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05 Tuesday Apr 2011
Posted in IT
Tag Archives: Cloud Computing
How Cloud Computing And Web Services Will Affect The IT Job Market
01 Tuesday Mar 2011
As cloud and web services continue to gain speed, the upfront cost of launching a product is decreasing. Businesses can create more for less money –- and with less people.
Though in the long run this likely means fewer IT positions, it’s currently changing a different aspect of the tech job market: desired skill sets.
Unlike traditional software products, cloud and web services revolve around content, monetization and data. Much of the installation, configuration and maintenance work done by traditional data center employees is becoming automated. This means desired skill sets will move away from hands-on technical work to include managerial talents, user-experience knowledge and more.
Emerging Skill Sets
“The cloud and online services are new and different from traditional software products and, therefore, require a new type of talent,” says Eugenia Sawa, a recruiter for Bing. “It can take more than just a traditional engineering background and computer science degree.”
So what does it take? Here’s a breakdown of three emerging skill sets IT professionals should focus on to remain competitive in the job market.
- Data Mining – The online space is immense. If you’re able to combine statistics and artificial intelligence methods to spot patterns in huge data sets, a multitude of job opportunities await you. Data mining helps businesses gain an informational advantage over competitors, making the field an essential area of expertise.
- Web Analytics and Statistics – Search and driving traffic to sites are becoming more and more important as the web continues to be monetized. Advertisers are looking to get the most for their money, which means companies will need people who can analyze user interactions and trends to find weak points and identify new needs.
- Business Intelligence – As companies hire more data miners to sift through and organize information, there will come a need for people to look at that data and translate it into business speak. It requires someone with a passion for both engineering and competitive intelligence, who can help his or her team members understand their customers.
How to Prepare
These emerging skills are complements to a traditional computer science or electrical engineering degree, Sawa says. Nowadays, most university programs are shaping the curriculum to give students sufficient depth in core knowledge.
“Computer science has become so broad that it’s hard for a student to walk out with knowledge of each specific skill set to do any job in the industry,” says Justin Cappos, a University of Washington Computer Science & Engineering research associate. “The best bet is to teach detailed information at different levels of the stack, so when students go out, they know enough from top to bottom that they can figure out whatever gets thrown their way.”
That said, it’s important to get practical experience with real tools. Most cloud environments have low-cost resources, especially for students. It’s easy to get going independently and do interesting things on your own initiative. You can also seek out learning opportunities through university research projects or internships. Though you may not be keen on all the tasks you’re asked to do, the outside validation of working on an established product speaks volumes, Cappos says.
In terms of languages for web applications, the most practical choices are javascript and flash. Cappos recommends a solid knowledge of javascript. “It’s the dominant technology, and it’s not going anywhere,” he says.
Still, each job candidate has a unique combination of experience and education — and each company looks for something different.
Master One or Strive for All?
There is something to be said for both mastering one knowledge area and having an overall understanding of everything. It really depends on where you want to work.
The cloud allows companies to get much farther with just a few end-to-end developers. This is particularly important for startups that are moving rapidly to launch smaller, often niche products with just few staff members. “At a small company, you’re going to be their one stop IT guy,” Cappos says. “You might not need to be world class in one area, but have an understanding of all.”
For larger businesses, knowing how to scale up to more advanced computer science concepts is very important, Cappos says. With significantly more resources than many startups, big tech companies are able to hire for more specialized positions. At the same time, it’s good to have a deep understanding of how the overall system works. Software trends change, which makes hiring people who can adapt easily to new technology a better investment for most companies.
Conclusion
Career opportunities in cloud and web services are growing, and likely to continue on that path for at least a few years. A 2010 IBM survey shows 91 percent of 2,000 IT professionals surveyed believe cloud computing will be the primary IT delivery model by 2015. Needless to say, those poised for cloud and web development can expect job security for at least the next four years.
Like the concept itself, gaining skills for cloud and web services requires thinking outside the box. If you have a passion for it, move beyond traditional IT career preparation and be proactive about tapping into these emerging skill sets. Whether you choose to master one discipline or strive for general knowledge, you’ll have a competitive advantage in the job market by having the new and necessary skills for web development.
Posted by Mashable
Cloud vs ITIL – Pick One. By Bob Lewis
19 Wednesday Jan 2011
Posted in IT
Tags
The Cloud is fundamentally incompatible with ITIL — the most widely accepted framework for professional IT management.
ManagementSpeak: I’ll see if I can get that removed from the requirements.
Translation: Get used to it.
This week’s anonymous contributor explains, “I’m in a sarcastic mood today, so here’s some ManagementSpeak.”
