Microsoft Marketing Makeover Playbook

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How to Move

Customers to the Cloud

With Cloud Computing, companies are looking to

reduce costs and improve capabilities. The need to train workforce on Cloud technologies has never been greater. Learn how to leverage the power of Cloud to improve your business model, offerings, and profitability.

Microsoft Marketing

Makeover Playbook

In partnership with CTU Training Solutions

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2

General Content

Reflections from a Microsoft Consultant ...3

Introduction ...6

Overall Playbook Structure ...8

Phase 1: Discovery of Opportunities ...9

SWOT Analysis ...9

PEST Analysis ...9

Current Business Focus ... 10

Future Business Focus ... 10

Situation Analysis — Marketing ...11

CTU Training Content

Phase 2: Strategy ... 13

Phase 3: Execution ... 16

Phase 4: Reporting and Next Steps ... 21

Appendix

Appendix A: SWOT Analysis ...22

Appendix B: PEST Analysis ...23

Appendix C: Step-by-Step Guide for Cloud Training and Certification ...24

Appendix D: CTU Training: Cloud Brochure ...26

Microsoft Marketing Makeover Program

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A message from Phil Webb

I happily launched down the path to the Marketing Makeover almost a year ago as the team at Microsoft brainstormed ways to work on the local level with partners while also making a global impact from our efforts. I was there on stage at WPC when we announced the launch of the Marketing Makeover and I’ve felt a keen sense of commitment to its success from the very beginning.

As submissions were received and categories defined, I was exceptionally excited by the cloud-focused efforts and how they aligned to my day job of helping Microsoft educate more than 600,000 people on cloud technologies over the last year. This excitement carried through when I heard of this cool Learning Partner in South Africa who wanted to make a bold move to land cloud training and certifications in South Africa by expanding their focus into the corporate space. After being introduced to CTU Training and hearing their story and their direction, it hit me — this is going to be a lot of work for both of us. Valuable work, but a lot of work nevertheless.

Before coming to Microsoft six years ago, I ran my own small IT training company for seven years. I truly understand the complexity of the business and the challenge of driving individual seat sales today, while trying to invest and grow for tomorrow — at least I thought I did.

First Big Challenge

After several conversations it became readily apparent that the biggest challenge would be in narrowing the scope to a specific strategy and some finite action plans that could be done in the six months we would have to execute. CTU simply had too many opportunities and areas we could focus on. I believe it is the same dilemma faced by most Microsoft Learning Partners. We get so entrenched in running the day-to-day business, that sometimes we need an external pair of eyes to see something new. That’s why I believe this kind of external review of some sort on a regular basis — every one to three years — would be helpful for all growing businesses with or without Microsoft’s involvement.

Reflections from a

Microsoft Consultant

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4

Additional Surprises

CTU, just like every one of the 2,000 plus Learning Partners, is a unique business entity. While many things work across the entire partner ecosystem, there are unique local-level considerations that impact success. For CTU, three things were surprisingly impactful to the success of this Marketing effort: 1. A company’s history can influence and dictate its future. CTU started with an exceptionally strong

academic base of business. It influenced how they thought of the customer, who they hired as MCTs, and how they trained their sales teams.

2. Local infrastructure impacts the speed of business, including contracts, conversations and even the company culture. CTU was totally dependent on South Africa’s technical infrastructure. During several of our calls, they could not maintain a consistent bandwidth because the whole region was experiencing outages. That local infrastructure impacted the speed at which the business could move; they were simply more relaxed and understanding of it than we are in the United States.

3. CTU was perhaps even ahead of the regional awareness and adoption of cloud computing.

Working with CTU

I truly enjoyed our conversations which were sometimes held weekly prior to my normal work day and after theirs to meet the international time zones. The people at CTU are genuinely nice, passionate people. I can honestly see where their customers latch on to the relationship and stay connected. They are smart and progressive but operate at the speed of South Africa’s business which may be a whole different pace than another company located in London, Paris or Redmond.

