darlodge

Are they worth it? I am looking for a new job as a 3rd line\infrastructure engineer leading into maybe a team leader role (in the future?) and I've noticed a lot of the jobs I've looked at require the foundation certification as a minimum.

So far I have naff all certifications but I'm just starting to do some MCP exams to work towards my MCSE (or something similar) and was considering adding that on as well as it's about £400 for the foundation course and exam.

I've also got no degree so is it worth shelling out the money? I don't want to get my employer to pay for it as I'd be tied into stay for a year.

Thanks techy peeps
Darren

NotoriousREV

If you're aiming for a team leader role then I'd say go for it. The foundation course is not mega difficult, the practitioner courses are harder (I'm a v2 Support & Restore Practitioner, I haven't converted to version 3 yet and probably won't)

Any company you go to of a decent size will either already be using ITIL practices in some form or other or you'll be able to impress with your knowledge of good practice (v3) or best practice (v2)

darlodge

Thanks Rev, I'll have a further look at the qualifications. Do companies put a lot of faith in the ITIL processes? Have you got an example of a process or method that is commonly used. I'm just trying to get my head around the use of it.

Thanks
Darren

NotoriousREV

The ones most applicable around the roles you're looking at would be:

Incident Management: getting broken stuff working again
Problem Management: understanding why stuff broke and fixing it so it won't break again
Change Management: making sure you don't break stuff when you're messing with it

ITIL puts great faith in the actual processes but also the meausring of performance e.g. how many incidents a month, how long did each incident take to fix on average (MTTR) and then improving performance i.e. reducing incidents, reducing the impact of incidents etc. There's also loads of stuff on how to communicate and structure of IT departments.

ITIL is a lot like communism, great in theory but you have to be selective about what you do and don't adopt. For example, would your company be willing to accept not being able to make a change to a server without an change request approved by the Change Advisory Board, who only meet on the 4th Tuesday of each month?

Also take a look at Configuration Management. ITIL says you should have a service catalogue that documents what services you offer as IT (e-mail, printing, file server etc.) and what the availability hours are. Behind this, there should be a Configuration Management DB that lists the components that make up each service which could be done at server level or down to component level i.e. which switch port everything is plugged into or what the configuration settings of the jet direct card are as well as documenting the relationship between components. Again, in reality, a CMDB is so expensive to maintain that companies find their own level and the actual DB is always out of date and you end up relying on the knowledge in peoples heads. The theory says you use these things to help with all the stuff above, which it can: if it's accurate and holds the right level of detail.

Start here to get a good overview: Information Technology Infrastructure Library - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

David_Wallis

yep, the processes work well.. Just dont call it a help desk.. its a service desk

NotoriousREV

Unless it is a help desk

Diesel_DC

iTrader: (7)

Yep got all them under my belt more and more companies are going this way.

Oh and LEAN is probably round the corner as well.

andys

I have done the foundation course and the test at then was like a proper exam with external invigilator. It was just like being back at school.