2016: The Year of the Software-Defined Skill Set
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Develop a DevOps Mindset
It's not enough to understand that there are servers and networks; it will be mandatory that operations teams understand how they are abstracted with virtualization and thus how they can be automated with templates and scripts.
Instead of having developers crank out an endless assembly line of VMs for operations to deal with on their own, developers collaborate with operations to deploy and support applications. These applications are built from smaller, task-specific micro-service components that can be replicated easily, and orchestrated according to the needs of the specific service. That provides a much more efficient and flexible way to build and adapt services, and even alter the purpose of an entire data center at a moment's notice, making what used to be difficult and costly far more manageable.
In 2015, Gartner named software-defined applications and infrastructures as one of the year's top strategic trends. As we are seeing more organizations introduce software to effectively utilize and manage physical hardware, the IT teams that manage these software-defined environments will also need to evolve their skill set. Otherwise, they may find that their current capabilities may become obsolete, as many of their primary job functions will become automated.
IT workers will need to broaden their breadth of experience to include more relevant DevOps skills like scripting, automation, and network/storage virtualization, to name a few. Without making this transition, the risk to individual careers is significant.
As cloud computing and virtualization pave the way for the age of software-defined everything, IT workers must prepare for 2016: the year of the software-defined skill set. In this slideshow, Citrix has identified five ways that IT pros can continue to contribute to their organizations.
Related Topics : A Big Market for Big Data Jobs, Midmarket CIO, IT Management Automation, SharePoint, Technology Markets
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