Gaining increasing popularity in the IT field is the move towards cloud computing and virtualisation. In essence, this is the trend whereby businesses employ IT services on demand using the Internet rather than doing it in-house.
For infrastructure needs, businesses can now access hardware functionality by subscribing to such services via the Internet. The key benefit is that they do not have to buy and maintain many servers anymore, but can obtain those and their operating systems via an Internet service provider.
If added capacity is required, there is the option of a better subscription or subscriptions tailored for their particular needs.
For software applications the model is similar. Businesses can now replace their in-house software packages with subscribed software services from the same vendors. For example, an accounting package that was previously used in a company and installed on an in-house server is now available on the Internet by subscription on a monthly or usage basis by the same company.
Also, so-called thin-clients are becoming more popular as workstations, where the bulk of the software, including the operating system, is used from an external vendor.
This reduces the need for small to medium-sized businesses to maintain their own server and network infrastructure and rather get the same functionality over the Internet on a pay-as-you-use basis.
What does this hold for the future of the in-house technical infrastructure specialist and for the in-house software developer?
Infrastructure specialists will now be needed more to work in vendor environments. Their job skills will remain the same but with an emphasis on virtualisation skills and certifications. In these vendor companies, there will be an added need to equip these technicians with people and sales skills because of the business model of supplying the services to clients.
On the software application side inside a user company, programmers will now need to customise and extract data from such online software services. They will need to skill themselves up on the front-end side with Web and scripting software skills too.
Such skills will:
* Enable in-house applications with Web front-ends ASP.NET, PHP, Java for Web-enablement comes to mind.
* Use and extract data from online software services companies for in-house customisations.
Says Graaff, CEO of Compuways: "This business model is busy creating a wide range of new job opportunities in the IT job market. While IT technical skills will always be in demand, this model facilitates additional skills training (and therefore, growth) within new and exciting work environments.
“As a specialist employment agency with a 20-year track record in the IT industry, we have seen many shifts in the IT job market. From mainframes to PCs, from procedural software programming languages to fourth generation programming languages to object-oriented programming languages. From mainframe to mini computers and then to servers. From servers to virtualised servers.
“There was never a time where good solutions-oriented IT skills were not in demand.
“We are excited to capitalise on this new development by matching the right person with the right job and equipping our clients with the relevant skills.”
Contact details:
Compuways IT Professional Search, Consulting and Training www.compuways.com
+27( Mobile: +27 (0)83 700 2858((0)11 803 4079
G19 Pinewood Square, 33 Riley Road, Woodmead Ext. 12, Johannesburg, South Africa
Member of APSO (Association of Personnel Service Organisations) of South Africa
Rated among top four IT recruitment companies by Corporate Research Foundation.
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