Security, certification, and Cloud Computing

[gmongardi-cGmSLFmkI3Y at public.gmane.org (Grant M.)]

Rich Braun wrote:
> Just my $0.02.  I think Cloud Computing is going to ultimately amount to
> exactly as much opportunity (zero) for the Little Guy as fiber-optics turned
> out to be 10 years ago.  This is basically a way for Big Business to control a
> big chunk of the market, and surely they will succeed.  No question, it's a
> next Big Thing.  But don't bet your career on making money on it unless your
> ambition is to join a big company and then get laid off a year or three later.

I disagree. I think Cloud services offer reasonably measurable benefits.
And probably moreso for the smaller companies than the larger. There are
alot of cost-prohibitive options out there mind you, but some, like
Google-Apps and Microsoft Exchange Hosted Services offer a decent
return. At a price of $50/year for Google Apps, which figures to
$1000/year for a company of 20, it sure beats buying a server, Exchange
(or some other supported clone), paying the electric bill, buying 20
copies of MS Office, and then supporting it all. I know the argument:
use open source. For a company of 20, unless they already have someone
knowledgeable in those possibilities (OO, sendmail/postfix, calendaring
software, etc), it's not as simple an option. Pay $50, get IT in a box.
It's an attractive option to lots of folks, myself included.

That said, as far as a career goes, I don't see learning it as anything
that would help me in any way. In order for it to be sustainable, I
think that it will need to be centrally managed, and done so cheaply. My
suspicion is that it will all be automated, where servers die and are
disabled automatically, then flagged for repair by a depot. As a
technician, you'd likely become more of burger-flipper than anything of
any use to someone else. Think McDonald's. Years ago, even at Howard
Johnson's you'd need to know something about being a cook. Now, it's
just an assembly line - you're skills become nothing more than being
awake, and your pay becomes commensurate.

If you want to learn something useful, I suggest looking at the
enterprise itself and choose something there. Lots of options to be a
"guru". Active Directory, Exchange, LDAP, SANs, cluster computing,
hardware integration, security, disaster recovery solutions, 5-nines
uptime specialist, media streaming - there's tons of stuff. But you
can't just learn it. You need to live it. If you're not ready to learn
everything there is to learn about it, then don't bother. Just because
you can recite what LDAP stands for doesn't mean you can put it on your
resume. If I get another resume that says "TCP/IP" on it, I'm seriously
going to slap the guy. And even if you have a certificate, it's only
value is when you've applied what you've actually learned.

My 1 cent,
Grant M.
-- 
Grant Mongardi
Senior Systems Engineer
NAPC

gmongardi-cGmSLFmkI3Y at public.gmane.org
http://www.napc.com/
781.894.3114 phone
781.894.3997 fax

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