7/27/2010 -- On August 14, 10 certification exams from Oracle that are currently in beta are scheduled to end.  The exams, in numeric order, are:

• 1Z1-515: Data Warehousing 11g Essentials
• 1Z1-523: Oracle Application Grid Essentials
• 1Z1-524: Oracle Business Intelligence Applications 7.9.6 for CRM Essentials
• 1Z1-525: Oracle Business Intelligence Applications 7.9.6 for ERP Essentials
• 1Z1-530: Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Essentials
• 1Z1-536: Oracle Exadata 11g Essentials
• 1Z1-538: Agile Product Lifecycle Management 9.3 Essentials
• 1Z1-539: Oracle GoldenGate 10 Essentials
• 1Z1-543: Oracle Application Integration Architecture 11g Essentials
• 1Z1-545: Identity Administration and Analytics 11g Essentials

The exams may be taken at Prometric testing centers. While they are still in beta, it is not uncommon for the number of questions to near 200 questions and take 3.5 hours. More information can be found here.

CIW Now Offering 12 New Vendor-Neutral Certification Exams
CIW, the organization that led the way with vendor-neutral web technology certifications several years ago recently announced that 12 new certification exams. These tests are also intended to be vendor-neutral and focused on open source solutions with an emphasis on Web foundations, design, development and security.  The exams will be available July 30 at both Prometric and Pearson VUE testing centers. The following table lists the new exams the CIW certification it corresponds to: 

Most of the exams allow 30 minutes and consist of 25 to 30 questions (multiple-choice) with a passing score of 63 percent. For more information on these exams, including the exam objectives and skills taught, click here.   

CompTIA Hosting Cybersecurity Summit
From August 9 to 12, CompTIA is hosting its first Cybersecurity Summit in San Antonio. The summit is intended to be an extension to the Breakaway Conference that they have hosted for a number of years. It will include a keynote speech from Howard Schmidt, the special assistant to the President and cybersecurity coordinator for the Obama administration.   More information on the summit can be found here.

Certification Book of the Week: VCP 4 Study Guide
For a to-the-point certification text, it is hard to find a better model than the VCP VMware Certified Professional vSphere 4 Study Guide by Robert Schmidt. With a name almost as long as the text (a bit of an exaggeration), it adequately addresses all the objectives on the VCP410 exam and prepares you to sit for the test.

The figures (screenshots throughout) complement the text and help you understand the configuration topics being discussed. There are also quite a few lists to walk you through the material and the Two-Minute Drill at the end of each chapter serves as an acceptable study sheet to cram with right before walking into the testing site. There are 123 end-of-chapter questions and the CD includes the usual electronic copy of the book as well as flash cards and you can download another set of study questions from the LearnKey site.

Tech Book of the Week: IT Security Metrics
It is all well and good to talk about security, but often it leads to confusion as what one person defines as "secure" will differ from another. Attempting to address that issue and create a common language is IT Security Metrics by Lance Hayden. Rather than being just another one of the books spewing all security buzzwords from A-to-Z, this text focuses instead on what your organization should measure and focus on.

The twelve chapters are divided between four parts:

• Part One: Introducing Security Metrics
• Part Two: Implementing Security Metrics
• Part Three: Exploring Security Measurement Projects
• Part Four: Beyond Security Metrics

It is the fourth part that I found most intriguing, and particularly Chapter 11 -- The Security Improvement Program. Here, it explores how to build upon the project-based program that the preceding chapters outlined. You focus now on understanding the risk, managing it, and mitigating it (accepting that which you cannot mitigate). IT Security Metrics makes for a great read, and one I am certain you will learn from.