Passed ITIL Foundation

derbyfc9

Hey everybody. As the subject says I passed the foundation level test yesterday. I started here to get resources of where to get study materials and ideas on the best way to study. I wanted to say thanks for all the help towards the goal of passing the test.

I used the free week trial from CBT Nuggets and purchased the $250 ITIL Exam bundle from ThoughtRock to help me study online and used the ITIL Foundation Exam Study Guide book by Liz Gallacher and Helen Morris. I mainly used the book when I got tired of looking at my computer screen and as a way to go at my own pace taking notes.

I noticed that some people are getting the ITSM certification. What makes this one different from the ITIL? What are the benefits?

I hope to find an entry level job with this and A+. Do you think this is feasible?

I am thinking of studying Network + and Security + next. Any info or advice on certifications to get that support the ones would be greatly appreciated.

zaleonardz

You will not find an entry level job with ITIL,

ITIL as a great system, for large scale corporates. with huge infrastucture and a large team set.

For an IT consulting of 5 doing desktop support, ITIL is useless.

Its a trendy juppy scum qualification, and I am not saying that it is useless in IT, not at all, it has good value from Medium to Large or complex IT departments/systems/procedures.

I Say, go do A+ N+, security plus, and maybe go try CET and see if thats your thing,

I can also recommend, a far more relevant project magagement course, namely Prince2. That seems to be the trendy IT buzzwork one to have.

Again, I am not mocking ITIL, it has its place, and the design is good, but it is for large enterprise implementing large support standards.

Your 40 user small little manufacturing business is not going to care two shits over ITIL, I promise you,

They would not have the resources to get past the service strategy, let alone service design aspect of it.

Now if you were a multi national, with 20 subsiduaries world wide, all connecting via one VPN/WAN using the same software, and you need to implement standards and procedures, and design a solution from there, great, its perfect.

But your local furniture shop wanting you to implement an exchange server for 10 users so that the guys can access their diaries on their tablets cause they saw their buddy do it while at the pub, ITIL is pretty much lost...

If your aiming for level, go for your bottom certs, a+,n+,ccna, ccne, cet, MSSQL, Oracle DBA, Linux, that sort of thing, You need to prove that you have hard skills before you move into the soft skills portion.

Perhaps just a bias opinion from somebody that has just done ITIL...

Besides, ITIL does not make sense until you have been in a big corporate with 1000 printers and 100,000 users and 500 IT guys world wide, it is what it is.

GForce75

I agree... ITIL only makes sense on a large scale... but it's still good knowledge to have that can help build upon future management skill. Good job on the PASS!!!

Liz Gallacher

I disagree. ITIL has relevance to all service providers, large and small, and I have seen it applied in all sorts of organisations. THe key is that one adopts and adapts the guidance to suit the situation.

zaleonardz

Liz,

Ok I concede your point, however

Entry level work needs to be cowboy work, its the best way to learn is to do everything by hook or by crook.

If you walk in, with established sets of procedures and common practices enforced from above, you are a monkey doing a task deisgned by a monkey.

I have a friend that has been working for our receiver of revenue, or your IRS, where by controls are almost biblical.

He is very good at what he does, but because his procedures are so standardized, after 15 years, he cannot think out of the box,

It is ever growing, and everybody needs those early "cowboy" years.

Liz Gallacher

Not all large organisations are as you describe, some are still developing - indeed, with CSI etc., no organisation should be that static

GForce75

Regardless, it still builds a good knowledge base. It helped me with CISSP and Project+. Regarding N+ and SEC+, watch the CBT Nugget videos also. Keith does a great job with the 401 series. It ironically helped me when I took CCNA Route (the telecommunications portion that he taught in the 401)