Among the topics we covered: 

• As you survey the tech hiring market, what’s driving tech hiring this year? We hear talk of a slowdown – is that affecting hiring?
• How is the tech sector doing in terms of DEI and gender equality?
• What can tech professionals do to improve their employment opportunities?
• The future of tech hiring? It’s often said that hiring is driven by algorithms – then again, personal connection plays a key role. How will this balance change?

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Among the topics we covered:

• The CDO is a relatively new role. Yet Forrester in 2019 reported that 58 percent of companies had appointed a CDO, another 26 percent planned to hire one. These numbers sound quite high to me. Do you believe them?
• What are the major responsibilities for a CDO? What are the challenges for CDO?
• Let’s dig into the new report about the role of the CDO.
• The future of the CDO role? What do you predict?

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IT Modernization Presents Opportunities, Risks for Industry Pros

A survey by Vision Solutions find that decision-makers are challenged by ensuring critical business data is available and secure when updating their IT systems.

The Current State of Data Storage

The way companies store and protect data is changing rapidly, according to the data. Tape backups, which were used by about 80 percent of organizations in 2010, now are being used by 65 percent in 2016. Meanwhile, virtual tapes and clustering, which in 2010 had just 20 percent and 30 percent market share, respectively, have grown in popularity. Virtual tape, for instance, is now employed at 30 percent of companies.

A Look at Data Failure and Loss

Data failure and loss are common occurrences. In fact, 49 percent of companies reported experiencing a loss or failure, and nearly 20 percent said they lost up to a day’s worth of work when it happened. IT professionals now are forced to work faster than ever to get data back, though in more than 20 percent of cases, information was lost due to a company not having a backup.

Data Center Downtime Costs Plenty

Scrambling to get a company back up and running after downtime is critical to the bottom line. Fourteen percent of companies said their downtime cost them more than $500,000 and 6 percent reported a cost between $100,000 and $500,000. Nearly 70 percent of companies said downtime cost the company up to $50,000.

Who Has a Disaster Recovery Plan?

Given that, IT professionals increasingly are being pushed to create a disaster recovery plan that can be implemented to regain access to data and get people working. However, 9 percent of respondents said they don’t have a disaster recovery plan. Only 16 percent of IT professionals feel completely confident in the plan they have.

There Are Various Reasons for Data Migration

Data migration to various platforms is an important task in the corporate world, but it often taxes IT resources, survey respondents said. Still, the pressure the business side places on IT requires migrations. In 56 percent of cases, companies are migrating data to replace outdated servers, 46 percent of migrations occur to improve performance and 45 percent are aimed at improving storage hardware.

A Look at Migration Challenges

There are several challenges to migrating data, the respondents reported. In 44 percent of cases, staff working overtime was considered the biggest challenge. System downtime and validation of data integrity were cited as other challenges in migration by 42 percent and 29 percent of respondents, respectively.

Here’s Why Organizations Need to Share Data Between Databases

Although sharing data between databases can be time- and resource-intensive, nearly 60 percent of IT professionals say they do it to consolidate data housed at disparate locations into a single warehouse. A need for business intelligence was cited by 54 percent of respondents who also share data between databases.

Enterprises at Various Stages of Cloud Migration

The Vision Solutions survey found that 35 percent of respondents are currently using the cloud, although that figure is expected to skyrocket in the coming years. For those companies currently using the cloud, 52 percent use hosted private cloud, while 46 percent employ public cloud solutions. In addition, 4 in 10 IT professionals said their companies use a hybrid cloud solution.

Moving to the Cloud Brings Challenges

IT professionals are facing serious challenges in the cloud, with 52 percent of responding professionals saying their chief cloud concern is a “desire to maintain internal control of infrastructure.” The second largest concern, voiced by 45 percent of IT professionals, is safeguarding data. Surprisingly, just 10 percent of respondents said they’re worried about public reports of a cloud deployment failing.

