What important skills will you upgrade in the new year?

Transfer
Author Shawn Powers
Posted on January 03, 2017



Illustration: Internet Archive Book Images . Edited by Opensource.com. CC BY-SA 4.0
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One of the problems on the road to becoming a Linux expert is that the definition of who a Linux expert is constantly changing. When I came to the Linux world, in order to become a professional, you had to be able to assemble a kernel yourself. What is really there to be just a Linux user on a laptop, you also had to build your own kernel. Nowadays, compiling your kernel is usually a waste of time. This does not mean that this skill is no longer important, but in the world of open source software we are developing based on the achievements of others, and Linux distributions already provide us with OS kernels that work well. Not always drastically, but the requirements for IT professionals change every year. Below are four key skills for a Linux professional in 2017.

1. Security

I do not mean security experts or consultants in this area. These specialties and services are undoubtedly important, but with the combined devices penetrating into all aspects of our life, we need to remember about security when making every decision. This year, my wife and I bought a washing machine and a refrigerator, and both devices are equipped with Bluetooth receivers. The idea that hackers can break the spin cycle might look silly, but any such thing is already a potential vector to attack.

When we activate any system at work, at home, in our pockets, we need to understand what security threats this can carry. And due to the fact that any device of the type of toaster connected to the Internet is unlikely to receive a firmware update on time, we need to design the rest of our systems around considering that home appliances may be compromised. More than ever, we need to think about attacks coming from within the perimeter of our firewalls. Do not let your own blender hack your file server!

2. DevOps

DevOps is no longer just a new concept. For the past two or three years, we have encouraged people to study DevOps so that they succeed in the employment market. It was good advice, but it doesn’t mean that we should completely rely on automation tools in our work. Chef, Puppet, Ansible, Salt Stack and other similar tools are wonderful, but we need to understand what's going on behind the scenes so that if something goes wrong, we know how to fix it.

With the DevOps programmer's approach to computing, we still need specialists who can maintain, repair and understand systems that function below the level of program code. Without Linux experts, cloud computing would be a scary place to live, even if the cloud is your own server.

3. Development

As a system administrator with 20 years of experience, I have never had time to learn programming. This may sound like an excuse, but it's true. All my development skills boiled down to writing scripts that helped me do my work faster. These days are over. As long as we need system administration skills in the DevOps world, we also need system administrators with programming skills.

If you are an old-regime sysadmin like me, you probably adapted to DevOps and use it in your daily work. However, if you really want to succeed, you need to learn how to solve programming problems and not think about Chef or Puppet code as simple configuration files. Every IT professional should have at least an understanding of the concept of programming, because every aspect of IT becomes abstract at least by means of DevOps.

4. Communication skills

Often in our careers, we think of the so-called communication skills last, but nevertheless, it is these skills that most likely determine your success. Whether you are looking for a new job or trying to adjust to a changing landscape in your current job, communication skills are vital.

The boundaries between different areas of IT are gradually blurred, and the ability to communicate will turn these blurred boundaries into an advantage, instead of a stumbling block. We live in a world in which developers deploy servers, support teams write Ruby code to support server farms. These are new bright ideas in IT and without people able to communicate in an interdisciplinary way, the workplace will become hated very quickly. Plus, IT shnik always needed effective communication with people in other areas of business. So, this skill is now in demand as never before.

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Note. I do not fully agree with everything with the author, but listening to someone else's opinion is always useful, especially in the context of paragraph 4 of the article ;-)