In case you haven’t heard, VMware has overhauled its certification program this week, to encourage even more advanced virtualization solutions. That in itself is significant in the short. But I think this change also signals the first in a series of training and skills development initiatives that are intended to support the latest holy grail of the high-tech industry: the converged data center.

First, this week’s news. VMware has created a new designation called VMware Certified Advanced Professional, a level that recognizes how virtualization can be used to underpin infrastructure that will be critical for the development of IT-as-a-service platforms and for cloud computing models in general. In fact, Cisco has said that its Data Center Networking Infrastructure (DCNI) badge has been the fastest growing certification in the company’s history.

This level isn’t the most advanced level in the program: That would be the VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX), of which there are only 50 professionals worldwide. Rather, the new Certified Advanced Professional (VCAP) certification is meant to be a stepping stone up to the VCDX elite. Here’s the requisite quote from Enis Konuk, who is the vice president of worldwide technical services for VMware:

“We expect the addition of VCAP certification will increase the skills of thousands of IT professionals, providing advanced knowledge to strategically implement and manage virtualization soluions to derive maximum value for their company or customers. The addition of VCAP to our program comes at a critical time as many companies need advanced skills to consider how to evolve their data centers to be more cost- and energy-efficient–all the while maximizing productivity.”

Just in case you needed even more explicit direction about what VMware is hoping to achieve, there are two specialties to choose from within the VCAP program: one for those with a role in data center administration and one for those focused on designing in a “multi-site, large enterprise environment.”

This seems to me to be one of the first steps toward skills development and certifications focused on covering the needs of a converged data center. Right now, even though the technologies that inform the data center are (in theory) coming together — servers, storage and network — these functions and roles are all handled very much separately. The skills for one aren’t necessarily transferrable to another.

I think it is very significant that if you want to become a VAR or data center integrator for the Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) Coalition, you need to go out and invest in separate certifications for all three of the participating technology vendors: Cisco, EMC and VMware. This despite the fact that the infrastructure being created by the coalition is supposed to be integrated more seamlessly than it otherwise would be if you cobbled together the separate pieces on your own. Hewlett-Packard has its own data center designation, of course, which dovetails with skills in its adaptive computing technologies.

What does all this mean? In my opinion, there will be a whole lot of turmoil in the world of certifications, as technicians who have been trained to be product experts need to start thinking in a bigger context. Think of all that training content that needs to be migrated and mapped and phased in and phased out.

My guess is that you’ll see more certifications along the line of management, design and architecture and that the product specialists will increasingly find themselves in team roles, as part of initiatives managed by others. How that will fly with engineers used to doing their own thing is anyone’s guess.

Want to read more channel news, as it happens? Follow my Twitter feed by visiting this link.

Executives for Hewlett-Packard and Synnex were just added to the CompTIA board of directors for 2010. The two new individuals are:

Mike Parrotino, vice president of Personal Systems Group Sales and Management, Solution Providers Organization, Americas, for Hewlett-Packard

Bob Stegner, senior vice president of marketing, North America, for Synnex

The incumbent members include:

Mariano Dy-Liacco, director of client solutions for Insight Enterprises
Bob Godgart, founder and CEO of Autotask
Lester Keizer, CEO of Connecting Point Technology Center
Charles Lennon, president of TeamLogic IT
Kerry McDonough, director of Cisco Small Business Sales, Cisco Systems
Mike Menegay, CEO and president, Mobile Armor
John Noha, channel director, West, for McAfee
Dennis Obial, president and CEO, Government Acquisitions
Dan Shapero, senior vice president for Kaseya
Annette Taber, vice president of business development for Network Dynamics
Vijay Thadani, CEO, NIIT
Oli Thordarson, CEO, Alvaka Networks.

BLOG UPDATED 7:44 P.M. EST (DEC. 18) TO REFLECT REQUESTED CLARIFICATIONS BY MICROSOFT

Just spoke with Julie Bennani, general manager of the Microsoft Partner Network, for the company’s Worldwide Partner Group about changes the developer is making to its customer satisfaction research process and how it relates to attaining a Gold partner designation.

For starters, customer satisfaction surveys are now a mandatory part of becoming a Microsoft Gold partner.

The changes are part of the company’s evolution of the current program into the Microsoft Partner Network.