The Trouble with Accountability

IT professionals don’t necessarily agree on who should be responsible for public cloud data protection. More than 4 in 10 IT professionals said the public cloud provider should be responsible for protecting data. However, 39 percent said the IT side should take up that responsibility. Regardless, a recent report from research firm Gartner found that by 2020, 95 percent of cloud security problems will be the customer’s fault, not the provider’s.

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Trustwave Report Shows Enterprises Can’t Hire Enough Security Staff

Finding qualified IT Security staff is hard enough, but if these specialists fail to help an organization meet regulatory compliance it’s likely they’ll be fired, a Trustwave survey finds.

Finding IT Talent is a Challenge

When asked about the biggest challenges related to IT security staffing, 57 percent of respondents indicated that recruiting and finding talent is a significant or major challenge.

IT Security Staff Turnover is Not Higher Than Other Staff

While there is a constant flow of staff in and out of many organizations, 64 percent of respondents indicated that IT security staff turnover is not higher than other corporate departments.

Experience Is The Most Highly Valued Attribute

The study clearly shows that 83 percent of the responding organizations indicated that experience was the most highly valued attribute in potential IT security job candidates.

IT Staff Spend the Most Time on System Updates

When it comes to understanding how current IT staff spends their time, it turns out that security is not at the top of the list. Instead 40 percent of respondents indicated that they spend most of their time on system maintenance and update tasks.

Email Security is a Top Priority

The survey found that 67 percent of respondents identified email security technology as sector that should be heavily or significantly funded.

Security Testing Requires the Most Talented IT Staff

While email security was identified as a top priority, it’s not the area of IT security that requires the most skilled IT staff members. The report stated that 64 percent of respondent identified security testing (including vulnerability scanning and penetration testing) as an area of IT requiring the most skilled staff.

IT Professionals Get Fired for Failing to Meet Compliance Standards

While it’s hard for organizations to find and retain IT security staff, there are several different reasons why an organization would choose to fire staff. The top reason (68 percent) is failing to meet regulatory compliance that led to a large fine or other penalty.

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The Google Certified Professional Data Engineer program is targeted at people with experience in areas like programming data pipelines, tuning databases, creating reports and performing statistical analysis on corporate data. It is designed to demonstrate an individual’s proficiency with key Google data technologies such as BigQuery, Cloud Dataflow and Cloud Machine Learning.

In a blog post announcing the certification program, Google’s head of curriculum and certification Rochana Golani described the data engineer role as key to helping companies modernize the way they use data to enable better decision-making.

A Google certified data engineer would be able to help shape business outcomes by analyzing data and building statistical models to support decision-making. They will play a crucial role in helping automate and simplify business processes using machine-learning models, Golani said.

“Data Engineers will build, maintain and troubleshoot data processing systems that are secure, reliable and scalable, and this certification establishes a trusted standard of proficiency for the role,” she said.

The new data engineer certification program is one of several that Google plans to offer under a broader Google Cloud Certification Program that the company announced recently. Google has so far announced three certification tracks under the program. The other two are a Cloud Architect certification track and a G Suite Administrator program.

The cloud architect certification program will launch soon and is designed to show an IT professional’s proficiency in areas like designing and planning cloud architectures, managing and provisioning cloud infrastructure, and in security and compliance.

Initially, the company will offer beta certification exams for assessing an individual’s proficiency in these areas. Google will gather performance statistics from these exams and use them to create the final standards for certification under the program.

The G Suite Administrator certification program is designed to demonstrate an individual’s proficiency at handling a wide range of tasks pertaining to Google’s suite of cloud platform technologies. Individuals who sign up for the program will be trained and assessed for their readiness to handle tasks like creating, deleting and administering users and organizational units; configuring settings, policies and reporting; and ensuring the overall security of their cloud domain.

Google currently offers the G Suite Administrator certification exam in English and in Japanese.

According to Golani, individuals with hands-on experience using Google’s Cloud Platform technologies are best prepared for the new data engineer certification program. The company has developed a certification exam guide that lists the skills required for data engineer certification. Individuals interested in signing up for the course can use the exam guide to assess their readiness for it, Golani said.

