increased security-focused resources, etc. but which raises concerns about loss of control over certain sensitive data. Accesses are typically logged but accessing the audit logs themselves can be difficult or impossible.
• Sustainability through improved resource utilisation, more efficient systems and carbon neutrality.^[29]

So from a business point of view, you can view cloud computing as a broad array of web-based services aimed at allowing users to obtain a wide range of functional capabilities on a 'pay-as-you-go' basis that previously required tremendous hardware/software investments and professional skills to acquire. Cloud computing is the realization of the earlier ideals of utility computing without the technical complexities or complicated deployment worries. Therefore, in a nutshell, cloud computing seems to promise limitless computing power and storage space via the internet.

I have no doubt that some day this type of ubiquitous computing availability and services will come about. A tremendous amount has changed since that decade or so when the internet became a truly viable commercial technology. It has no doubt experienced bumps along the way, but there are utility services we enjoy today such as electricity, water and gas that we can acquire without having to think much about it and the downtimes are nearly non-existent, but I'm sure at the beginning had reliability and quality issues.

The Economist articles points out the potential problems to watch for such as reliability, security and ownership of data and information. These are very valid and obvious concerns to me, but one that concerns me the most as person who manages multiple projects that almost always have a IT component to them, is that before cloud computing resolves the common issues of reliability, security, etc. and becomes as ubiquitous and easy to use as utility services, there will be that ramp up curve wherein companies that adopt the cloud and tires to resolve all these issues makes a person like me who has to manage these projects get gravely effected by it.

Furthermore, even without cloud computing, there was a problem of too much software being built and/or purchased by companies looking to automate every process for cost savings or competitive advantage. This came at a very big cost in terms of infrastructure and application investments and caused huge project overruns that delivered applications that brought very little or no value to business. Cloud computing will help with the cost for infrastructure and application implementation, but in many ways the ease with which companies would be able to pick, purchase and use software services will cause more delays and little value, and though cost may be saved in the short run, time will be lost and in business, time is money.

Project managers will have no choice but to adopt a more agile approach, but for many companies such as the one I work for, there is still a need to comply with regulatory agencies such as HIPAA and SOX, which require a process and audit trail to be followed. Its hard enough now to balance these competing needs, I see the adoption of cloud computing with the potential to exacerbate this problem even further.

So while cloud computing promises much, there needs to be a healthy skepticism in one's evaluation of it's benefits.

Oracle acquires Primavera

Ran into this press release from Oracle announcing the acquisition of Primavera, one of the major players in the enterprise PPM solution space:

On October 8, 2008, Oracle announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Primavera Software, Inc., a leading provider of Project Portfolio Management (PPM) solutions for project-intensive industries. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the second half of 2008. Until the deal closes, each company will continue to operate independently.

Primavera offers best-in-class solutions focused on the mission critical PPM requirements of key vertical industries including engineering and construction, public sector, aerospace and defense, utilities, oil and gas, manufacturing and high tech, and IT and services. Primavera helps more than 5,000 global customers and over 2.5 million users propose, prioritize, select, plan, manage, and control complex projects.

Primavera's PPM products, together with Oracle's project financials, human resources, supply chain management, product lifecycle management, business intelligence, and infrastructure software are expected to provide the first, comprehensive Enterprise Project Portfolio Management solution. This solution is expected to help companies optimize resources and the supply chain, reduce costs, manage changes, meet delivery dates, and ultimately make better decisions, all by using real-time data.

This is interesting news to me since I manage a similar PPM product for my company, and it indicates the growth of this enterprise software space and the starting of its consolidation.

Niku was acquired by CA and reanamed CA Clarity, Primavera by Oracle, so the next logical aquisition might be Planview by SAP?

Tech habits of the millennial generation

Came across this interesting post for business technology writer Nicholas Carr, which indicates some interesting statistics on the computing habits of college freshman at Amherst college:

Clive Thompson recently pointed to a post in which Amherst College's IT director provided some stats about the school's new freshman class. The students' tech habits are pretty much what you'd expect - everyone's on Facebook, no one has a landline, laptops have almost entirely supplanted desktops, and the Mac's beating the PC.

What I found most striking, though, were the stats on email. About 180,000 emails are received each day at the school (which has around 1,600 students), and 94% of those emails are spam. The storage required for the emails received last year equaled the total storage required for all the emails received in the preceding five years combined. And 95% of email storage now goes to holding email attachments rather than the messages themselves. Email has become everyone's personal data warehouse.

With the management of email systems growing increasingly onerous, it's hardly a surprise that a lot of colleges are choosing to offload those systems to Google and other cloud providers.

As a upper end Gen-X'er, I pretty much follow the same trends as well, with the exception of replacing my PC based laptop with a Mac, as I find the Mac's powerbook an elegant laptop, but overpriced and am too lazy and un-interested now in trying to figure out how to keep my Windows based files compatible with a Mac. There was once a time I found such pursuites interesting, but no longer.

Without exception, I agree with the explosion of email and the use of it as a personal data warehousing tool. This is especially the case in corporate America where memo, documents, files, images, etc. are stored on people's email readers and most if not all corporate workers spend an inordinate amount of time organizing and categorizing emails to keep as a reference database.

It's become the virtual file folder, but one which grows expoentially beyond the largest physical file folders one could think about, and I think managing and retreiving what we need from it is mainly wasted energy and time. I use gmail for my personal email, and though I like the searchability of it, I can't say having all the gigabites of storage has made my life any more efficient or effective. Actually it seems the contrary for the most part.

