24 December 2012 - sTUDENTS

Reality check on cloud servers and apps

Several of the assumptions people make about cloud servers are simply not true, and some are actually being actively denied by cloud vendors. Backup is one such assumption. Many people still assume that cloud servers are automatically backed up, don’t set up any kind of backup scheme, and end up losing a lot of data. The fact is that cloud providers don’t perform any kind of automated backup unless you explicitly ask them to do so, which is something most users forget to do.

Security management is another issue. It’s easy to think that, since your server is hosted on someone else’s infrastructure, they’ll worry about all the security matters for you, but nothing could be further from the truth. When you hire a cloud server, most cloud providers will deliver a virtual server with some sort of remote connection enabled. This means that, unless you set your server up behind some sort of firewall or with protection rules, it is basically open to attack from outside as soon as it goes up. While I don’t have any stats on this point, I’ve seen some servers I set up with FTP access being attacked less than five minutes after going on-line.

This means that having someone from IT managing your servers, even the hosted ones, can be very important. Sure, you can do it yourself, but then you’re in the same position as if you’d been trying to manage an internal data center yourself. The fact is that, for most people, a cloud server is just like an internal server, only it gets "stored” somewhere else. This means you need a systems administrator just as you would on any other server.

Cloud apps are, in a sense, even more problematic. With whom does responsibility for the environment reside? What happens if a user accidentally deletes important data or a user account gets broken into? Proper management of passwords, backup policies, access control strategies, and other issues is even more important. Solution providers limit their responsibility to making your data available at the predefined SLA; they say absolutely nothing about backing your data up, or being able to restore it later. The same goes for managing users and passwords: the responsibility is entirely on the hands of the user. If all your accounts are configured with default or weak passwords, you’re running a real risk of someone invading them and stealing sensitive data.

As more and more data moves to cloud apps, they are becoming interesting targets, and attacks will take an upward trend. This means that, more than ever, you need IT people to manage your cloud application environment, just as you needed people to manage your infrastructure.

A changing landscape

The cloud, then, does not threaten IT jobs, nor does it reduce the importance of IT departments. If anything, the short-term trend is an increase in importance as users realize that they need the help of IT to manage the complex server and application environments that are being created ad-hoc in their rush to move to the cloud.

As with most new technologies, cloud computing won’t promote a destruction of IT jobs, but rather a change in their nature. Just as developers have to adopt new mindsets to develop cloud-based applications and services, DBAs will have to adapt to cloud-based and big data oriented systems, and system administrators will move from the low-level infrastructure issues (which will be more and more the exclusive province of large providers) to managing complex environments, spanning multiple applications, cloud providers, virtual and physical servers, and even merging the internal data center with the public cloud.

At the beginning of 2012, Justin James wrote a list of technologies that were gaining momentum in the dev world. Now he revisits that list with an eye toward 2013.

Looking back on this article after nearly a year, I’m struck by how quickly some of these trends have steamrolled. Of course, mobile development was expected to be big. But the growth in tablets, especially in Android tablets, has propelled that market to new heights.

Thanks to mobile devices that receive frequent updates (notably iOS devices) and the short release cycles of Chrome and Firefox, it has been possible for HTML5 to rapidly ascend to the top of the pile in many ways. The Web development world has divided itself into two segments:

The enterprise market running Java and .NET on the backend and using SOAP for communications
The consumer market using PHP, Ruby, and Python on the backend with lightweight REST Web services

In fact, I am starting to encounter folks dropping the backend server layer away significantly, in favor of a REST API and an HTML5 + JavaScript front end communicating with the API. And thanks to the power of jQuery and similar tools, the Web now easily matches the functionality of the desktop in the UI department — something that’s becoming obvious on more and more Web sites.

Looking ahead to 2013, I really do not think that the items on this list need to change much. Learning Ruby and Python (and NoSQL databases) are not mandatory items for your career, but they can certainly open some doors to alternative career paths. Windows 8 development is not a must-have either, and it remains to be seen whether Windows 8 picks up adoption quickly enough to justify making it a priority. But this list can still serve as a fundamental guide for your 2013 "techs I need to learn” list.

What skills do you need?

Software development had a few years of relative calm. But now the rollercoaster is back on track and it’s picking up speed, as HTML5 gains a foothold and Windows 8 threatens to significantly change the Windows development landscape. If you want to stay ahead of the curve, you should consider learning at least a few of these 10 software development skills.

1: Mobile development

If you don’t think it is worth your time to learn mobile development, think again. According to a recent Gartner report, Android mobile device sales outstripped PC shipments in the third quarter of 2012. Add in the other big-name mobile devices (iPhones, iPads, and even the "dying” RIM devices), and what you see is that mobile devices now dwarf PCs in sales. What does this mean? If you make your living from software that can run only on a PC (which includes Web sites that don’t work or are hard to use on mobile devices), now is the time to learn mobile development.

2: NoSQL

I appreciate a well-designed relational database schema as much as the next person, but they just are not appropriate for every project. We’ve been using them even when they aren’t the best tool because the alternatives haven’t been great. The last few years have seen the introduction of a wide variety of NoSQL database systems. And now that major service vendors (like Amazon and Microsoft) support NoSQL as well, there is no technical limitation on their use. Are they right for every project? No. Are they going to replace traditional databases? In some projects, and for some developers, definitely. This is the year to learn how to use them, as they will only become more prevalent in the year to follow.

3: Unit testing

We’ve seen unit testing go from being, "Oh, that’s neat” to being a best practice in the industry. And with the increasing use of dynamic languages, unit testing is becoming more and more important. A wide variety of tools and frameworks are available for unit testing. If you do not know how to do it, now is the time to learn. This is the year where it goes from "resume enhancement” to "resume requirement.”

4: Python or Ruby

Not every project is a good fit for a dynamic language, but a lot of projects are better done in them. PHP has been a winner in the industry for some time, but Python and Ruby are now being taken seriously as well. Strong arguments can be made for Ruby + Rails (or Ruby + Sinatra) or Python + Django as excellent platforms for Web development, and Python has long been a favorite for "utility” work. Learning Python or Ruby in addition to your existing skill set gives you a useful alternative and a better way to get certain projects done.

5: HTML5

HTML5 is quickly pulling away from the station. The release of IE 10 made the full power of HTML5 available to most users (those not stuck with IE 6 or IE 8). Learning HTML5 now positions you to be on the forefront of the next generation of applications. Oh, and most mobile devices already have excellent support for it, so it is a great way to get into mobile development too. And don’t forget: HTML5 is one route for UI definitions in Windows 8.

6: Windows 8

Windows 8 may be getting off to a slow start, but being the top dog in an app store is often based on being the first dog in the race. The first mover advantage is huge. It is better to be in the Windows Store now than to take a wait-and-see approach. Even if Windows 8 sales disappoint, it’s better to be the only fish in a small pond than a fish of any size in a big pond, as recent app sales numbers have shown.