Key Learnings for Microsoft

To me, some of the key learnings for Microsoft include:

1. Learning Partners do have a distinctively strong regional flavor and their business speed and results are definitively impacted by local culture. Turning this regional flavor into a strength, rather than a hurdle, is a key to landing global marketing efforts. Yes, worldwide marketing campaigns are critical, but with the flexibility to customize locally.

2. Marketing investment grows businesses locally. I’ve always believed this axiom, but I haven’t had a chance to show it at a local level like this one since coming to Microsoft. CTU discovered it first and realized that with the size, growth, and opportunity, they really needed more full-time marketing head count and additional marketing resources. The company made the quick decision, hired the additional staff, invested budget in the efforts to match the Microsoft investment, and the results are remarkable and distinctive.

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3. Validation that the resources Microsoft traditionally supplies to Learning Partners do speed up the marketing efforts and make them more impactful. CTU leveraged items on the Campaign Factory to design their website and write their email copy. They actively used sales training from the Partner Learning Center and the Sales Academy, etc.

4. Sometimes we make it too complicated. Trying to over-engineer marketing efforts is sometimes much less impactful than sticking to the basics. Ready the organization through sales and MCT training, clean up websites, simplify the promotional efforts, build simply tracking mechanisms all really make a substantial difference. Even if you have a more advanced marketing

organization, ensuring you nail the basics over and over again will ensure continued growth and consistent business.

Summary

Overall I would truly like to thank my friends at CTU — Ronald, Rhynier, Jadine, and the rest of the team. They have been phenomenal to work with this year, and I’ve enjoyed seeing them grow and change and witnessed the resulting impact to their business.

Phil Webb

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1. Introduction to Microsoft Learning’s Marketing Makeover Program

The Marketing Makeover program was a marketing initiative exclusively designed for Microsoft Learning Partners. The idea came about during a brainstorming session for the Worldwide Partner Conference 2011. The team wanted a new, innovative model to engage, share Microsoft’s marketing competency and drive shared goals with our Learning Partner channel – and

Marketing Makeover was born.

Marketing Makeover invited the Learning Partners to join force with Microsoft in tackling the most common challenges faced by our partners. Microsoft Learning, through a lead consultant and a team of subject matter experts across the organization, would collaborate with select partners on a one-to-one basis over a nine-month period from September 2011 to June 2012. Together we would take a critical look at the business and provide consultation and guidance on undertaking a given challenge, taken into consideration the strengths, opportunities and local market expertise of each partner.

Over the years, we heard from our partners of a set of common business challenges. These were challenges that seemed to exist in the channel regardless of size, geography and business model. Microsoft carefully selected five cases to work with seven partners worldwide.

• How to move customers to the cloud • CTU Training Solutions, South Africa • DDLS, Australia

• How to leverage Microsoft Certifications to drive more business • NIIT, India

• ctc TrainCanada, Canada

• How to grow online and social media presence • Firebrand Training, United Kingdom

• How to win new entrants • LeaderQuest, United States

• How to develop a winning customer campaign • Allen Informática, Brazil

Introduction

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The broad channel would significantly benefit from the best practices established throughout the course of the program. We developed a portal on Microsoft Campaign Factory where consultants and participating partners would blog about progress and key learnings along the journey. We also committed to developing seven playbooks that outlined the end-to-end approach for the business cases, from situation analysis to reporting of results.

In summary, the core objectives of the Marketing Makeover program were threefold: • To demonstrate Microsoft commitments and marketing investments to Learning Partners • To improve outcomes on real business challenges commonly faced by our partners

• To establish best practices, learnings and standardized playbooks that can be leveraged by the broad channel

2. Purpose of the Playbook

This playbook, along with six other playbooks in the series, was created to capture the journey that Microsoft and participating partners went through in solving a given business case. Each consultant provided the partner with a systematic approach that began with analysis of the situation, followed by strategy, execution and reporting. These four phases are outlined in Section 3: Playbook Structure.

Each playbook outlines actual strategy and execution that took place. It also provides advice and learnings that were realized along the way so that the broad channel could leverage in partners’ own organizations. The playbooks also serve to provide inspiration for partners to take a more critical, long-term look at their businesses and possibly attempt a similar approach.