“Increasingly, data drives decisions, and there’s a huge demand for technical professionals who can support decision-makers,” by extracting value from business data, she said.

The Google certification programs appear to be a response to the surging demand for a wide range of big data skills across multiple industries.

According to a Forbes report from earlier this year, just three companies—IBM, Cisco and Oracle—advertised more than 26,000 jobs requiring big data skills in the past year alone. The salaries for such professionals averaged approximately $124,000 over that period.

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The survey of more than 430 security professionals, conducted by the Enterprise Strategy Group, found significant dissatisfaction among workers in the industry and underscored the demand for these skilled employees and their good job prospects—a combination that highlights companies’ difficulties in retaining security workers.

The survey found 56 percent of security professionals believed their company did not provide adequate training to keep up their skills. At the same time, 46 percent of those workers received an offer to apply for another job at least every week.

Companies that do not invest in their workforce or provide clear career paths are coming to grips with the rapid employee turnover resulting from the high demand for security professionals, said John Oltsik, senior principal analyst for ESG, during a press call announcing the results of the survey.

“We are understaffed, we are severely underskilled and we are not investing resources into keeping people up to speed,” he said. “This poses an existential threat.”

It’s no surprise that there are not enough cyber-security specialists to go around. Even though 200,000 workers were expected to enter cyber-security positions last year, there will be a shortfall of 1.5 million globally by 2020, according to a 2015 survey conducted by Frost & Sullivan.

The security workforce shortfall has made workers tough to find and even tougher to retain. Companies that prioritize security behind other business goals, fail to meet market rates for security professionals and do not provide opportunities for skills development are those most likely to lose workers, according to the ISSA survey.

About two-thirds of respondents, for example, stated they did not have a clear career path. The workers identified mentorship, a standardized career map and technical training requirements as positive steps a company can take to help them with their careers.

Yet, the survey suggests that companies that make cyber-security a priority, offer a clear career path to become cyber-security specialists and continue to train their employees have a better chance of retaining their workers, said Candy Alexander, CISO and chief architect for cyber-security career life cycle for the ISSA, on the conference call with media.

“When you look at the history of the profession, we take a reactive approach—when we have breaches, we focus on stopping the bad guy,” she said. “We have to stop being a reactive profession and start being a proactive profession.”

In addition, while cyber-security specialists are in demand in some high-tech areas of the country—such as San Francisco, Boston and New York, living expenses can have dramatic impact on effective pay, according to jobs site Indeed.com. The best average salary, adjusted for living expenses, is in Minneapolis, according the site’s analysis.

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When Microsoft announced it was acquiring LinkedIn for $26 billion back in June, the company hinted at plans to link the massive professional network with its productivity software ecosystem. By pulling LinkedIn’s user graph into Office-based workflows, Office may one day suggest experts that can help users complete the task at hand.

Before Office-LinkedIn experiences begin to materialize, Microsoft is working to acquaint LinkedIn’s massive user base with two of its most popular Office applications with new LinkedIn Learning courses. “The new courses are available today and focus on helping you get the most out of Outlook 2016 and Excel 2016,” wrote Peter Loforte, a general manager at Microsoft’s Office Modern User Assistance and Localization group in a Sept. 22 blog post.

“Learn how to use Outlook 2016 to set up an email account; send, receive and organize messages; add a signature; manage contacts and calendars; manage meetings; and collaborate and share with others,” continued Loforte. “Get started with Excel 2016 by learning how to enter and organize data, create formulas and functions, build charts and PivotTables, and use other time-saving features.”

The announcement follows last week’s launch of LinkedIn Learning, which is based in large part on Lynda.com. LinkedIn acquired the provider of online courses last year for $1.5 billion.

In announcing the acquisition of Lynda, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner (who now reports to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella), said the service’s “extensive library of premium video content helps empower people to develop the skills needed to accelerate their careers.” Like Lynda.com, LinkedIn Learning is a paid service, but new users are entitled to a free month before subscription charges kick in.

