Europe: NCTA CloudMASTER® Hotspot

Craigslist.org Founder Hypes Government Transformation

By G C Network | July 29, 2009

Craig Newmark, best known for being the founder of the Craigslist website, is working hard to get the word out on Gov2.0. Last week in FedScoop, he really laid out…

Maria Spinola: An Essential Guide to Cloud Computing

By G C Network | July 27, 2009

Maria Spinola, a Strategic IT Marketing and Innovation Adviser and editor at www.Cloudviews.org, has recently published An “Essential Guide to Possibilities and Risk of Cloud Computing“. Her very pragmatic approach…

US Interior Department IT Infrastructure Vision

By G C Network | July 22, 2009

Tim Quinn, Chief Infrastructure Officer, US Department of Interior, sees IP convergence as a key part of DoI’s future IT infrastructure. During the Federal News Radio Executive Forum, he also…

DHS Acting CIO Margie Graves on Current DHS Challenges

By G C Network | July 20, 2009

During the Federal News Radio Executive Forum, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Acting CIO, Margie Graves provides a unique insight on the department. In her remarks, she described the challenges…

DHS EAGLE & First Source Digital Guide Launched

By G C Network | July 17, 2009

The Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading Edge Solutions (EAGLE) is a multiple-award indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract vehicle, specifically designed as the preferred source of information technology (IT) services for…

Looking Forward To GovIT Expo!

By G C Network | July 14, 2009

I am humbled and more than pleased to serve as the Technical Chair of SYS-CON’s 1st Annual Government IT Conference & Expo. To highlight the importance of this conference, I…

Publishing Synergy: Blog, Twitter and Ulitzer

By G C Network | July 13, 2009

Have you ever been given the task of building and executing an aggressive customer outreach program? Well I received my assignment about a year ago and trust me; the budget…

Input: Cloud Computing, Security to Drive US Gov’t IT Spending

By G C Network | July 12, 2009

According to a PC World article, cloud computing and cybersecurity will be the high-growth areas for government IT spending over the next few years. The analysis and consulting firm Input…

GovIT Expo 2009

By G C Network | July 11, 2009

I’m happy to announce my appointment by SYS-CON to be the Technical Chair of the 1st Annual Government IT Conference & Expo. This event is a 1-day deep dive into…

NCOIC To Help FAA on NextGen

By G C Network | July 7, 2009

Today, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC™) announced an agreement to work together to advance the Enterprise Architecture of NextGen, FAA’s national…

The ongoing digital transformation continues to generate a steady demand for workers with increasingly sophisticated digital skills. This process is multi-dimensional and workers with these highly specialized skills are very much sought after. The European Union Commissionestimates that there could be a shortage of around 800,000 information and communications technology (ICT) specialists in the EU by 2020. A third dimension is the fact that there is a growing need to reskill the existing workforce, especially in light of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the incorporation of the Internet of Things (IoT) and cyber-physical systems into the industrial production process. The “smart factory” also opens up new possibilities of individualized and efficient customer care and smoother communication with suppliers in the supply chain logistics. This is based on cloud-based platforms and artificial intelligence.

According to the Jacques Delors Institue in Berlin, digital skills in general are now needed in almost all types of work. In this recent contribution to the debate on the European Union the Institute has targeted the societal changes being driven these broad changes. To address the European continent-wide impact of digital transformation, this think thank is proposing a Europe-wide strategy to reskill workers for the requirements of connected production.


The core mission of the Jacques Delors Institute is to produce analyses and policy proposals targeting European decision-makers and the wider public. The work of the Jacques Delors Institute is inspired by the action and ideas of Jacques Delors, and organized around three axes:

  • “European Union and citizens”, which covers questions of policy, institutions and civil society, focusing in particular on the themes of participatory democracy, European institutions, European political parties and European identity.
  • “Competition, cooperation, solidarity”, covering economic, social and regional issues with a specific focus on the European budget, intra-EU solidarity, agriculture, cohesion policy, economic governance, and energy policy.
  • “European external action”, bringing together work with an international dimension, including EU-US relations, EU relations with neighbors, and extra-EU regional integration.

These changes are, in essence, combining platform-based communication with cloud computing, improved sensor technology and the application of sophisticated algorithms to large and unstructured pools of data generated by these sensors. This combination makes it possible to link up an almost infinite number of interconnected physical objects. One of the main economic impacts of this is seen
in the industrial production process and the emergence of the “smart factory” which enable companies to manufacture individualized products to marketplace demand in real time.
In response to the need to reskill European workers for the requirements of connected production, opportunities to get NCTA CloudMASTER®training and certifications in Europe are expanding rapidly. As a point of fact, training programs for this cloud computing certification have been recently announced by:
  • New Horizons for delivery in Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom and Bulgaria;
  • Firebrand Training in the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Austria and Luxemburg; and
  • Fast Lanein Spain, Italy and Germany.

CloudMASTER® training and certification is comprised of three courses with exams:
  • NCTA Cloud Technologies that provide an overview of cloud computing that will help you develop a deep understanding of the models and understand the landscape of technologies used in the cloud and those employed by users of cloud services;
  • NCTA Cloud Operations that helps you study the management of cloud operations and addresses the application need for compute power, managing CPU scaling, and meeting both structured and unstructured storage requirements; and
  • NCTA Cloud Architecture that includes hands-on experience with OpenShift, OpenStack, VMware, Amazon Web Services, Azure and Rackspace, and provides a framework to assess application performance needs while addressing business requirements of Return on Investment (ROI), Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

 The list of training sites is growing fast so if your country isn’t listed you probably won’t have long to wait. Visit the NCTA CloudMASTER® registration site for more information.


( This content is being syndicated through multiple channels. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of GovCloud Network, GovCloud Network Partners or any other corporation or organization.)

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