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PHASE 1

Discovery

Learn how to identify your core strengths, challenges and opportunities using quantitative and qualitative methods

PHASE 4

Reporting

Examples of reporting to help you stay on track and analyze ROI

PHASE 3

Execution

Guidance to execute your strategy given goals, objectives, budget, and timeline

PHASE 2

Strategy

Learn how to develop business and go-to-market strategy to move customers to the cloud

Overall Playbook Structure

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In order to develop the most relevant and competitive strategy, it is important that companies understand internal and external factors that impact their business direction. In this section, we provide a list of tools and frameworks that will be useful for you to assess where you currently stand in relation to industry and competition as well as what opportunities exist. For the Marketing Makeover Program, Microsoft and each partner spent a significant portion of the project, ranging between 4 and 12 weeks, on this phase alone. We highly recommend that you go through this exercise with your team both prior to launching a new program and as a recurring business practice. Given the pace in which the IT Training industry moves, we also urge you to revisit your analysis at least once a year to stay relevant and ahead of the industry.

SWOT Analysis (Refer to Appendix A)

The SWOT analysis is an extremely useful tool for understanding and decision-making for all sorts of situations in business and organizations. SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. SWOT works well for business planning, marketing, business/product development and competitor evaluation.

Note that STRENGTHS and WEAKNESSES are typically internal factors whereas OPPORTUNITIES and THREATs are external factors that may require more research of your competitors and market landscape. As with any analysis, SWOT is as useful as it is updated. We recommend that you revisit and update your SWOT on a quarterly basis to stay current on new trends and market dynamics.

PEST Analysis (Refer to Appendix B)

Another useful tool is the PEST Analysis, which stands for Political, Economic, Social and Technological factors. Similar to SWOT, it is a simple tool that allows business managers to plan proactively for a new program, campaign, idea or expansion. While SWOT is used to assess a business or organization’s plans, PEST measures market potential, whether growth or decline, and market attractiveness.

There is overlap in PEST and SWOT in that similar factors would appear in each. Nonetheless, these two tools provide different perspectives and both should be conducted. PEST assesses a market, including competitors, from the standpoint of a particular business. SWOT is an assessment of your business or a proposition.

Phase 1: Discovery of

Opportunities

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Current Business Focus

It is critical that the planning is well aligned to both current and future business priorities. Here, we recommend that you highlight your short-term goals and priorities. Specifically, what are your big bets for the year, and how have they changed from prior years? How is your performance being measured? Through the 7 Marketing Makeover cases, we have observed some common trends that may or may not be applicable to your business:

• Training and certifications on Microsoft Cloud technologies • Cloud-based training (digital and hybrid)

• Alignment with partners in the Microsoft Partner Network • Developers as a primary or secondary audience

• Engagement with past customers thru better CRM and Referral Program • Social media, in addition to traditional marketing activities

• Revamping of and investments in growing company’s brand

Future Business Focus

Your plan should also be forward looking, addressing the vision and growth of your company. We recommend a 3-5 year business planning based on the strategic opportunities discovered through SWOT and PEST analyses.

When applicable, we recommend using specific and measurable metrics, as an example: • Expansion into 3 new markets in Eastern Europe

• Growth in market share from X% to Y% by 2015 • Growth in revenue from X% to Y% by 2015

• Growth in contactable reach from X to Y by 2013 and Z by 2015

• Becoming the no. 1 go-to trainer of Microsoft Cloud Solutions, based on [name of research study] • Improving customer satisfaction and likelihood to return/recommend – MTM of 7.5 to 8.5

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Situation Analysis — Marketing

Here is your opportunity to assess where you currently stand with regards to your marketing execution. 1) Marketing Investments

2010 2011 2012 2013 Forecasted

Total budget Actual spend ROI

2) Application of Marketing Funds

At the minimum you should have a clear picture for the current year, although we recommend going back 2 previous years for comparison purposes.

Category % Invested 2010 % Invested 2011 % Invested 2012

TV Press

Magazines & Publications Sales Promotions Advertising PR & Events

Direct (Telemarketing, Email, Newsletters, etc.)

