Accredited ITIL® 4 Specialist: AMCS

Today we're talking about Acquiring and Managing Cloud Services. How fun, let's get started. You're watching IT Pro TV. [MUSIC] Hi everyone. My name is Kelly Mac and today I am joined by the one and only Chris Ward. How are you? One and only, just me, just today, maybe or something like that. Yeah, [LAUGH] well Chris I'm excited to dive into AMCS also known as Acquiring and Managing Cloud Services. Which is a mouthful, which I'm pretty happy that you were able to get through that. I promise, I'm sure Kelly and myself at some point are gonna mangle that somehow and call it something, acquiring and maintaining or I don't know. But you are correct, it's acquiring and managing cloud services, brand new ITIL4 specialist course. So for those of you who are ITIL4 foundations certified, this is the cool thing is that we're going to be able to essentially take you to that next level. And this one is an interesting one because as we're gonna see this, this certification is not a part of the managing professional track, it's not a part of the strategic leader track, something kinda new. These are called extension modules or extension classes, something new that Axelos and People cert starting to do. I think it's a great idea mostly because there's so many other areas that ITIL can get into but in the past they've kinda gotten stuck into either, well here's the life cycle stages or here is the capability modules. Or in the case of the new ITIL4, we started getting into things like, we have the managing professional. So you have four certifications you can get for that, you can get CDS, Create Deliver Support, drive stakeholder value, high velocity IT and then direct plan and improve. And then hey, if you pass those four bada bing bada boom, you are in ITIL4 managing professional and then if you just take that strategic leaders side with digital and IT strategy, such a great name, DITS or DITS as we like to call it. You can see those episodes anytime, remember being a part of the members services or membership of one of our members, I think is the word I'm trying to look for here, is gives you access to those. But remember if you wanna take the exam you do have to purchase the voucher, there is a little bit of a payroll there, same thing Kelly is gonna be true here for our ITIL4 AMCS. And it's funny that we were talking about this beforehand, both Kelly and I about how ITEL is one of those things that's so broad, it's something something new. Now just tell us a little bit about kinda your background cuz you have a kind of a radio and television background, very similar to mine. In fact we we share a lot of things in common. We really do. Tell me a little bit about that and how now that you've gotten into ITEL, how do you see this working from how we IDeed things and now in the world of IT and doing everything, what does that look like for you? Well I'll be honest with you, when Ronnie came to me and told me I'll be helping you with this course I was like all right great, because TV hosting that that comes a little natural to me. But he says, but I need you to watch the series of ITIL4 and I'm like what is that? And I ended up watching an old one by one of our previous instructors and he came and he says, you're watching the wrong one. [LAUGH] So I was like god, he's like you gotta watch Chris's. I was like okay, so I was a little intimidated because I was like this is gonna be way over my head, but as I got into it and I started taking notes and learning, it's really just framework and systems and procedures and just making sure that you have a well oiled machine. Making sure that you have good clear communication and a process to follow so you can function well. So once I got past that I was actually good to go and I was like, wow, this applies to a lot of what I've done in my management career as well as my radio career, and just really having systems in place which is crucial. Because let's think about it, if you don't have a path to file or a guide to follow you're lost in the sauce. Definitely, and and one thing that I would say is that, what Kelly kinda hinted at is that you noticed her background coming from a radio and television, but management and how to coordinate things and do things. And those of you who have been joining us for ITIL especially because you have to have your ITIL4 foundation in order to take this and pass this exam. That you know that there's that overall, I call it the mantra of ITIL which is not about the tech, it's how you use the tech that matters and so that's a big ITIL thing. And as you will see as we go through this, I'll say, it's the big ding ding ding well lit room, you're paying money to answer questions on a computer screen, you might wanna know this. Well that's the aspect that we're gonna look at. It's the procedural things, it's the why and what we're gonna cover here as we take a look here on the screen real quick, we gotta couple of points that are important. First off, it's best practice guidance. So when you think about the world of ITIL, it's non prescriptive. We talked about that, no matter which of the ITIL courses that you've been taking either with me and Kelly, and Zach and I or even Jo pack back in the day, we kept talking about it's about this non prescriptive. We're not gonna mandate you do anything, we're not saying here's a checklist and you gotta check every box, make everything work. No, that's not what it's about. It's more generally accepted best practices in order for us to understand how to better meet the needs and provide value for our customers. And those customers can of course be external to our organization or they can even be internal because we have our fellow employees or staff members that are using IT services. Whether it could be something as simple as email or something like SharePoint or whether you're using some sort of software application for sales like Salesforce or some CRM software. All of that is gonna be working out and we would say, so that's that best practice, non-prescriptive. So first thing that we look at here is that of course right here, best practice guidance on how to use the capabilities offered by the cloud. One thing