The Latest IT Service Skills You Should Be Working on Now
November 4, 2013
CloudCow Contributed Article. Author: Ilan Hertz, VP of Marketing at SysAid Technologies
IT Service skills are in higher demand than ever, as the four highly influential, and valuable, forces of cloud computing, big data, social media and mobility merge into everyday IT, they bring with them innovation, ideas, and progress.
Enterprises, governments and organizations, now demand strategic technology and an advanced programmable infrastructure that can perform at web-scale. They also demand the skilled professionals needed to manage it.
In a recent report by Gartner, “strategic technology” is defined as that with the potential for “significant impact” on organizations in the coming years.
As the lines between business development and information technology blur, IT professionals sprint to keep up with the learning curve of an industry growing and changing at the speed of light.
As we move into the last quarter of 2013, IT professionals must look toward increasing their skill set to meet the demands that we can see on the horizon of 2014 and beyond.
Cloud Skills
According to a report by IDC, an analysis firm, roughly 1.7 Information Technology jobs went un-filled in 2012 because there simply were not enough candidates who possessed the skills and training to work in a cloud based environments. The study indicates that the demand for these skills will increase by over 25% in the next two years, increasing job openings to nearly 7 million around the globe for those IT professionals who have the right skillset. Among those skillsets in demand are the following:
- Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) system admins and testers
- Web services tools and standards knowledge for integration of new architectures
- Cloud Architects with broad knowledge of the provider landscape
- Comprehensive knowledge of Platform as a Service (PaaS) design and implementation
Big Data
A recent e-skills research analysis was sponsored by SAS and it showed that by 2017, roughly 132,000 new job opportunities will come into play for those possess the skills for managing and analyzing big data.
Roles that will need to be filled will include the following:
- Developers
- Architects
- Analysts/Data Scientists
- Administrators
Skills that will be needed include data mining, modeling, and artificial intelligence as well as knowledge of the following systems and platforms:
- Hadoop
- Java
- SQL
- NoSQL
- C++
User interface development
As user-friendly consumer tools become more readily available, organizations must stay abreast of the ability to produce and support well designed systems that offer functionality along with form, in order to maintain any kind of competitive advantage.
Consumer and corporate tools and platforms serve a multitude of functions and include but are not limited to the following:
- Social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Google + and Twitter, to name a few.
- Mobile operating systems such as IOS and Android, for example.
- Corporate software like Salesforce, Kissmetrics, and others that enable customer relationship management, marketing automation, support, analytics reporting , and more.
Those IT pros that have the skills needed to serve these demands will find that their career choices are wide open.
Mobile Software development
Over the next five years is it expected that the growing number of devices, user contexts, interaction patterns and computing styles will increasingly make “everything, everywhere” more difficult to manage.
As BYOD programs increase, the mobile workforce is rapidly expanding; that, in turn, places a huge strain on IT departments. IT professionals who posses a broad skillset around mobile software and security development will become increasingly needed. A good way to start digging into the BYOD world is by learning about the many mobile device management solutions offered in the market, studying its features, security levels and enterprise support.
Open source and Linux knowledge
Though Microsoft has been crushing the corporate market for years, there is a steadily building interest in open source platforms, as cost is an ever-increasing concern.
Linux is at the forefront of open source operating systems, specifically where web hosting is concerned.
While open source and Linux may require a new skill set for IT professionals, the bigger opportunity will likely be in the integration of the two. Though they have been able to integrate partially for some time now, Linux systems have only recently been able to operate as full Active Directory Domain Controllers. IT techs that can splice together open source platforms and tools will have a huge advantage in the near future.
By no means a complete list, the aforementioned areas of IT are a good place to start when looking toward learning opportunities that should be addressed if IT professionals want to stay ahead of the game in their field. Not discussed, but nonetheless relevant to the future of optimal IT skillsets are Java software development, HTML5, and data security.
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About the Author
Ilan Hertz is the VP of Marketing at SysAid Technologies, a leading provider of IT Service Management solutions, deployed at over 100,000 companies around the world.