Search Website Social Media

Total 100 100 100

3) Insights from Marketing Activities

This is your opportunity to capture key learning and best practices from previous activities at an aggregate level. Insights should include what you did well, what you could have done better, and what you observed your competitors did that impacted your business (positive or negative).

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12 4) Marketing Goals for 2012

In this section you should capture measurable goals from marketing activities – ‘measurable’ being the keyword. From the partnership with the 7 Marketing Makeover partners, we have observed that some of the most important metrics include:

• Revenue • Volume sold • Customer reach • Share growth

• Customer satisfaction

A more detailed set of metrics may also include: • Website views and clicks

• Website conversions

• Revenue and volume sold thru a specific campaign / promotion • Email open and click rates

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It has been said over and over again that the cloud is here to transform

businesses and personal lives. It is a paradigm shift that presents a

tremendous opportunity, particularly for our Microsoft Partners. Cloud

computing can be segmented into 5 categories:

1. Productivity: Microsoft Office 365

2. Cloud Platform and Application Development: Windows Azure and Visual Studio 3. Private Cloud: Windows Server Hyper-V and System Center

4. Business Insights: Microsoft SQL Server 2012 and Microsoft Dynamics 5. Management & Security: Windows Intune

For an in-depth discussion of the impact of Cloud Computing on IT Professionals, we highly encourage you to read or revisit Cloud Computing: What IT Professionals Need to Know whitepaper, available for download at Campaign Factory: Cloud Skills.

Most Learning Partners understand the value and business opportunities that cloud computing has created and will continue to create in the next few years. The key question is: How to efficiently and profitably move customers to the cloud?

Depending on findings unearthed during the Situation Analysis, this case can be taken into multiple directions. For some companies, it may mean readiness — getting internal teams ready to effectively sell cloud solutions. For others, it may mean tapping into a new customer segment or market for the first time. It is critical that you clearly map internal and external opportunities with your business focus in order to determine the right cloud approach for you. For CTU Training, this business case was all about being the cloud solutions training provider for corporate customers in South Africa and designing the go-to-market strategy that is catered for corporations, private individuals, and career changers.

The rationale for their direction was twofold. First, CTU Training was already strong in the academic space — more narrowly defined as 18-24 year-old college students. Cloud would allow the company to diversify into the corporate space, which has been a secondary audience to date. Secondly, in South Africa, cloud computing is clearly seen as the future of technologies and the cohesive focus of corporations.

CTU Training Solutions

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14 To reach your goal, there are 3 core strategies:

1. Get the house in order

This includes receiving executive buy-in and support to pursue a focused, as opposed to fragmented, approach. This may sound obvious, but it is an important step in ensuring long-term success. Whether you run a large organization with multiple locations or one location, this strategy ensures that internal teams are aligned in priorities and resources.

In the case of CTU Training, the company-wide decision was to pursue corporate customers comes with tradeoffs to prioritize both time and resource investments. For example, CTU Training quickly realized that their current model utilizing existing sales and marketing professionals to drive their new business was not effective. They soon learned that they required a dedicated resource focused on marketing execution. They also realized that a major shift with their customer base would require additional talent to support the corporate market. They committed to both investments — which helped to establish priorities for the entire CTU Training organization.

2. Build the marketing muscle

Up until recently, CTU Training had a more fragmented go-to-market approach with minimal oversight between teams. For example, individual sales representatives worked independently with clients and had little overlap with the marketing team. Within marketing, the activities were fragmented and did not build momentum throughout the year.

In order to maximize your impact, marketing must be performed end-to-end and across all customer touch-points. It has to also intersect with other internal teams, particularly sales and operations. Another aspect of this strategy is to increase efficiency of existing marketing strategies and platforms. As an example, it may be worthwhile to invest in an email marketing system that will allow you to track outcomes and cross-reference customer data. Alternatively, it may be appropriate to focus on building or revamping a website. To evaluate the right marketing lever, take into consideration the following questions:

• What is your current budget?

• What are my internal resources and capabilities? If these activities are not part of our organization’s competencies, can I outsource this activity?

• Who is my target audience?

• Is this activity allowing me to adequately reach this audience? • What is the desired outcome? How will I measure results?

