Training and Certification
My Editor's Best choice in Training and Certification is
AppDev's KSource Online Learning. KSource's rich media IT training modules help consulting companies like
Magenic Technologies fill in their training gaps and stay
on top of business. Minnesota-based Magenic has built a
reputation as one of the technology industry's most trusted
consulting companies. A Microsoft Gold Certified Partner,
Magenic this year won Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Award
for Technical Innovation
in Custom Development
Solutions. "Our firm
is well-known for our
extremely experienced
Microsoft technologists," says Tony Mohl. Tony
manages Magenic's
Delivery Center, which
allows the company to
execute consulting projects without having to
be on a customer's site.
This reverse outsourcing (which, because Magenic is located in the land of
10,000 lakes, the company refers to as "lake-sourcing") requires that Magenic consultants be deeply versed in Microsoft technologies. Until three years ago, Magenic hired consultants who had experience with all areas of Microsoft's technology. However, the proliferation of technologies such as SQL Server and
SharePoint and new scripting languages made finding consultants with the right experience a difficult task.
Today, Magenic can hire professionals with in-depth
knowledge of a few technologies and let KSource's topicbased training modules bring them up to speed with the rest.
Since implementing KSource, Magenic has seen a significant
ROI in soft costs. "Before KSource, I had our employees
training out of costly textbooks and then passing ad hoc
technical exams before I could place them on a customer's
project," Tony says. The whole process took an average of
five to six weeks and usually included a costly Microsoft boot
camp. Using KSource, we can train employees in two weeks,
courses and exams included, and they retain a higher degree
of Microsoft knowledge." KSource is available in both hosted
and installed configurations, but Tony says that what really
sets AppDev apart is customer service. He says, "When a
new module comes out, I get it implemented almost instantaneously, and I can get legacy courses, such as Visual Basic
6, on demand. The AppDev team is fantastic to work with."
—Sam Davenport
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Virtualization
Virtualization is the future of computing, not only for server
consolidation but also at the desktop level. If you haven't
already begun looking into the technology, you will soon. It's inevitable, whether you're a large corporation looking to tame bloat or
a smaller company needing to simplify administration and reduce
costs. If you head up a small-to-midsized business (SMB), you've
probably turned first toward VMware, probably the most wellknown virtualization platform on the planet. VMware offers all the
features you need, but perhaps you've been a bit intimidated by
that company's pricing structure. Virtual Iron Software
is positioned in the market as a strong VMware competitor—with much of the same functionality at a fraction of
the price. Virtual Iron 3.1, my Virtualization Editor's Best
choice, the company's enterprise-class virtualization platform, is based on the open-source Xen hypervisor and
runs unmodified 32-bit and 64-bit Windows and Linux
OSs with near-native performance. Using Virtual Iron's
Virtualization Manager, you can control, monitor, modify,
and automate virtual resources.
To get a feel for Virtual Iron in the real world, I spoke
with Paul Joncas, CEO of Meganet Communications, an ISP/managed services company with 23 employees.
Meganet's environment, characterized by many standalone
servers, faced mounting space, heat, and power-usage
problems. Paul tried various methods to increase efficiency
and eventually faced the prospect of virtualization. He told
me, "We spoke with three companies, including VMware
and Virtual Iron, and we zeroed in on Virtual Iron immediately, for several reasons. First, Virtual Iron offered a lot of
the same features as VMware, which was great because we
felt that we weren't a big enough fish for VMware. Second,
Virtual Iron's pricing was certainly attractive—about $600
or $700, compared with $4000 for VMware—although
price wasn't really the determining factor for us. What it really came
down to was the eagerness and availability of Virtual Iron's support for even the most minute, seemingly trivial questions. We were
about to move into a totally different world, from stand-alone servers
to a virtualized environment, so we obviously didn't take this very
lightly. Virtual Iron gave us all the attention we needed."
Today, Paul talks enthusiastically about his new streamlined
server room: "We're realizing big
electricity savings
and heat reduction. Over the next six months, we're looking forward
to further emptying out our server room and having everything running on the Virtual Iron
platform."
—Jason Bovberg