Continuous education and learning
Today Information Technology (IT) is undergoing significant transformations but many software people are not preparing to deal with what is happening.
As the Internet became more popular, networking and infrastructure also became critical to all companies. Many software people believe that just connect computer to the internet then everything will work but it is not that simple. Every company needs system architects to design, implement and operate networks, computing systems, storage to ensure that they are in compliance with security policies or else all of their systems will be vulnerable for hackers, viruses, and Spam.
Today software engineering skills such as system architecture, network security are rarely taught at university and most software people did not know how to architect network systems efficiently and more securely so the connection from computers to internet became a process of "doing whatever work". With more connection needed as more and more people using computer, companies are struggling to cope with this fast growth as more systems are added. Meanwhile, the electronic and telecom industry continue to place in the market more machines, devices, and new technologies create more confusing and chaotic problems to the fast changing industry.
Without the proper knowledge and skills in networks, more and more companies are outsourced their networks, systems and storages to services providers. However, with the exception of a well qualified provider with strong architecture skills, many outsourced companies are actually still doing "patchworks" without understanding of scalability, performance, usability which are key attributes of system architecture resulting in inefficient systems, slow connections as more devices are added and less secure to computing attacks.
Today, almost all companies are relying on the Internet to do business, there are significant demand in network people trained in software engineering, especially in security, architect and as new technologies come on line such as cloud computing, software as services, there are more demand in network engineering-and architecting, design and implementation. Because the changing in technologies, the knowledge and skills in network, security also change rapidly so software people need to continue to upgrade their skills accordingly. For example, Unified communications (including teleconferencing) is a new trend on how global organizations interact with each others. UC is all about connecting many disparate systems to make it work toward a common standard. For this technology to work seamlessly, networking teams must be highly skilled in UC architecture, strategy and implementation. With many mobile devices are being used today many telecom firms are considering bundling mobile devices and other functions together because cell phone is not a phone but also a Computer and communications platforms across which next-generation of software applications will be delivered and they need a well defined architecture. (Think iPhone and thousands of applications)
All of these trends point to one key thing: Continue education and training are essential to all software people. I strongly advise software people to take additional trainings to upgrade their skills as technology continues to change.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