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3. Find a short-term win that can demonstrate confidence

in the corporate space

This strategy built upon the notion that the corporate customer was a new audience for CTU Training. Without results for benchmarking, your company needs to find a set of quantifiable metrics that can ensure your company is placing the right strategic bet. It should be added that the metrics should address scope of execution. The right scope should address audience, market or geography, as well as time period.

A key activity to drive marketing execution is to achieve short term “wins,” or successes that show impact. This helps with getting the extended team energized and in motion. Key wins could include: filling up a class early, sharing recent customer testimonials with the team, or growing the volume of website traffic in a short time frame.

Short term wins, when properly achieved and communicated with an organization, increase energy and focus to drive bigger, long-term goals. In CTU’s case, these wins were:

• Website visits increase 71% new visits

• LinkedIn visits increase 279 – 1052 connections • Facebook visits increase 50 – 82 likes

• Microsoft Pinpoint reviews increase 3 – 50 reviews, making CTU one of the most popular Training companies in South Africa on Pinpoint

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16 To achieve the strategies outlined above, there are three tactics that are employed simultaneously.

1. Orchestrate a comprehensive internal sales readiness program

As mentioned in the Strategy section, placing big bets requires securing support across the company, from executives to each individual team. Readiness is the next step; your company must ensure your sales team thoroughly understands and can articulate your cloud story with clients. Cloud computing covers a broad range of products and sales professionals must be able to formulate solutions that tailor to customer needs. To add another level of complication, selling to corporate customers requires a distinct and arguably more advanced set of skills compared to selling to the student audience.

To this end, CTU Training pursued a one-day cloud sales training, requiring the entire staff of 50 to attend. Your content can be crafted internally, using content from the Partner Learning Central, Microsoft Learning’s Cloud 101 Jumpstart, and Microsoft Learning’s Sales Academy sessions. CTU’s decision to leverage materials already available from Microsoft and customize training materials saved time and money. It also helped CTU ensure materials were suitable for the South African market while being consistent with CTU’s brand and desired customer experience. If you have limited resources, Microsoft offers sales training content on a number of cloud topics. Refer to the

Microsoft Campaign Factory and the Partner Learning Center.

Microsoft is regularly updating this website with new courses and products. For the most complete list, please visit www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/training/cloud.aspx.

2. Rebuild existing website to better address the corporate audience

In order to appeal to a new audience, companies may require re-branding their image across existing marketing resources. CTU Training’s website required a re-do to design both content and visuals with students in mind. Leveraging the webpages templates, messaging, and graphics provided by Microsoft on Campaign Factory, CTU updated their website with a more polished, professional look that still accomplished their academic audience goals. In terms of content, the main focus is on their new Development Path and Cloud Computing pages. For CTU Training, Cloud Computing Training has proven to be a small percentage but growing steadily based on tracking of enquiries from website and other sources.

Execution

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In addition, CTU added a brand new aspect to its site: a digital interactive company brochure – as shown in Appendix E. The brochure tells a complete corporate story of the features and offerings of CTU Training with a specific call-out of the cloud options. The brochure’s interactivity highlights CTU Training’s move to be more current in their image and presence in their local market.

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18 A comparison between before and after the web revamp is shown below.

Before:

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After:

Within the first months, this execution proved to be successful as CTU saw a 71% increase in new visitors.

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3. Build out email capability and calendar of outbound emails

Through the Marketing Makeover collaboration, CTU Training recognized its need to improve internal capability in one area in particular: email marketing as a core demand generation activity. In the past, email was sent by each individual sales staff with no single managed database. The results were not tracked and the company relied on customers to contact back to discuss email content. As you can see, this approach was not only reactive but also time intensive and less effective at reaching customers.

During the Marketing Makeover Program, CTU Training decided to invest in email marketing by working with an outside email agency. The goal was to pull individual sales databases into one comprehensive, online system to enable centrally managed, scheduled mailing, in addition to tracking core metrics. A view of CTU’s centralized mailing system is shown below.

If you are considering an investment in email marketing, we recommend tracking these most critical metrics:

• Delivered rate • Open rate • Click-thru rate • Conversion rate

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Reporting

The core success metric for CTU Training was the number of students in cloud classes. The goal set forth is 30% increase, which is in line with their corporate growth goal.