Can IT be run like a business?

With the economy in a downturn, the continual decreasing costs of technology and the hype around internet technology and the exuberant spending of the late 90s now a distant memory, there has been a push to treat the IT department like a business. In some cases, the idea of treating IT as a business unit in and of itself, to treating IT as a portfolio of investments much like stock and mutual fund portfolios, has been thrown around.

In my opinion, these viewpoints came about due to several factors, such as the fear of outsourcing, diminishing returns and competitive advantage, and the fact that IT has not always (and some could argue for the most part) created real business value from an organizational as well as end user perspective. I think it is this last case that really justifies the notion of running IT like a business or at the very least with the business value as it's main driver. But while a great idea (and yet to be implemented in many companies), I think some careful thought has to be done before deciding to turn IT department as another arm of the finance department. I think first of all, you would have to evaluate your company's core competencies and decide if the model of running the IT department as a generator of investments and revenue that will need to keep an eye on things like cash flow and earnings would truly benefit the company. As this CIO article points out:

However, alongside the benefits of running the IT department like a business, there are also risks and pitfalls. The most damaging to the CIO's longer-term strategy is any attempt to run the department as a separate business rather than just running it in a more businesslike way.

There's a world of difference between running the IT department "like" a business, and trying to run it "as" one. It's amazing how one word can fundamentally alter strategy. Running IT like a business means adopting a businesslike mindset, processes and financial disciplines. Running it as a business means competing for revenue and investment in an open market, and going bankrupt if you run out of cash to cover your liabilities.

What happens if a CIO attempts to run her department as a business? Colleagues in other departments will perceive that the IT department wants to be treated like a supplier. If the CIO's chosen business is primarily to be a provider of operational IT services, then that what is her "customers" expect her to concentrate on. In that case, contributing to corporate and business strategies will be a heroic, uphill battle rather than the IT department's core contribution to the enterprise. The prevalence of heroic how-we-in-IT-contributed-to-strategy stories in the media offers us insight into how much IT's strategic contribution is currently considered exceptional, rather than its stock-in-trade.

The IT department might find another pitfall if it tries too hard to run itself as a business. The company's business units will be reluctant to fund any material investment by IT in anything that looks like branding, marketing, selling or upgrading the management systems that support the IT department's own productivity. Why should they? One of the primary cost advantages of an internal department is that it doesn't require all the capabilities a real supplier needs to compete in the open market. So the CIO is caught. She has placed herself in competition with bona fide external suppliers but without access to the investment that they have in order to compete as an equal.

In the long term, the IT department will find itself in a corner from which escape becomes ever more difficult. It lacks the means to compete with real IT suppliers and has separated itself from the business that it is meant to be part of. It wants to be taken seriously in the world of strategy, yet its primary business is operational. This is when taking "IT department as a business" too far seriously undermines the next generation strategy for IT.

In my opinion, the majority of IT departments do not build technology and services to end user customers, but is really just another component of the organization needed to keep the operations running day to day. If this is the operating model and core competency of the IT organization, then it must fulfill its obligation to upgrade, maintain and support IT services and have the cost of these services measured against the benefits derived from them. Any department within a company must fulfill this obligation otherwise the will find themselves downsized or reorganized. It probably stems from the love/hate relationship most non-IT departments have with IT that IT is always being asked to justify its existence to business, and is always the first department to experience cuts, downsizing and outsourcing.

On the other hand, if a company's core competency and operating model require a close alignment with IT and strategic initiatives, then adopting a PPM methodology with respect to the selection and prioritization of IT initiatives and projects becomes critical. You would then need to measure these initiatives and projects against the avaialbility of financial, human and technical capacity and allocate them appropriately. In a sense, you are managing IT like a stock portfolio:

The concept of portfolio management comes from the financial investment world. The idea is to manage corporate IT projects like financial portfolios, balancing riskier projects with safer "blue chip" technology investments, then constantly monitor the whole shebang to make sure that the risk/reward ratio never gets out of whack.

Portfolio management not only saves money, but it can help CIOs truly integrate business goals into the IT project planning process.

But probably the more important consideration would be the leadership within IT and their ability to accurately align the core competency, organizational culture, and management agenda with IT investments in a strategic manner:

Unless the company is already an expert customer of IT, its people will need strategic leadership from trusted colleagues who do not have a vested interest in supplying technology services. If the IT department is behaving as a business supplying operational IT services, then who can everyone trust to provide the strategic leadership that the next generation of IT strategy demands?

A CIO who is trying to run the IT department as if it were a separate business will need to rethink her operating model. What have others done in such circumstances? They have divided their department's activities into two groups: core capabilities and services. Core capabilities are those IT-related activities that the company must have in-house and that make the company an expert customer of technology. Services are the activities that the company can choose to either keep in-house or outsource. Naturally, the CIO's own activities should be included under core capabilities rather than services.

Having divided her IT department's activities into these two categories, the CIO can benchmark her company's core IT-related capabilities against the models that other innovative companies are using. In particular, the company should excel at true enterprise architecture (not just its technology components) and investing in business change. Together, these are the engine of strategic investment and value creation, both for IT and everything else. And they should be supported by robust sourcing to spend that investment wisely.

Of course it always boils down to something as fundamental as having good leadership, but given the widely held perception of IT as just another cost center, the short tenure of CIOs, and the inability of most corporations to properly execute project and portfolio management, that it will be some time and take a great leader to break this cycle.