Crescent Solutions Blog

The Crescent Solutions  team wants to share intelligence about the current national situation in IT recruitment and hiring.  We all know the why (career advancement, gainful employment).  Now let’s take a look at the what (types of jobs available), the who (types of companies accepting applications) and the where (top cities with abundant opportunities).  So here’s our two-part series on the state of IT jobs in the U.S.

In December 2011, CIO.com’s Meridith Levinson reported on “10 Hot IT Jobs for Managers and Executives in 2012.”

Venture-funded Internet companies, private-equity firms and the companies owned by them are among the best places to find management- and executive-level jobs in IT, according to recruiters who serve those organizations.

“Compared to enterprise technology and enterprise software companies, the opportunities at Internet-related companies continue to be bountiful,” says Keith Giarman, global leader of DHR International’s venture capital and private-equity practice. “There’s tons of capital chasing those opportunities.”

According to Marc Lewis, CEO of Leadership Capital Group, other good places to look for IT management jobs include:

• BPO (business process outsourcing) firms
• SaaS (software-as-a-service) companies
• SaaS-related business units of enterprise software vendors

“Demand for CIOs, CTOs, VPs and directors of IT at SaaS companies or business process outsourcing companies will be robust,” says Lewis.

The “10 Hot IT Leadership Jobs” are:

1. Head of Technology Infrastructure.

2. Director of Outsourced Services or Vendor Management.

3. Manager/Head of Unified Communications.

4. Manager of Master Data Management/Director of Data Architecture.

5. Managers/Directors in Charge of Mobility.

6. Business Relationship Managers.

7. CTO/SVP of Engineering.

8. CIO

9. CISO/IT Security Consultant.

10. IT Consulting Firm Partners.

There’s good news from the Linux camp, and the Crescent Solutions  team wants you to know about it.

The Linux Foundation, in partnership with Dice.com, has just released the results of the “2012 Linux Jobs Report.”

If you work as a Linux developer or system administrator, your pay should be increasing — and so should your job offers — according to the first-time report, which surveyed hiring managers.

The report states that companies everywhere need trained Linux professionals, and they need them now. The survey found that salaries for Linux developers, system administrators and those with related skills increased five percent last year (2011), with bonuses averaging about 15 percent. Linux work garners an average annual salary of $86,432, above the national average of $81,000.

The comprehensive survey includes responses from more than 2,000 hiring managers at corporations, small-and-medium businesses (SMBs), government organizations, and staffing agencies from across the globe. The Linux Foundation is a non-profit industry consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of the Linux operating system. Dice is an employment jobs board. The study only looked at Linux and didn’t benchmark gains across other platforms.

“Linux is firmly at the core of software development and system administration and still growing,” said Alice Hill, Dice managing director. “What the survey respondents tell us about Linux as a priority for 2012 echoes recruitment posting activity on Dice.  We have seen demand in areas like mobile and cloud take off, but Linux-related jobs are a consistent leader.  In fact, Linux job postings on Dice.com are up 17 percent year/year and is one of the top ten most requested skills.”

In looking beyond 2012, Hill said that Dice studies its data as a leading indicator of growth and movement in certain skills and tech metro areas.

“Linux talent is not only in demand in 46 states, but as we saw in our salary survey, these professionals are also commanding salary increases after two years of flat salaries overall,” she noted.

“It’s really hard to find talent in a market that is competitive, and that leads to Linux poaching and new ways to attract talent,” Hill said.

In Part I, the Crescent Solutions team read and examined the IBM White Paper “Getting Cloud Computing Right.”

In this post, we will review the SearchCloudComputing.com E-Guide “Tips for adopting a private cloud strategy to overcome IT challenges and realize benefits.”

Many companies have heard the hype around private cloud computing, but some may have a difficult time deciding when the right time is to adopt this technology. This e-guide provides insight into what private cloud computing means and how to tell if your company is ready for implementation.

Discover the four stages of cloud preparation that are essential to a successful cloud strategy, including acclimation and optimization.

Private clouds pose multiple benefits and challenges for IT management, so a proper foundation has to be established for this data center model.

Many of us have heard the hype about reaping the benefits of public cloud infrastructures without compromising service levels, security or compliance requirements — it’s called “private cloud computing.” But when is it the right time for companies to pull the trigger on private cloud without shooting themselves in the foot?

Some industry experts say it’s now.  However, they’re quick to caution decision-makers that private cloud is a journey, not a destination.

“Private cloud computing isn’t something you simply go out and buy; it’s an evolution from what we have today,” said Tom Bittman, vice president at Gartner Group.

Furthermore, the private cloud is actually just a stopgap or stepping stone to utilizing more mature public cloud services when they become available, which could be any time from six months to ten years from now.

Think of private cloud as a new item in the IT toolkit for different economics. Private cloud computing goes beyond virtualization and includes automated workload management, self-service interfaces and some form of usage metering or chargeback.

Private cloud computing also requires the ability to share resources to maximize utilization — among business units, divisions and other groups that may not share resources today — a change that will affect existing corporate culture, politics, processes and even business relationships.

What is private cloud, and when can I have it?

Forrester Research defines an internal cloud as a multi-tenant, dynamically provisioned and optimized infrastructure with self-service developer deployment, hosted within the safe confines of the enterprise data center.

Forget about getting started with a big bang. Think of adopting a private cloud strategy as a series of steps that requires that the organization to have the technical pieces in place for private cloud computing and be experientially and culturally ready.

“If a company isn’t ready, they can’t reap the benefits,” said Forrester analyst James Staten.

Taking a more somber tone, Randy Bias, CEO of Cloudscaling.com, a cloud engineering services firm that has designed, built and managed large and complex public and private clouds, said that most organizations don’t have the DNA, organizational structure or business incentive to be successful at building a private cloud.

“I think that over the next several years, we’re going to see a lot of attempts with the private cloud that will result in failure and misery,” he said.

That said, he strongly advises companies working on private cloud initiatives to go into it with their eyes wide open. “Whatever you’re building, see it as a short-term goal, not an end goal,” he said.

Part I – IBM White Paper: Getting Cloud Computing Right