With any type of marketing investment, to optimize return on investments we recommend tracking closely, at least on a monthly basis.

Learning: This is just the beginning of the journey for CTU Training. Moving customers to the cloud will be a year-long endeavor. This process can be applied to any new challenges or growth opportunities.

Next Steps

It is of utmost importance that CTU Training builds on this experience and competency gained from the Marketing Makeover. In the next 12-24 months, the company will continue to market cloud to their core client segments, which now include corporate customers.

Another core endeavor is to grow virtual training using cloud technologies – CRM Online, Lync, and SharePoint Online. About three months into the Marketing Makeover, CTU had a realization that in addition to teaching about cloud, the company should also teach on cloud technologies. Consequently, CTU invested in back-end IT and deployed Lync to expand their classrooms to any of their fourteen locations, thereby maximizing seat capacity, and providing the right level of instructor quality at all locations. Virtual training is not a new concept, but it is one that can be challenging to undertake for the instructors and students alike. However, maximizing class sizes across remote locations and controlling costs is seen as a huge benefit in the long-term. The goal for CTU is to grow Lync-based training by at least 30% in the next year.

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Examples Strengths Weaknesses Examples

Capabilities

Competitive advantages Unique positioning Resources, assets, people Experience, knowledge, data? Financial strengths?

Marketing - reach, distribution, awareness

Innovative aspects Location

Price, value, quality Accreditations and awards Processes, systems, IT, communications Cultural

Management cover, succession Philosophy and values

Political effects Legislative effects Environmental effects IT developments Market demand

New technologies, services, ideas Vital contracts and partners Sustaining internal capabilities Obstacles faced

Loss of key staff

Sustainable financial backing Seasonality effects

Examples Opportunities Threats Examples

Market developments Competitors’ vulnerabilities Industry or lifestyle trends Technology development and innovation

Global influences

New markets: vertical / horizontal Niche target markets

Business and product development

Information and research Partnerships, agencies, distribution

Volumes, production, economies Seasonal influences Political effects Legislative effects Environmental effects IT developments Market demand

New technologies, services, ideas Vital contracts and partners Sustaining internal capabilities Obstacles faced

Loss of key staff

Sustainable financial backing Seasonality effects

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Examples Strengths Weaknesses Examples

Current legislation Future legislation International legislation Government policies Government term and change Trading policies

Funding, grants and initiatives Pressure / wars / conflicts

Home economy Economy trends Overseas economies Taxation

Seasonality issues Specific industry factors Distribution trends Customer drivers Interest / exchange rates International trade and monetary issues

Examples Opportunities Threats Examples

Lifestyle trends Demographics

Consumer attitudes and opinions Media views

Brand and company, image Consumer buying patterns Ethnic /religious factors

Competing technology Development research funding Maturity of technology

Information and communications Innovation potential

Technology access and licensing

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IT is moving to the cloud.

Are you ready?

®

Discover how Microsoft cloud services training and

certification paths can help your students today.

MOC / digital MOC

Configuring, Managing and Troubleshooting SharePoint 2010 (Cloud Update)

For the most updated availability and release dates, please refer to Product Updates

on Campaign Factory at

http://mslcampaignfactory.com/PRS.aspx.

SharePoint 10174

Designing and Deploying Microsoft SharePoint 2010 (Cloud Update) SharePoint 10231

Configuring, Managing and Troubleshooting Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 (Cloud Update) Exchange 10135

Designing and Deploying Messaging solutions with Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 (Cloud Update) Exchange 10233 CRM 2011 TR7 Update CRM 80441 CRM 2011 TR8 Update CRM 80443 ®

Extending Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

CRM 80295

®

Marketing Automation in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

CRM 80290

®

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Customization and Configuration

CRM 80294

®

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Installation and Deployment

CRM 80296

®

Sales Management in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

CRM 80291

®

Service Management in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

CRM 80292

®

Service Scheduling in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

CRM 80293

®

What's New in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

CRM 80289

Implementing and Managing Microsoft Server Virtualization Virtualization 10215A

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Planning and Designing Microsoft Virtualization Solutions Virtualization 50273

