Overcast or a Silver Lining?
  The skills you need for a cloudy future.



Overcast or a Silver Lining? The skills you need for a cloudy future.

Q4 2010  Print

It’s no longer if, but when organisations will migrate more core functions to the cloud.  As a part of this revolution, the role of the IT worker will undoubtedly shift over time.  Your standard break/fix network team might not be so in vogue going forward, nor will many basic admin tasks that can now be outsourced at a significantly cheaper rate. As such, are our roles in danger of becoming obsolete?

Scared much?  It sounds somewhat similar to a tweet sent out by T.Rex during the later stages of the Cretaceous period –

‘What with this comet coming and all, what are we supposed to do – those mammoths look wayyy too furry to eat and I certainly am no adaptive amphibian :( ?”

However, have no fear - instead of curling up in a panic induced ball, sobbing whilst downloading your latest Android apps, there is some reason for cheer. Gartner predict IT spend will continue to increase over the coming years and the new raft of technologies that are now available bring with them numerous opportunities for the IT professional to re-skill and re-invent themselves in the cloudy future.

It does however require a shift in focus and needs you to plan to make sure you have the right tools for what will be required from you going forward. 

So, what do you need to focus on? Some suggestions below;

Business Analysis and Process: It’s no longer enough to be the guy in the groovy vendor supplied T-shirt that helps out with computer glitches.  IT is about driving business value so you must make sure you have a firm understanding of what makes the business tick and be able to identify solutions and processes to deliver this to your internal and external customers. 

Business Intelligence:  Get intelligent about intelligence.  A lot of coin has been dropped by organisations into extensive ERP and CRM tools.  It’s now up to you to extract it.  Key areas of demand going forward will be systems experts who can deploy and manage tools; database analysts who understand database architecture; and senior business analysts to work on system requirements. 

Virtualisation: If it’s all going virtual you need to know what’s going on.  There are multiple vendors with a variety of server and application virtualisation solutions.  Know your stuff and get certified to prove it.

Network Engineering: The internet is the oxygen to the concept of cloud computing.  As such, expect to see a sharp increase in the skill levels required to actively manage reliability, bandwidth and the structural engineering of an organisation’s network, taking into account the rapid rise and usage of mobile devices as key platforms to deliver business critical functions.

Page 2