Intelligent Data Centres Issue 15 | Page 7

First Technology Digital earns Gold Microsoft DevOps competency NEWS irst Technology Digital, South F Africa’s preferred partner for Digital Transformation, digital workplaces and Artificial Intelligence, has been successful in its attainment of Gold-level status for the Microsoft DevOps competency. This latest achievement sees the company adding to its existing Gold cloud platform expertise, which currently includes application development, collaboration and content, data analytics, and data centre competencies. Robert Kendall, Business Unit Manager at First Technology Digital, said: “Organisations are under increasing pressure to create new products and improve existing ones at a faster pace than ever before. By using a DevOps model, they are able to circumvent lengthier traditional software development approaches, enhancing speed and efficiencies across IT functions.” According to Kendall, benefits delivered by DevOps include shortened cycle times, faster value delivery, improved quality and availability, optimised resources, the elimination of waste and greater innovation. This statement is reinforced by the findings of IT automation software company, Puppet, which released a white paper entitled the 2017 State of DevOps Report, which revealed that high performing organisations have 46 times higher software deployment frequencies, 440 times faster lead time for changes and a five times lower software change failure rate than lower performance competitors. Nutanix partners with Udacity to offer hybrid cloud nanodegree programme utanix, a leader in enterprise cloud computing, has N announced a partnership with Udacity, the global online learning platform, resulting in a new hybrid cloud nanodegree programme. This programme will enhance learning opportunities in the emerging cloud technologies market that are essential for organisations to uplevel their IT infrastructure. As part of the collaboration, Nutanix will also sponsor 5,000 scholarships to help IT professionals advance their knowledge with this initiative. To strengthen professional development in this space, the nanodegree programme will cover modern private cloud infrastructure and the design of hybrid application deployment. Ideal students are those managing traditional business applications, legacy infrastructure or cloud-native applications on public cloud infrastructure. As more services move to the cloud, IT teams require the knowledge and expertise it takes to properly manage these infrastructures that increasingly stretch across on-premises and public cloud in a hybrid model. Although hybrid cloud technology continues to grow and evolve, educational opportunities in this field remain at a standstill. In Nutanix’s recent Enterprise Cloud Index survey, 85% of respondents said that hybrid cloud is the ideal operating model. However, 32% of respondents reported a lack of in-house hybrid cloud skills. To fill this educational gap, Udacity and Nutanix have collaborated closely to develop a nanodegree programme that will advance the knowledge of seasoned IT professionals. Wendy M Pfeiffer, CIO at Nutanix www.intelligentdatacentres.com Issue 15 7