In need of Cloud Training and Skills

 Cloud computing is a good thing that can provide tremendous business value, if applied properly and smartly. The question is, who is going to make this all happen? Organizations are relying on information technology managers and professionals, to a large extent, of course. However, many IT people say they aren’t receiving enough training or support to move their organizations into this new computing realm.

That’s the takeaway of a recent survey of 1,000 IT professionals, conducted by ScienceLogic. The survey finds 50 percent of organizations will spend more on IT in 2014, investing heavily in virtualization and cloud infrastructure. At the same time, half of the respondents participating in cloud initiatives within their organizations say they need more education on the technology — their current skillsets do not adequately prepare them to do their jobs well in the coming year.

Some key areas, as identified in a Microsoft white paper on critical cloud skills, include the following:

Business liaison: “Move skills up the stack in the decision process. Hone expertise to the business from within IT. Determine whether to focus in-house or off-premise, define options whether the organization decides to stay on-premise or moves to the cloud.”

Data center manager: “Reposition data center skills toward the hosted data center. Enhance automation skills. Work in standardized environments and with standardized applications as an option.”

Security specialist: “Help businesses move core business processes and data securely to private, public, or hybrid cloud solutions. undefinedStay abreast of new security models and technologies, such as data protection skills, privacy standards, securing message integrity (encryption, digital signing and malware protection), federated identity management, authentication methods, and auditing.”

Software architect: “Serve as a link between the organization’s technical and business staff. Design and build complex distributed systems that exist both outside and inside an enterprise and the cloud. Understand how to design and construct multi-tenant and virtualized systems that can manage thousands of simultaneous users and isolate higher levels of the stack from physical component failures.”

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