Kelly, I think you probably know the answer into this is, is the cloud the answer to all of our problems and everything that we need? No, it's not [LAUGH] and when you think about the cloud then you have to think about security as well. Because for the longest I never used the cloud because I saw all these celebrities getting hacked and all of their information and pictures being released on the internet. So I was really not trusting the cloud but when the pandemic happened and everything went to the cloud, I had to comply and learn a new system. Right, and that's the nice thing about this is with the cloud is that, we're talking about things that you used to be. Kelly hit it nail right on the head there is that, you used to have control of your devices and now you're talking about moving your data, your information, your software, your applications, your infrastructure in many cases. Into this data center that's out somewhere in the world that you have access to through the internet, which means of course then we have data integrity issues, because you have data in motion data and use on these applications out in the cloud. And so that we need to be able to protect for them. So we need to think about how to use, that's the first step here, on how to use the capabilities for that. Also, we wanna identify and pursue opportunities. No doubt one of the things we need to think about is the cloud has changed the way that companies do business. It has changed the way that we as, we would say users and consumers of services, how we access our services, how we program them, how do we maintain and manage those services? Well that all changed with beginning with the world of virtualization because that was the most important thing, is to be able to do multiple computer systems, end users or end units and points that can be contained in one physical host. So you can create these massive server firms and massive storage areas and all these things, that was the first kind of the link in it. But then we also knew that there's going to be risks and Kelly kinda touched about this. One of the biggest risks being security. You are no longer in control of the physical device, it is not on your property, it is not on your premises, you can't lock the door to make sure that any bad actors wants to walk in has access to it. No no no, now that's out there and you're trusting the Amazons and the Googles and the Microsoft, the major cloud players that are out there and we're saying yeah, we're gonna giving you the keys to the kingdom here so please be careful of our stuff. Yeah, well that's a risk that we have to do. Also we wanna be able to achieve our desired outcomes. Now one thing that we see with this is that remember the ultimate idea in ITIL, and so Kelly just to kinda touch based on, remember we have this definition of a service, right? And the definition of a service is a means of enabling value cocreation by facilitating and there's that word that we see on the bullet there, outcomes. And so when we have outcomes, right? We have to look at this and say well, how do we manage those outcomes? Is it different? Is it the same? Is it maybe a little bit of both? Those are things that we have to think about, wouldn't you agree? I would absolutely agree. Yeah, so these are things that we would say to ourselves okay, we gotta look at this and say okay, what are the risks? What are the outcomes that we're looking for in this case? So that's gonna be kinda the overview but you know what, I heard a rumor Kelly, I heard there's an exam that's attached to this. I heard that same rumor. You heard that same rumor? Okay, so guess what gang, there is an exam. It is the ITIL4 specialist AMCS. I had a chance about a month ago to, when they first released it, to go out take the exam. So yes, I did look at the exam before coming in here and I gotta tell you, I'm excited about this. Me too. I've done a couple of these the higher level ones and there're some that are just like, holy cow, killer like even I'm kinda struggling a little bit saying, okay, I gotta really dig into this. And it might be in an area especially with high velocity IT where I'm not a particular dev ops kinda guy, I know enough to be dangerous but I'm not a developer. The projects that I've worked on are pretty much more infrastructure hardware based type of things and so when you start getting into development, especially application and software development, that's kinda a whole new different world. And so that one like high velocity IT was one that I was just like, wow, I need to learn a whole bunch more about an area that I wasn't too well versed in. But this one, this is one that I think most of you guys are gonna really enjoy. So let's take a look here at a couple of things that we need to think about. Number one, the practical skills and knowledge necessary to create a line and integrate key concepts of the ITIL framework to the cloud consumer journey. Deep breath on that bullet. But that's basically the best practices. Those are the things that we're gonna look at as if you've watched any of my ITIL courses and we talk about the ITIL guiding principles. You have to say it kinda with the pirate accent but they're more like guidelines than actual rules, and so what are the guidelines, the practical things that we need? And then of course we've got the information that you need to successfully clear and pass the ITIL4 specialist AMCS. So be on the lookout, both Kelly and myself, we're gonna take time and you might notice something where we say, hey look, this is really important. I usually use my little ding ding ding well lit room clue, and if I start drawing on the screen which I do every once in a while, I might circle things that you need to know in order to pass that exam. But Kelly just to kinda ramp it up here and close it out, there were some cool things that you guys are gonna learn, this is gonna be a great class. I'm so glad that I get to do this journey with you. I'm excited too. Excited for everybody else as well. Absolutely, so make sure you come back, we have a lot to learn and if you're even half as excited as I am then we'll see you soon. Thank you for watching IT Pro TV. [BLANK_AUDIO]