HP recently announced a certification portfolio for IT professionals that encompasses the design and development of cloud computing solutions.
The company isn’t the first vendor to offer cloud certifications, but the extra effort that went into developing these credentials makes them compelling.
Whether you work for an enterprise, a systems integrator or a cloud service provider you can pick up meaningful new knowledge and skills by taking the training for these certifications because they are based on open standards.
The certifications added to the HP ExpertONE Converged Infrastructure program focus on HP CloudSystem, an integrated and open platform for building and managing services across public, private and hybrid cloud environments. The three certifications announced to date include:
• HP Accredited Solutions Expert (ASE) Cloud Architect — This certification allows professionals to identify, position and tailor customer solutions based on HP CloudSystem. The training leading to this certification provides the skills needed to effectively plan and design the right cloud solution for various customer scenarios.
• HP ASE Cloud Integrator — This certification enables professionals to build, install and integrate IT-focused cloud solutions based on HP Cloud Service Automation for Matrix and provisioning software for cloud services. The integration specialist performs all aspects of installation and startup tasks, including hardware configuration, operating system and software installation, HP driver installation and full management instrumentation of the servers, networking and storage solution components.
• HP Master ASE, Cloud Integrator — This certification enables professionals to build, install and integrate hybrid enterprise and service provider cloud solutions based on HP CloudSystem and HP Converged Infrastructure. An HP CloudSystem solution incorporates the main components of today’s cloud-based data center infrastructure — virtualized BladeSystem servers, massive and redundant storage and high-speed, high-availability networking — and completes the solution with automation software, TippingPoint network security and 3PAR virtual storage to build a cloud solution for private, public and hybrid clouds using HP CloudSystem Enterprise and the full Cloud Service Automation software solution.
The HP ASE Cloud Architect certification is available today, and the other two certifications should be available in early 2012. HP plans to offer additional cloud certifications for job roles covering systems administration and sales.
Rebekah Harvey, director of product development for HP Global Certification and Learning, says the goal of these and other HP certifications is to “develop high quality certifications that allow IT professionals to bring value to their organizations. We look at the IT industry as a whole, and the particular job roles within the industry. We try to determine the competencies that someone in that job has to have today and we try to anticipate what someone in that job role has to know a year or two from now. We build those forward-looking competencies into our certification design so that we’re not just preparing someone for a job that they need to do today but we’re preparing them for the future as well.”