Information technology is only as good as the people who install and manage it. The industry continues to move at a pace that requires IT professionals to seek out fresh training.
Even the most adept IT pros can benefit from classroom-based training. It allows them to quickly get up to date with a topic they may have little time to study on their own. Businesses are also turning to IT training in greater numbers in a bid to train staff in the eradication of worms and viruses. `Hands-on' courses in dealing with PC repair and troubleshooting are also proving to be heavily subscribed. According to IT trainers, upgrading and security issues are the ones that most concern their clients. Etain Delaney, corporate account manager at Dublin-based Sureskills, said that Windows system 2003 had become increasingly popular among clients and that interest in Windows 2000 was on the wane. ``There is a big demand for IT server management courses, in particular the ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) certification,'' she said. ``Most people are looking to do the foundation and management certificates.'' Delaney said that Citrix metaframe training was also proving popular. Given the proliferation of worms and viruses in recent times businesses are turning in increasing numbers to specialised training courses in IT security. Many are looking to train their employees in the ways of basic IT troubleshooting, finding it more economical to have people on board who can deal with relatively minor problems quickly and easily. ``We have scheduled extra courses to deal with this,'' said Delaney. ``A number of fundamental security courses are currently running to meet the extra demand.'' The company runs several courses in conjunction with Epsion. Among them are `Ethical Hands-On Hacking', `The Fundamentals of Security in an organisation' and 'Computer Forensics'. Delaney said the relationship between Sureskills and the American software company reflected the increased demand in the Irish market for security training.
Mandy Dillon, training coordinator at Calyx said that given fewer and fewer people were seeking training in Windows 2000, their most popular courses were ones that dealt with upgrading and updating. Calyx offers courses in updating support and administration skills from the 2000 server to 2003 and migrating from NT4 to the most recent Windows system. Microsoft recently discontinued its support for NT4. As one of Ireland's main Microsoft CTEC (Certified Technical Education Centre), Calyx also provides courses in Citrix, Cisco and UNIX. ``Ethical hacking started off as our hot certificate of 2004 and went nuclear in April after the amount of viruses that were appearing on the internet,'' said Eileen McGinn, managing director of Ashfield Computer Training College. ``For companies to simply ignore these things is much too expensive. ``The hacker isn't the bad guy. The media has wrongly latched on to the term. The `cracker' is the bad guy. This is where we bring in ethical hacking. To be able to defeat the abuser you need to be able to think like one - you need to be aware of the tools they use.'' McGinn said that the course was so extensive that the college require that clients sign a disclaimer. She said that security was now a concern for companies of all sizes. ``Not everyone will be vulnerable to the same level of attack. "You will find that now most major corporations have protected their systems from infection, the hacker will drift further and further down the chain,'' McGinn said. ``The medium sized and smaller businesses have to realise the potential value of having their staff up-skilled. ``Closing the door after the horse has bolted is not enough.'' She said that Microsoft and Cisco certs remained popular in 2004. ``The average IT professional, the general company administrator, doesn't have a lot of time to deal with security issues,'' McGinn said.