NIIT adjudged Finalist for the 2009 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Awards

NIIT, leading Global Talent Development Corporation and Asia’s largest IT Trainer, today announced that it has been selected as a 2009 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference Awards finalist in Learning Solutions, Innovative Partner of the Year.

NIIT’s ‘Integrated Program for Developing Skills and Certification on.NET – GNIIT’ has been selected by Microsoft as one of the two finalists for Partner of the Year, in the category, Learning Solutions Innovative Partner of the Year. The Learning Solutions, Innovative Partner of the Year award recognizes partners’ commitment and ability to deliver high-quality innovative learning services to meet customer needs. It also validates the effect of technical training, skills assessment, student mentoring, and Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) exam preparation on customer satisfaction, and the application of Microsoft technology to solve business problems.

Mr. G. Raghavan, President, Global Individual Learning Solutions, NIIT said, “We are pleased to have been selected as a 2009 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference Awards finalist in Learning Solutions, Innovative Partner of the Year. At NIIT, it has been our constant endeavor to address the skills gap in IT industry by enhancing employability of the workforce and making them Industry Ready. We hope to continue providing innovative range of programs as a solution to manpower needs in the industry.”

“Partners are the key to igniting business innovation through great technology as well as helping customers drive down costs. Congratulations to the 2009 WPC Award finalists who have demonstrated a superior level of expertise as well as a focus on delivering customer value. We look forward to seeing our partners fulfill their limitless potential as they continue to provide customers with world-class Microsoft solutions” said Allison L. Watson, Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Partner Group, Microsoft Corp.

Source: NIIT

Cisco Learning Partner Award Winners

Cisco has recently announced the Fiscal Year 2009 Learning Partner Award Recipients. These were revealed on June 10th, 2009 during the Cisco Partner Summit in Boston . Cisco Learning Partner Award is an initiative to highlight the remarkable efforts in the areas of Excellence in Acceleratrion, Collaboration and Innovation.

Winners in the Excellence in Acceleration Category:
APAC – NIIT, Ltd.
Emerging Markets – Global Knowledge-Synergy
European Markets – ExperTeach GmbH
United States & Canada – World Wide Technology
Worldwide – NIIT, Ltd.

Winners in the Excellence in Collaboration Category:
APAC – Global Knowledge ASIA PTE LTD
Emerging Markets – CTT Corporation
European Markets – Global Knowledge
United States & Canada – Global Knowledge
Worldwide – Global Knowledge

Winners in the Excellence in Innovation Category:
APAC – Dimension Data Learning Solutions
Emerging Markets – NIL Data Communications
European Markets – Fast Lane Institute for Knowledge Transfer
Japan – Fast Lane Institute for Knowledge Transfer
United States & Canada – Sunset Learning Institute
Worldwide – Fast Lane

Winners of Learning Partner of the Year by Theater:
APAC – Training Partners Ltd.
Emerging Markets – Fast Lane Dubai
European Markets – Fast Lane
Japan – Global Knowledge
United States & Canada – New Horizons

And the Worldwide Learning Partner of the Year:
Global Knowledge Training LLC

Congratulations to all winners!

Growing Popularity of elearning in India

elearning is gradually getting its due globally and especially here in India. Young working professionals are turning to elearning to gain access to courses in their spare time. This has become essential in today’s ever so competitive world!

There are plethora of websites conducting online courses and assessments. For example, the Indiatimes group has introduced the Mindscape test center where one can appear for mock IIT-JEE exams online for making self-assessment.

In fact, from this year onwards, the Common Admission Test (CAT) is going online. This will allow more students to be able to take the exam and enable faster processing. It will also help students to apply to colleges using CAT scores in a convenient manner. Top educational institutes like IIM’s, Symbiosis have started their MBA programs, which are based on e-learning in some form or the other. IIMs have tied up with NIIT to offer short duration programs in a synchronous fashion through NIIT Imperia. McGraw Hill Education, a primary educational publisher, recently launched its e-learning section, for IIT, CAT and AIEEE aspirants.

