I'm the Certification Program Manager for the AIOps/Managment portfolio at IBM.  We'd like to create a new Turbonomic certification this year.  A couple of questions for you: 

• If we're able to develop only one Turbonomic exam this year, what role do you think it should be for?  Some examples:  Developer, Administrator, Deployment Professional.  Other?
• Do you feel you need a Turbonomic certification (any job role) for your current job role? If you respond to this question, please be sure to mention your job role.
• Please note:  Even though I'd like to create a Turbonomic exam this year, there are many factors that might prevent a new exam from being created.  This post does not guarantee a new exam will be created this year.

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Karen Schuster

Technology Advocate IT Automation & Observability

SVA System Vertrieb Alexander GmbH
Wiesbaden
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One of the weaknesess I have identified (I speak for myself) after the ARM Associate training is that the main focus for new "serious" Turbo deployments are over the kubernetes cloud of the client (you name them), so a training focused specifically on the turbo app deployment itself from the kubernetes perspective could help a lot on the real world, as clients are not really eager to move to openshift if they are already skilled on a different kubernetes solution. Moreover, as the Professional training is not really available for us partners (I have tried hard to get it, but no avail) and alternative path could help a lot.

There is a strong push to move customers to the SaaS deployment model. This significantly reduces (but doesn't eliminate) the need for Turbo deployment skills. I would suggest that certification(s) be developed in this order:

1. Administrator/Operator. Every Turbo deployment needs at least one person who is skilled in Turbo administration and day-to-day operations. Having a solid understanding of how Turbo does what it does is vitally important. Being able to create Groups & Policies is the skill that enables a customer to achieve value from the product. 
2. Evangelist. This maybe should be consolidated into the Admin/Operator role. The reason I'm separating it is that you often need a different personality type for this role. You need someone who can take the Turbo successes and evangelize them to the management team. They also need to be able to explain to app owners and other stakeholders why it's important to take Turbo actions (and that Turbo can be tuned to accommodate their business needs.) This becomes more important as the Turbo deployment matures. As the Potential Savings number goes down, this role needs to be able to explain WHY it's important to renew the Turbo license. This is likely someone who would make a good presales engineer but needs to be actively engaged post-sale.
3. Developer. To get the most value from Turbo, you frequently have to access the Turbo API. You need to understand the REST API definition, but more importantly, you need to understand the underlying data model. Most people who use the API learn by doing. There needs to be a formal, structured training plan for developers.
4. Reporting. Like a developer, a Turbo (ThoughtSpot) reporting specialist needs to understand the underlying data model. ThoughtSpot is easier to use than SQL, but it's still a complex tool. Training/certification would be helpful.
5. Deployment. This should be a SWAT-like role for either internal IBM or Business Partner staff. An individual customer won't deploy Turbo often enough to need a deployment specialist.

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Turbo TAM

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To add to my previous post:

• Administrator: someone who logs in to the Turbo console (ssh session) and uses kubectl, YAML, and other command-line tools to manage the operation of the application
• Operator: someone who logs in to the Turbonomic application via the UI and uses Groups, Policies, etc. to configure how Turbo operates

Following the thread by Ken I personally believe the suggestions are really great. For me Administrator and Evangelist the way Ken described it are spot on. Connected to that it could be good to consider allied personas since not everyone works with Turbonomic as an Administrator perhaps but needs to know about the VALUE it gives them as a company. I am thinking of the FinOps part connected to this. 

Since we're now going to create more synergies with Cloudability, why not create a certification that is a combination of CLDY and Turbonomic with the focus on FinOps practitioners? That being said, maybe a certification focused on a domain could be something to have in place. 

A domain specified in the new FinOps Framework is "Understand cloud usage and cost" 

The Capabilities in this Domain will help the organization:

• Identify, catalog, and ingest all relevant cloud cost and usage data
• Normalize data as necessary across sources, using FOCUS datasets as a priority
• Define an Allocation strategy to map all costs back to internal cloud users
• Define techniques and policies to allocate shared cost and resources
• Create and define consistent reporting tools, parameters, and methods
• Define and distribute contextually relevant reporting data to personas where they operate

Since CLDY is the INFORM phase of the customers cloud journey and Turbo is the Operate phase, a certification connected to " Turbo/Apptio FinOps practitioner " could be an idea for a certfication as well that I would warmly welcome. 

Seems like we're on the same page Ivo :) 

Question, what cultural change are you helping driving? Please invite me to that community.