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.