Virtualization 6422 Implementing and Managing Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V

SQL 2012 ® ®

Querying Microsoft SQL Server 2012 10774

SQL 2012 ® ®

Administering Microsoft SQL Server 2012 10775

SQL 2012 ® ®

Developing Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Databases 10776

SQL 2012 ® ®

Implementing a Data Warehouse with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 10777

SQL 2012 ® ®

Implementing Data Models and Reports with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 10778

Private Cloud 10750 Private Cloud: Monitor and Operate Private Cloud 10751 Private Cloud : Configure and Deploy

Courseware Library Courses

Windows Azure Solutions with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010

Azure 50466A

Microsoft Server Virtualization and Management for the Experienced VMWare IT Pro Virtualization 50374A

Azure 50521A

Azure 50522A

Virtualization 50500A

Introduction to Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS)

BPOS 50408A

Virtualization 50288A

Microsoft Server Virtualization and Management for the Experienced VMware IT Pro Virtualization 50374

Virtualization Jump Start Course Virtualization 50556

Office 365 Jump Start Course Office 365 50557

Server Virt Jump Start Virtualization 50577

Virtualization 10324A Implementing and Managing Microsoft Desktop Virtualization

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What is Cloud Computing?

“In your company or organization the cloud will become the centre of your IT universe”. But what is Cloud Computing? Simply put, it is the evolution of information technology as we know it.

Cloud Computing is the ability to access information, from a device from any location at any time. In essence one can access information as it is now “stored” in The Cloud. Therefore, Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet.

The Cloud enables information to be stored offsite. Some earlier examples are ATM’s and cell phones. End users can access this information/data that is stored on servers at a remote location, through mobile applications, light weight desktops or web browsers. To enable service providers to deliver this service, the backbone of The Cloud needs to be build and maintained by various IT Providers. This includes Microsoft, Cisco and others. These providers strive to give the best service and performance so that it would be just as if the software programs were locally installed.

Cloud computing is based on shared services and the concept of infrastructure convergence. The Cloud environment allows applications to run faster, is easier to manage and adjust and requires less maintenance.

Microsoft’s Cloud Role Evolution:

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Infrastructure as a Service is a provision model in which an organisation outsources the equipment used to support operations, including storage, hardware, servers and networking components. The service provider owns the equipment and is responsible for housing, running and maintaining it. The client typically pays on a per-use basis.

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Software as a Service (SaaS) is a software distribution model in which applications are hosted by a vendor or service provider and made available to customers over a network, typically the Internet.

Cloud Computing

Cloud Role Evolution

Software as a Service Platform as a Service Infastructure as a Service

Cloud Service Cloud Developer/ Datacenter

Manager Data Steward Operator

Microsoft

Products

On-Premise

Roles

Cloud

Skills

Cloud

Roles

System Admin IT Generalist Enterprise Admin Security Specialist

Migration Security Integration Planning Design Management Identity Management Provisioning

Web Developer Database Admin Windows Developer Business Intelligence Developer

Enterprise Admin Virtualization Admin

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Cloud Computing

Companies are looking for IT professionals who can help them build private cloud solutions to optimize IT service delivery. Are you ready? With Windows Server 2008 and System Center 2012, you can build your Microsoft private cloud solution and gain

the automation and flexibility you need for your IT infrastructure, now and in the future. Do you have experience with these

technologies? Are you ready to begin the journey to cloud computing with a Microsoft private cloud implementation? Become Private

Cloud certified and prove your knowledge and skills in managing and implementing Microsoft private cloud computing technologies. Innovation is critical in today’s competitive marketplace. By adopting cloud services, businesses find significant opportunities for

innovation. However, successfully moving to the cloud can be challenging. That’s where you come in. The more you know about the cloud, the more you can help your business reach its full potential. In the process, you’ll set yourself up for success. - Microsoft Private Cloud Solutions for your Business: http://www.cloudassessmenttool.com/

What Cloud Means - A cloud is a powerful combination of cloud computing, networking, storage, management solutions, and business applications that facilitate a new generation of IT and consumer services. These services are available on demand, and delivered economically, without compromising security or functionality. We are moving to an interconnected “world of many clouds,” where people will have access to cloud services anytime, on any device, anywhere in the world.

