As the IT & T sector struggles to attain and train the staff needed to resource the burgeoning cloud infrastructure sector, professionals warn that scarcity of cloud security specialists will continue to be a premium concern beyond 2025.
The number one issue in the minds of many organizations will be the global skill shortage in the security environment, said Vertel Commercial Director Tony Hudson. On the upside, he forecasts that in the three-plus years timeframe, these issues will get addressed to a large degree as various training organizations ramp up cybersecurity skills training capabilities at scale.
Yet there is a looming new issue that will take hold- it’s essentially the law of diminishing returns for the next wave of cybersecurity specialists on the premium wage front.
“The reality is right now, and probably for the next three, perhaps four years, there's going to be a shortage of skilled and experienced cyber personnel. The issue this creates for organizations is if I want to get skilled people today, we will be paying an absolute premium dollar for those skills. The consideration that is yet to come, is that as the number of skills available in the security area increases, the market rate for those skills is going to eventually decrease significantly,” Hudson says.
It is a future-proofing scenario where employers will be taking a short-term wage blowout hit in paying a premium for the scarcity of skills needed in the cloud infrastructure security realm but be consoled that in the foreseeable future, of three plus years, the market rate for those skills is going to markedly diminish.
This has implications for outsourcing and the increased role of the MSP, Hudson says. Organisations will have to decide whether they recruit for security specialists now on the books, recognizing that in the three plus years timeframe, those skills will be overpriced, but the employer can't decrease wages to those individuals, or to outsource in the short term.
“I think there are lots to recommend in outsourcing to acquire security skills because it makes sense for special security organizations who have those skills can maintain those skills in-house, and can ensure they can retain those skills. So retention of security skills given the current market is a difficult issue for organizations, and will affect commercial outcomes,” he says.
Hudson also warns that whilst an organisation may have invested in the world’s best cloud environment, if you haven't architected the networking environment to meet the service levels that you expect to get from cloud operation, you won’t get the business outcomes needed in an end-to-end sense.
“I do think organizations need to invest in having skills and capability in that area of architecting, designing, implementing, and operating effective networking to supplement or to support the cloud infrastructure.”
Cloud Crystal Balls
Looking beyond the short-term forecasts, Hudson predicts that three things will be significant disrupters. They is a marked increase in the uptake of AI applications, driving a significant increase in the requirement for increased compute power driven from the cloud. There will also be an associated broader adoption for apps and tech that require applications that require low latency or ultra-low latency.
Hudson suggests that a swift uptake of drone technology will be driving that demand. The other area he envisions gaining momentum will be significant gamification in the education environment, across the tertiary sector and universities. “I expect that trend is going to flow down to the secondary market in the next instance. How quickly and how much of an impact on the cloud environment, I’m not in a position to quantify but they are potential game changers in the cloud environment.”
Geopolitics
For Gartner VP analyst, Michael Warrilow, the future of cloud will be hazed by digital geopolitics.
For a range of macroeconomic and societal reasons, heading towards 2030, digital sovereignty will dominate geographic and market concerns. “A great example of that is what's happening in Europe. They've got a strong desire to increase their digital sovereignty, so they want to be less reliant on foreign entities in terms of their dependence on cloud computing, in fact, computing and technology overall.”
He cautions that this will ultimately stymie cloud innovation. “The bad news in that is that the innovation and agility of the cloud comes from its global scale. If particular nations or groups of nations want to use local and regional resources, they're going to have to accept lower levels of innovation.
He said that then brings into the spotlight the concerns over privacy, as we are seeing being played out in different hot spots in terms of global military tension.
“Digital geopolitics is going to have significant disruption to existing IT ecosystems. There's going to be greater opportunity for local and national providers driven by, compliance mandates, government preference, and also the demands for critical infrastructure,” he states.
Privacy and security issues will permeate the cloud space, indefinitely claims. Ben Jones MD at Continuum Cyber.
He adds that notions around Zero Trust still need defining and the right execution, AI while rigged with potential still needs cutting-edge appeal for the Australian market and despite blockchain's horror fall from grace in recent weeks, will rise again.
“I think the biggest thing that we could do, or the most exciting innovation that could be shown, demonstrated, and delivered upon is behavioral-based educational training that yields an efficacious result. What are we doing to ensure that the education that people are getting within these businesses who operate in machines that are exploited, that cause the breaches what we do for those guys in a meaningful way that actually moves the needle,” he queries.
He likens the IT security sector to the heady days of fast investment in the construction sector in the 1990s. “ I remember looking at this building site, these young lads running up without a hard hat on, no boots on, carrying up bricks, all of it. It was just a danger, written all over it. But now try and get on a building site without properly proper work where being properly accredited without having done a first aid course, without a breathalyzer test on the way in without not having done your health work, health and safety.”
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