Surveys can be sent under a number of different auspices. For example, they could be sent out jointly (identified as a project being conducted by Microsoft AND Specific Partner) or they could be sent out just branded with the Specific Partner’s name. A third-party research company will monitor which businesses and organizations are being surveyed on behalf of partners, so that they don’t get survey-weary.

Another change is that surveys are more random in the past. There is no “minimum” level of satisfaction that is required in terms of customer satisfaction ONLY that the partner complete 10 surveys for EACH area where they hold to receive a Microsoft Gold designation. So, they need 10 surveys for Security, 10 surveys for Unified Communications and so on. A particular business could be surveyed about more than one different area.

Bennani says the idea behind keeping the surveys more random is that the partner and Microsoft will receive a truer reading of customer satisfaction across a given partner’s customer base. When a partner is responsible for meeting a certain customer satisfaction level, they might be tempted to game the results a little bit by providing the research firm with a list of their “best” customers. Now, the only real requirement is that the customers are ACTIVE: That they have worked with the Microsoft partner in the 12 months prior to a given survey date.

Partners that submit to this process will receive their scores, specific comments and an analysis of how they perform against similar partners. They can also add their own custom questions. What’s more, if they are really ambitious, partners can actually run surveys on a quarterly basis to keep better tabs on how they are doing.

On the face of it, I like the idea of making customer satisfaction process part of how high a tier a partner can attain in a vendor’s channel program. Although I personally think more attention should be paid to how a partner actually does, I guess that will sort of take care of itself. I mean, how willing would YOU be to fill out a survey if someone had done a really bad job. Maybe there become degrees of Gold-ness, with Gold partners holding a higher customer satisfaction score entitled to more field benefits or more attention from partner account managers.

I also like the fact that satisfaction is being more ingrained into the partner consciousness AND that the survey process forces ongoing activity. Satisfaction is more likely to reflect a long-term relationship, rather than a one-off tactical success story.

Now that customer satisfaction surveys as a partner measurement tool have been in place for roughly seven or eight years now across the channel (not just at Microsoft), I’m betting we’ll see some more adjustments in the year to come from other vendors.

Chances are, at least some of the people who read this blog work for what could be classified as “emerging” technology vendors. If so AND you are going to the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in January, you could be eligible for their contest to locate “the most innovative technology product for 2010.”

The Global CES Innovative Technology Contest is being sponsored by Global Marketing Partners, which is essentially what you would call a channel matchmaker: It helps new vendors find the appropriate distribution partners for their products AND it helps VARs and solution providers find new products that might fit their solution portfolios. The prize is $20,000-worth of channel marketing to support your channel launch AND guaranteed distribution placement.

Entries for the contest are being accepted up until Dec. 28, 2009. The company plans to feature the 10 finalists during CES on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2010, at the Startup Debut event. Here’s the link to the contest application. And here’s the link to information about Startup Debut.

Good luck!

Few resellers have the marketing funds to support ongoing customer research, but CDW more than makes up for this with hits regular bi-monthly and annual polls of IT decision makers.

The third year-in-review edition of the CDW IT Monitor shows that budgets are likely to start flowing again in 2010 — but mainly on technology projects that help the entire organization get a better handle on costs. In fact, the CDW research shows that roughly one-half of the survey respondents are focusing on cost management as their company’s top business priority, with improving customer satisfaction next, followed by increasing market share.

The survey included 1,043 IT decision makers who were interview between Sept. 15, 2009, and Sept. 23, 2009.

As far as top IT priorities, here’s the breakdown in descending order:

• Information security (44 percent)
• Energy efficient/”green” IT (29 percent)
• Mobility/mobile devices (29 percent)
• Virtualization (25 percent)
• Remote conferencing (21 percent)
• Social media applications (14 percent)
• Cloud computing (14 percent)
• Web 2.0 (12 percent)

Had the good fortune to chat recently with Agilysys VP of Consulting, Ed Partenope, about the impact that cloud computing technology and ideas might have on data center infrastructure projects. Our discussion ranged from the simple — What is cloud computing anyway? — to the complex — “public” vs. “private” applications of the cloud. In any case, a must view for any high-tech channel professional who is trying to sort through the impact that cloud computing might have on their own business model.

Here’s the video.