NIIT’s e-learning websites www.niit.com and Hyperlessons (for IT Certification) providing an upper hand to IT Professionals to survive in this recession period. Hyperlessons.com is an eLearning initiative by NIIT to provide convenient, personalized and affordable training courses and programs for Career Certifications to students and working professionals. NIIT’s e-learning initiative has 80,000 registered members and Thadani expects this to go up by at least 100 per cent by end of the year.

According to Vijay Thadani, CEO NIIT, “In the past six months, there has been a significant change in economic environment. Since organizations are looking to cut costs, they prefer to draft their training modules using e-learning, as it is cost-effective. This has resulted in a spurt of professionals logging on to education web sites to upgrade themselves.”

All about IT Security and related Certifications

In the computer industry, security refers to techniques which ensure that data stored in a computer cannot be read or compromised by any individual without authorization. Most security measures involve data encryption and passwords. Data encryption is the translation of data into a form that is unintelligible without a deciphering mechanism. A password is a secret word or phrase that gives a user access to a particular program or system.
IT Security is a vast domain and has various subsets as listed below:

Application Security
This encompasses measures taken throughout the application's life-cycle to prevent exceptions in the security policy of an application or the underlying system (vulnerabilities) through flaws in the design, development, deployment, up gradation, or maintenance of the application. Certification for application security: GIAC Web Application Penetration Tester (GWAPT).

Computer Security
This is a branch of technology known as information security as applied to computers. The objective of computer security can include protection of information from theft or corruption, or the preservation of availability, as defined in the security policy.

Network Security
This consists of the provisions made in an underlying computer network infrastructure, policies adopted by the network administrator to protect the network and the network-accessible resources from unauthorized access, and consistent and continuous monitoring and measurement of its effectiveness (or lack) combined together.
A video on network security certification

Internet security
When a computer connects to a network and begins communicating with others, it is taking a risk. Internet security involves the protection of a computer's internet account and files from intrusion of an unknown user. Basic security measures involve protection by well selected passwords, change of file permissions and back up of computer's data.
Providing full security to the network and its users is the job of internet security professionals. The description of their job position: First, the internet security professionals design security protocols that should be followed by every user in the network; second, they work with network professionals to ensure network security through proper network design; and third, they work with application developers so that the application would be implemented according to the network’s security measures.

Important Certifications in the Security Domain (According to International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium (ISC2)).

Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP) - If you plan to build a career in information security – one of today’s most visible professions – and if you have at least five full years of experience in information security, then the CISSP® credential should be your next career goal.CISSP certification is not only an objective measure of excellence, but a globally recognized standard of achievement.

Systems Security Certified Practitioner (SSCP) – ISC2 introduced the Systems Security Certified Practitioner certification in March 2001. This intermediate-level certification is meant for IT security practitioners with a minimum of one year of PROFESSIONAL experience in the field of information security. SSCP is ideal for those working towards positions such as Network Security Engineers, Security Systems Analysts, or Security Administrators.

RSA Certified Security Professional - The RSA Certified Security Professional Program offers technology professionals the knowledge, skills, and credentials necessary to deploy and maintain reliable enterprise security systems.

Cisco Certified Security Professional (CCSP) - The CCSP certification is an advanced network security certification. With CCSP certification, a network professional demonstrates the skills required to secure and manage network infrastructures to protect productivity and reduce costs. Candidates for the certification are tested for advanced knowledge of various Cisco security products
Brainbench Internet Security Certification (BIS) - This credential identifies individuals with a good working knowledge of Internet security practices, principles, and technologies.
Brainbench Network Security Certification (BNS) - This program identifies individuals with a good working knowledge of network security practices, principles, and technologies.
Security Certified Network Professional (SCNP) - As part of the vendor-neutral Security Certified Program (SCP) sponsored by Ascendent Learning, the SCNP is an advanced security certification designed to test knowledge of high-level security topics.

Sources
· [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_security]
· [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_security]
· [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_security]
· [http://certification.about.com/od/securitycerts/a/seccertessentls.htm]
· [http://www.hyperlessons.com]