Operating Cloud Infrastructures is not what you would describe as something to be taken on lightly. As my colleague Floyd so eloquently pointed out in his last blog post, “Let’s end the shenanigans and admit that Cloud computing is difficult, complex, and we don’t have all the answers. Nearly every aspect of the modern datacenter is in a state of change and as agility increases so too does the complexity.”
So it should come as no surprise that the skill set to operate the Cloud is also changing compare to traditional operations. Siloed focus and limited knowledge of the entire operations is giving way to an integrated, holistic approach when it comes to managing the Cloud
According to the article, “Panel: The Cloud Requires Fresh IT Skills,” as the Cloud standardizes infrastructure, the opportunity for IT will be to focus less on maintenance and more on innovation opportunities for the business. They key being the ability to develop the new skills required.
To start with, knowing how to tie together different cloud services, and hook them back to their own systems, will be critical to create new service offerings, said Bob Kelly, a Microsoft vice president for server and cloud platform marketing. Bob continues,
"Most of the work going forward will be integration, and architectural in nature. There will be a need for people in all levels who are thinking about a composite world. You have to think about how parts fit, which is an architectural mindset. It's not implementation of a feature, it's architectural in nature."
The second part, will be understanding how the environment is delivering services and how everything is interrelated. Changes in complex systems can have complex results. Having the not only the knowledge but the real-time visibility into the infrastructure, will be essential for adapting to change and delivering the innovative business results requested by the business.
As organizations move more of their applications to the cloud, having these types of skills and the know-how to make Cloud services is critical as a business enabler.