My major premise is that ITIL (according to its proponents, at least) defines professional standards for IT management. My minor premise is that ITIL and The Cloud are incompatible. My conclusion: Moving your IT infrastructure to The Cloud is unprofessional.
Make this conclusion a major premise. The minor premise: Gartner predicts that within 5 years, one out of five companies will have 100% Cloud-based IT infrastructures. The inescapable conclusion? Gartner is predicting that, in a demi-decade, 20 percent of all companies will abandon their professional standards for IT management.
“Wait wait wait!” I hear you protest through my tinnitus-crazed cochleae. “What do you mean, The Cloud isn’t compatible with ITIL?”
I don’t claim guru-level expertise on either ITIL or The Cloud. Based on what I do know, I’m pretty sure ITIL-approved Change Management can’t happen when IT has no say in whether an upgrade takes place or not. That’s quite important in ITIL-land (and in the land of your IT operations even if you aren’t an ITIL advocate).
Still, I’m working hard to avoid strongly held opinions in the absence of expertise. Which is why I called on my friend and ITIL guru Rick LiaBraaten.
KJR: Rick, if you look at The Cloud and compare it to what ITIL requires for IT best practices (and when will ITIL wake up and stop using that phrase?), how does it stack up?
Rick: I hate to break it to you, but the folks who manage ITIL have woken up. Version 3 talks about “good practices,” not “best practices.” Maybe they read the KJR Manifesto and paid attention.
KJR: Stranger things have happened. Not many, but a few. Anyway, what do you think — does The Cloud conform to ITIL’s good practices then?
Rick: Some of them, sure. Keep in mind that ITIL’s “good practices” are guidelines, not rules. Implementations should be tailored to each organization’s specific situation. Based on the companies I’ve worked with, I’d have to say The Cloud is going to fall short for a lot of your subscribers in several very serious ways.
KJR: Which are …
Rick: You already picked the worst offender — Change Management. Performance and Availability Management are also problematic. So is Problem Management.
KJR: How so?
Rick: Let’s start with Problem Management. When you’re working in The Cloud, unless you can get your entire technology portfolio from a single source you’re going to integrate business solutions from multiple vendors, just as you do now. That means when something goes wrong you’ll deal with multivendor finger-pointing, just like now.
This is a very old problem in IT. Only it’s much worse in The Cloud. In your own data center staff experts can get at the technology themselves to figure out what’s going on. With Cloud-based services they can’t, so if IT has assembled a solution from even three vendors, all of which verify their servers are up … well, the word “screwed” comes to mind.
KJR: And that’s the easy one? How about Performance and Availability Management?
Rick: It’s like this. These days, most IT shops figure if they don’t know an application is down until a user calls the Service Desk to complain, something is terribly wrong.
To be fair, we’re starting to see a few third-party tools that can monitor SaaS applications and alert IT when they aren’t available, but this isn’t what you’d call mature technology. So far as I can tell, the SaaS vendors themselves … and I’m including Salesforce.com, which is the one everyone points to as the shining light of Software as a Service … offer nothing to help IT manage the application.
In fact, it’s the opposite — part of the selling point is that you don’t need IT to manage it. That’s the SaaS vendor’s job. And as long as you consider “trust me” to be a good approach to supplier management, I guess that can work.
By the way, Supplier Management is an ITIL core process, and it doesn’t list “trust me” as an example of good practice.
KJR: Imagine that. And Performance Management?
Rick: It’s a good-news/bad-news situation. The good news is that elastic provisioning is one of The Cloud’s major selling points. If performance starts to suffer, it’s easy to add resources.
KJR: And the bad news?
Rick: The bad news is that the tools for monitoring performance are even more primitive than the tools for monitoring availability.
KJR: And we haven’t even started to talk about Change Management. That will have to wait until next week, though, because I keep KJR to 800 words or so.
It’s my version of good practice.
Bob Lewis is author of Keep the Joint Running: A Manifesto for 21st Century Information Technology, Bare Bones Change Management: What you shouldn’t not do, and six other books on business, information technology, and where they intersect. He is president of IT Catalysts, Inc., a consultancy specializing in these and related areas.
Rick LiaBraaten, Solutions Consultant with Aeritae Consulting Group, Ltd., has more than 20 years of experience in IT consulting with over 11 years of ITIL consulting, process improvement, management and training across the ITSM lifecycle of services. He holds certifications in ITIL v2 and v3, ISO/IEC 2000, and CobiT 4.0. Contact him at rliabraaten@aeritae.com.
Courtesy of CIO.com
