10 Ways to Transition Traditional IT Talent to Cloud Talent

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Organizations continue to transition more storage, compute and applications to the cloud. However, to succeed, they need the right skills and processes in place.

"I grew up in the traditional IT world. Things were simple then. If you knew a few technologies you could really make a difference, but in the cloud there's a lot more interconnection between the different technologies and a lot more options available," said Neeta Jain, CTO of Vibrent Health. "The complexity is very hard, so the learning curve is higher than in the past."

Jain and others interviewed for feature said that traditional IT and cloud have a lot in common because even with cloud, companies still need systems, network, data and security expertise. It's just that fewer bodies are needed to manage and maintain infrastructure than when everything resided in an on-premises data center.

Today's greater dependence on cloud isn't always matched by the right mix of skills within organizations, however. As a result, some businesses have learned the hard way how to optimize their use of cloud services and the associated costs. Cloud security also tends to be an issue.

Quite often, when organizations migrate to cloud, they assume they need to hire all new cloud talent to make it happen. However, existing talent can be upskilled to help fill the gaps. With that in mind, many companies are providing in-house training or paying for third-party or curated third-party programs. However, training programs and technology need to be supported by updated processes that are more in line with the company's shift to cloud-first architecture.

"You need your existing staff, so make sure they have the training they need. The second part is about trust or autonomy. You need to trust these trained engineers will do the right thing," said Dave Anderson, director of technology at insurance company Liberty Mutual. "We [also put] guardrails in place so our engineers can try things and experiment in a safe way."

While many IT professionals love learning new things, organizations must do several things to facilitate a smooth transition to cloud. Following are a few tips.

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