Video: The Cloud Skills Shortage
The cloud makes many aspects of IT easy, but tech professionals need to gain new skills to thrive there, says Microsoft evangelist Simon May
Cloud marketing tends to suggest that moving your IT onto shared virtualised servers makes everything simpler. It is supposed to be taking the skill out of IT, isn’t it?
Microsoft evangelist Simon May disagrees. Cloud changes the way we do IT, and just doing it at a new scale is enough to require a whole new set of skills. In other words, like every other revolution in IT, the cloud is going to create its own skills shortage, unless IT professionals re-tool to get to grips with the new world.
The IT cloud
In the cloud a single action can affect hundreds of servers, so IT pros have to be aware of their new powers. They are also at the forefront of a drive for IT departments to function like real-world consumer-facing services – after all, tech-savvy users are going to threaten to move to public cloud offerings if they don’t like what they get from the IT staff.
So tech people have to get to grips with their business colleagues’ requirements more than they ever have before.
But let’s not reveal too many spoilers. Have a look at our video to see Simon’s suggestions for moving your career into the cloud.
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