The service generates personalized, career-boosting recommendations for individual users based on intelligence gleaned from the network. Businesses can also create multi-course “Learning Paths” for their teams. LinkedIn Learning offers more than 9,000 online courses, a number that rises by at least 25 courses each week, according to the company.

LinkedIn Learning is the latest in Microsoft’s efforts to help train a new generation of workers and help today’s professionals learn the skills to enhance their careers.

This summer, the company announced a new online “learning-as-a-service” program aimed at narrowing the IT skills gap. Based on the Open edX online education platform and hosted on the Azure cloud computing platform, the Microsoft Professional Degree program teaches professionals in-demand skills. The first curriculum offered by the program is a Data Science Degree.

In April, Microsoft announced two new free cloud training programs. Microsoft IT Pro Cloud Essentials includes a free Pluralsight online training subscription along with free Azure credits that allow users to explore dev/test, backup and other popular cloud-related tasks free of charge. For professionals looking for some pointers on navigating the cloud IT job market, the Microsoft IT Pro Career Center offers guidance on the coursework required to attain a desired IT role, along with salary information and expert advice.

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The online course, called Linux Security Fundamentals (LFS216), is an attempt to help individuals evaluate their own organizations’ security readiness. The course is not intended as an introduction for those who are new to Linux, but rather is targeted at those already running Linux systems.

“Of course, security is not an entry-level topic; it’s more important for folks who’ve already started their career,” Clyde Seepersad, general manager, training and certification at the Linux Foundation, told eWEEK. “The prerequisite for this course really is that the person is actually in a job where this matters.”

The LFS216 course covers threats and risk assessment, auditing and detection, application security, kernel vulnerabilities, local system security, network security, denial-of-service attacks as well as firewalling and packet filtering.

This is not the first time the Linux Foundation has offered security training. The Linux Foundation also has a course designated LFS416 that is about Linux security. Seepersad explained that the content is essentially the same with both LFS216 and LFS416, with the difference being the course format. LFS216 is a self-paced, online course that an individual can take in their own time from anywhere. In contrast, LFS416 is a four-day instructor-led course that an individual has to attend in person or watch via webcam at specific times.

“The logistical and personnel costs of the instructor-led course [$2,500] put it at a much higher price point,” compared with $199 for the online class, Seepersad said. “We have heard anecdotally from many sysadmins that they don’t want to point out to their employer that they need to learn more about security, so the lower price point makes this feasible [for them to pay the $199 out of pocket] without corporate training dollars.”

On completion of LFS216, students receive verification that they finished the course and a certificate of completion. Seepersad noted that while the Linux Foundation does not offer a security-specific certification, this course can help with some questions on the Linux Foundation Certified Sysadmin and Engineer exams.

The Linux Foundation is using the 360Training platform to deliver the LFS216 course. The Linux Foundation also works with other online training platforms including edX, where it has a very popular Introduction to Linux Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) that was first offered in March 2014.

While understanding Linux operating system security is a broad topic, the application security piece is complex. “Application security is a huge landscape, and the applications themselves have intricate permission and user policies,” Lee Elston, the course instructor for LFS216 told eWEEK. “It would be unjust to try and cover them in a single class.”

The LFS216 does include application security as a topic in a way that can help students get a grasp of the key issues.

“In LFS216, we look at the systemic changes and vulnerabilities that can affect the security of the system and the applications,” Elston said.

In the course, tools such as tcpdump and wireshark are used to see the packets (both clear and encrypted) coming and going to systems, he said. As for the status of the systems and applications, tools such as OSSEC are used to audit the environment for changes. Elston said that there is an opportunity for students to compile and test a kernel vulnerability (an old one) to see how kernel modules might be the source of an intrusion.

“We demonstrate many conditions the systems may face with a heavy emphasis on lab exercises for maximum exposure to the tools,” Elston said. “The primary technique for this class is experience, getting your fingers into system and testing, seeing and fixing conditions that exist in the real world.”

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at eWEEK and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.

