The benefits of shifting applications to cloud are self-evident – ease of deployment, pay-per-use billing, massive scalability, access to new features – but they do not apply equally to all workloads. The growing diversity of IT venues has created increasingly complex environments, with hundreds or thousands of applications spanning on-premises and off-premises locations and encompassing platform, infrastructure and software services. This creates challenges in terms of control, security, and expense.

Enterprises are increasingly turning to hybrid cloud environments as offering the best of two worlds – joining the public cloud advantages of scalable, pay-as-you-go infrastructure with private cloud’s control and predictability. This approach requires placing workloads where they’ll yield the greatest benefit for the business, whether that means modernizing software to enhance the customer experience or securing access to mission-critical applications and data.

I used to teach computer science as an adjunct at Northern Virginia Community College back in my 20s. I learned more teaching others than I ever did being taught. My focus was on the pragmatic—what students could sell in the labor marketplace. 

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Recently the governor of Virginia, my home state, announced a cloud computing associate degree that will be offered at NVCC. This is in conjunction with AWS and expected to be offered at other state-run colleges as well.

This is nothing new. We’ve reported on other colleges that have gone all-in with cloud computing, with specific degree offerings as part of their school of computer science.

Community colleges are typically ahead of the game, since they respond quickly to the needs of the community (get it?). Indeed, you’ll find that many people attending community colleges already have some sort of degree. My students certainly did.

As somebody who depends on colleges and universities producing sound cloud computing talent, I could not be happier with this move. The more cloud-skilled people we have out there, the more likely organizations will be successful with cloud computing.

Right now, we’re converting IT professionals who spent their college days learning to write compilers and program in machine languages how to understand cloud-based platforms, machine learning, and cloud-native databases. Seems it would benefit everyone if people had the cloud skills out of the gate.

I learned how to write compilers in college and have never done so as part of my career. Also, I’ve still not found a use for my year of calculus.

What’s even better about this opportunity is that community college degrees are affordable; most people will not need to go into debt to earn a cloud computing degree. Moreover, that degree means at least $60,000 to $80,000 per year, entry level.

Indeed, someone who goes into a cloud computing degree program could find that they are earning six figures at age 22, two years after graduating with an associate degree in cloud computing. Most of those graduating from a four-year college or university wouldn’t be able to reach that level until several more years out of school and will do so with $30,000 to $80,000 in debt. 

The CDO role continues to change with competitive pressures. Where are you on your journey and what do you need to do to get to the next level?

IT leaders must remember that in our ever-changing world, keeping employee skills sharp and ensuring they have the resources they need to stay current is key.

All AI is machine learning, but not all machine learning is AI. Make sure you know the difference before investing.