[Novalug] cloud computing (and CIO mag article)

[Rich Goodwin]

This reminds me of a song my kids listened to when they were young...

And the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and
round, all day long!"

Rich

On Sun, 2009-06-07 at 10:17 -0400, greg pryzby wrote:
> 
> Doug Toppin wrote:
> > "Cloud computing" is a subject we've been going over in my class at
> > various points.  That topic has a variety of meanings but they all
> > pretty much boil down to less custom software (and thus licenses) and
> > requiring less labor to administer (and thus fewer people) installed
> > on individual user platforms (laptops, desktops, ...).  When we made
> > the jump from big machines with dumb terminals to PCs on each desk a
> > significant increase in IT-related staffing was required to administer
> > them (an artificially induced increase really).  As those costs have
> > increased over the years it's become apparent that something needs to
> > happen to reduce them.  Cloud computing puts us right back to multiple
> > people sharing big machines (via virtualization or whatever) with
> > fewer people needed to administer them.
> 
> Back to time-sharing mainframe type days. Yep... what goes around, comes 
> around.
> 
> > A recent article on this subject can be found at:
> > http://www.cio.com/article/493502/Early_Cloud_Adopters_Ride_Out_Hype_Cycle
> > 
> > At the end of the article you'll see: "Adopting cloud whole hog could
> > cut IT staff by 10 percent to 15 percent".  There are numerous side
> > effects to moving to a cloud environment but it's clear the intent is
> > to reduce some of the mundane aspects of IT.
> 
> Interesting point.
> 
> Being right in the middle of this (while @ Novell and again at Red Hat), 
> I am not sure I agree. I agree that the level of knowledge for the IT 
> person will need to increase and the 'mundane work' will be less, but 
> there will still need to be people to do the work. Much like with the 
> industrial revolution, the skill set will change. I don't need people to 
> sew by hand, I need people to fix the machines.
> 
> With cloud, there is a need to design and care and feed the 
> infrastructure. There is the need to gather requirements and build the 
> machines (VMs?) for the cloud. Someone has to build the knowledge into 
> the system to allow the allocation/release of resources although the 
> allocation and use is 'automated' via tools.
> 
> You are right that you need to keep your skills sharp and grow.
> 
> > The strongly waving flag here is to keep your skills tuned to beyond
> > those required for mundane IT.  Find ways and learn how to plan,
> > implement and manage future environments in all sorts of situations.
> > Be amenable (and enthusiastic) to change in the workplace.
> 
> For those of us who were around in the 90s and early 00s, if you were 
> breathing and weren't afraid of a keyboard, you could get a 'job in 
> computers'. There were smart people (they are still around and in the 
> business), but there were lots of people that who did it for the money 
> and didn't really grasp what they were doing. They could follow a script 
> or decision tree, but if there wasn't a case to handle the situation, 
> they were lost.
> 
> It happens in EVERY field when there is a jump in 'technology'. It is 
> coming again for the IT field. However, these things tend to be slow 
> (bleeding edge, fast adopters, fast followers, etc...) and there are 
> companies that will stay way behind the curve (IT for stores) for years.
> 
> Of course I could be wrong. But don't say nobody told you what is coming.
> 
-- 


Remember, all Windows machines are, by definition, fault tolerant.

              They run Windows don't they!!
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/x-pkcs7-signature
Size: 5223 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://calypso.tux.org/pipermail/novalug/attachments/20090607/f7151f97/attachment.bin