Worried about pace of IT, Cloud, jack of all trades

rockstar81

I work as a 3rd line engineer but am starting to worry about pace of IT and everything moving towards cloud. I work mainly with compute and storage but do some networking as well. I can't seem to decide on an area to specialize in and also want to choose something that is worthwhile in invest time in - anyone reach a cross road like this?

iBrokeIT

If you like being a jack of all trades why not specialize in virtualization? If you want to work with virtualization you had better know storage, systems and networking to operate at a high level.

Nersesian

Virtualization and cloud tech go together like peas and carrots.

phoeneous

Not everything is going cloud bro.

Verities

Its just another shift in the IT field and as phoeneous said not everything is going to the cloud (which is just a sexy marketing term for managed services). Even if services go off site, companies still need people to manage the platforms and hardware that run/host the services. It sounds like your background would be perfect for taking your skill set in the direction of specializing in a virtualization platform anyways. If anything you should be stoked at the prospect of your skill set being more relevant now than ever!

N2IT

Services are clearly going off site I have seen it first hand at a number of businesses I have consulted for and directly work for. With that said Verities said it best, someone will have to support it.

bgold87

Yea, I don't think much is going to change except the way you connect to it. I manage our Azure servers the same as the on premise ones.

darkerz

I think the big 3 now are;

Networking
Virtualization
Security

Have a mid level grasp on 2, hyper-focus on the 1.

Essendon

@darkerz, great advice there. Add Big Data to his list. That thing's taking off too.