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IT Security Skills Shortage Means Higher Salaries, More Risks

A new Intel Security study finds the IT security skills shortage is a global issue with no end in sight. Here are critical findings from the study.

Some Skills in Higher Demand Than Others

According to the study, the top three security skills in demand today are intrusion detection, secure software development and attack mitigation.

Vast Majority of Companies Lack Sufficient Cyber-security Skills

Around the world, 82 percent of respondents to Intel’s study reported a shortage of cyber-security skills. Different countries, however, reported varying rates, with Mexico reporting the highest percent and the United Kingdom the lowest.

Security Professionals Make More Money

Because of the shortage of cyber-security professionals, salaries of such professionals are being pushed up. The median cyber-security salary globally is now at least 2.7 times the average wage. In the U.S., the report noted that cyber-security jobs pay a 9 percent premium, or $6,500 more, then other IT professionals.

Security Skills Shortage Will Continue in 2020

The security skills shortage is not an issue that is confined to 2016. Globally by 2020, 15 percent of cyber-security positions are expected to go unfilled.

Lack of Cyber-security Skills Makes Companies Hacker Targets

The cyber-security skills shortage is having an impact on organizations. Thirty-three percent of respondents reported that the shortage of cyber-security skills means that companies know they are a target for hackers, as the organization’s security isn’t strong enough.

Hacking Competition Helps to Build Skills

There are a number of ways to develop cyber-security skills, among them participation in hacking competitions. Sixty-eight percent of respondents indicated that hacking competitions play either a small or big role in helping to improve cyber-security skills.

Outsourcing Security Work Is Commonplace

One of the approaches that many organizations are using to handle security is to outsource it. Globally, 60 percent of respondents indicated that their organizations outsource some security work.

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Based on the Azure-hosted Open edX online education platform, the software giant’s new Microsoft Professional Degree (MPD) program will “offer employer-endorsed, university caliber curriculum for professionals at any stage of their careers,” Alison Cunard, general manager of Microsoft Learning Experiences, said in a July 13 announcement. Open edX is an open-source online teaching and courseware development platform founded by Harvard and MIT in 2012 that offers a variety of free and paid courses on a variety of topics, such as Linux, Web development and several others, including non-technical topics.

The first MPD curriculum is a Data Science Degree program aimed at narrowing the data analytics skills gap.

Last September, Gartner predicted that 75 percent of enterprises will use analytics by 2017. Citing research from McKinsey & Co., Cunard cautioned that many organizations may not have the personnel qualified to make use of tools that convert corporate big data into insightful business intelligence.

By 2018, McKinsey & Co. expects that the United States will face an analytics skills shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 people. Worse, the job force will be lacking 1.5 million managers and analysts that can use big data analysis in their business decision-making processes. A recent TEKsystems survey revealed that big data analytics ranked as one of the most hard-to-find IT skills.

Enrollment in the Microsoft Professional Degree in Data Science is currently open. Courses and labs can be audited at no cost. Per-course pricing ranges from $25 to $99, which entitles students to a certificate upon the successful completion of each part of the curriculum.

“Our plan is to award a Microsoft Professional Degree in Data Science to students who successfully pass and secure verified certificates for each course and then achieve a passing grade in the capstone project,” stated the company in an online FAQ. “The degree is a digitally sharable, resume-worthy credential.”

The curriculum’s 10 courses include querying data in a database with Transact-SQL, analyzing and visualizing data with Excel or Power BI and an introduction to the R statistical programming language, among others. As a final project, students develop and deploy a big data analytics solution on the company’s own cloud-based Cortana Intelligence suite.

“The proliferation of cloud technologies and the delivery of software as a service has opened up tremendous revenue opportunities for our partners,” Steven Guggenheimer, corporate vice president and chief evangelist of Microsoft’s Developer Experience and Evangelism group, said in a statement. “The Microsoft Professional Degree will be offered via edX, as well as through learning-as-a-service offerings delivered through partners, to meet customers’ evolving training needs and to help close the skills gap we are seeing across a number of industries.”

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