Cloudy with a chance of redundancies

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Whether you want your cloud solution from a search provider, a bookstore or a software house there is no denying that the next wave in the IT revolution is the cloud.  Does that mean that IT professionals will go the way of the thatcher, millwright and blacksmith to be consigned to OU courses on social history. Is it some developer/management led conspiracy to remove what is seen as an obstacle to change in some organisations, or simply a way of cutting costs?

My assertion is this is not the case for several reasons.

  • Our roles will be different.  When I started in tech support we used excel to track ip addresses because dhcp wasn’t a service we had, indeed we had to install tcp-ip software on windows because it wasn’t included in 3.11! However despite all the advances in networking we still have network guys, why because that increased functionality means that more is possible, and there is more to go wrong!
  • Another point is that we still have users, and even in a totally connected world they will make mistakes, or have trouble getting their work done, so I don’t see an end to the helpdesk although we could argue about where this will be done in future.
  • Like me the UK needs more fibre to make it healthy, only in the UK it’s not bran that’s needed it’s fast broadband; fast enough for unified comms, video streaming and distributed transactions.  Until that day we will be running a mixed economy of on premise and off premise services, and that means good IT Pro’s to seamlessly integrate this and keep it all running.
  • Even if we do live in a permanently connected world I suspect some systems will always be kept in house because of concerns around performance, control and security, or just general inertia

So am I thinking about retraining to learn to be an electrician, or ramping up my guitar skills? No I am staying with SQL Server (including SQL Azure in the cloud), as I believe the demand for dba skills will continue long after I am in the ground.

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