F5 to partner with educational institutions to deliver specialized
training for Application Delivery Networking
F5
Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV),
the global leader in Application Delivery Networking (ADN), today
announced a new F5
Technical Certification Program designed to address the growing
complexity and the resulting knowledge gap in today’s IT organizations.
As IT organizations deploy mobile and cloud-based solutions, their
application environments are becoming more complex than ever, and users
are becoming dissatisfied with slow and unreachable applications. This
IT trend is driving the need—and raising the bar—for skilled
technologists who have expertise in networking and applications and,
more importantly, an in depth understanding of the interaction between
the two.
In a recent report1, Gartner, Inc. noted, “Application
delivery and optimization solutions are underutilized and poorly
understood in many IT organizations. The skills required to fully
utilize these solutions are broad and touch on multiple IT disciplines.”
The report further states, “One of the challenges is to find individuals
with the appropriate skill set and, more importantly, retaining the
people with these difficult-to-find skills, as there is a recognized
shortage and many with this skill will gravitate to the vendor
community. The role played by the application delivery architect demands
strong people skills and broad technical skills.”
Launching in third quarter of calendar year 2012, the new F5 Technical
Certification Program is unique in that it focuses not only on F5
products and technology, but also emphasizes the underlying application
delivery expertise required to design, deploy, and manage solutions in
complex Application Delivery Networking environments, which often
include multiple vendors’ solutions.
“F5’s new Technical Certification Program completely reevaluates the
skills and knowledge that are necessary to meet the demands of
application delivery, without regard for where those skills
traditionally have been taught or used—in the network, application, or
some other area of IT,” said Ken Salchow, Program Manager for Technical
Certification at F5. “We are committing more than 12,000 hours of
subject matter experts’ time to create the skills assessments, learning
tools and a rigorous examination process for individuals who want to
deepen their understanding of application delivery, elevate their
professional standing, and expand their ability to deploy world-class
solutions.”
Training + Certification = Success
F5, customers, and partners recognize the benefits and business value of
hiring exceptionally qualified individuals to manage sophisticated
application environments. To date, the challenge has been how best to
identify whether someone has the necessary knowledge and skills.