Why It Matters - Enterprises, service providers, small businesses, and governments are looking for cloud solutions to solve some of their biggest business and technology challenges. A solution to these challenges requires an approach that fully integrates the three pillars of cloud: cloud applications and services, data centres, and networks.

CompTIA’s inaugural study on cloud computing in 2010 found that many companies were experimenting with this new strategy, but

there was still measured investment and resource allocation from both end users and channel firms. The 2nd Annual Trends in Cloud

Computing study shows that the hesitation is disappearing and companies are moving quickly past experimentation and into heavier use of cloud computing. The major points from the study give a foundation for understanding the shape of the cloud market today.

To begin with, end users are moving into more complex uses of cloud computing. Both understanding and perception of cloud solutions have increased dramatically in the past year—72% of respondents feel more positive about cloud today than they did one year ago. With a new found appreciation for how the cloud works and what it can do for a business, companies are moving beyond simple Software as a Service applications and even using cloud to build new capabilities. Infrastructure as a Service and Platform as a Service are currently used by 32% of companies, but 36% plan on that type of usage in the next year, indicating that companies will be moving or beginning application development in the cloud.

COM

PTIA

CISCO

MI

CROSOFT

Cloud implementation at CTU

CTU has implemented 8 different cloud technologies in the past 3 years. Much of CTU’s growth and success is driven by these cloud technologies.

Advantages of Cloud Technologies at CTU

• Better IT Management

• Central point administration

• Can easily adopt new technologies

• Higher availability

• Uptime

• Remote accessibility

• Cross platform information

• Better IT reporting

What are our vendors saying?

If you still do not understand the meaning of cloud computing and how it could help you and your organisation, refer to our article on Understanding the Cloud by Brendon de Meyer: <http://www.ctucorp.co.za/prospectus/Understanding The Cloud.pdf>

As part of CTU’s unique HRD model, up-skilling encourages current ICT Professionals to stay ahead by attending training and completing international certifications in the latest technology. Once IT professionals learn more about the cloud and they

see there is a big change that will help them in the future, it will become clear to them that they will have a job that is more challenging than just being an administrator

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National Footprint

Auckland Park Forum 1, 2nd_{Entrance, Braampark, 33 Hoofd Street, Braamfontein, 2001}

Tel: 011 403 0781 | Fax: 011 403 0795 | [email protected]

Bloemfontein 1st Floor, Pretty Suites Office Block, Pretty Gardens Lifestyle Centre, Du Plessis Road, Langenhoven Park Tel: 051 451 2210/09 | Fax: 086 572 8205 | [email protected]

Boksburg 36 Edgar Street, Everleigh, Boksburg

Cape Town First floor, 30 Waterkant Street, Cape Town

Durban The Square Suite FF03, 250 Umhlanga Rocks Drive, Durban, 4051 Tel: 0861 100 395 | [email protected]

Nelspruit Shop C3, Lower Level, Tarentaal Shopping Centre, Cnr. N4 & Ou Kaapschehoop Rd Tel: 013 741 2352 | Fax: 086 654 2683 | [email protected]

Polokwane 25 Devenish Rd, Polokwane, 0699

Port Elizabeth 77 2nd_{Avenue, Newton Park, Port Elizabeth}

Tel: 041 811 5855 | [email protected]

Potchefstroom 39 Buskus Street, Baillie Park

Pretoria Glen Manor Office Park, Block 4, Frikkie de Beer Street, Menlyn Tel: 012 470 9500 | Fax: 012 470 9501 | [email protected]

Randburg U76/77, Brightwater Commons, Republic Road, Randburg

Roodepoort Shop 59, The Village @ Horizon, Cnr. Sonop & Ontdekkers Road, Horizon Tel: 011 760 4321 | Fax: 011 760 2905 | [email protected]

Stellenbosch First Floor , Anglo African Building

Vereeniging 140 Genl Hertzog Avenue, Three Rivers