In the 2017 Tech Job Pool, Open Source Skills Rule

Here it is: 2017. As the year gets going, the cloud computing and Big Data scenes are absolutely flooded with talk of shortages in people with deployment and management expertise. There just are not enough skilled workers to go around. The OpenStack Foundation, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and other organizations are now taking some important steps to address the situation.

Here are some of the best ways to start the new year by getting certified for the open source cloud and Big Data tools that are makng a difference.

As part of its efforts to grow the OpenStack talent pool and global community, the OpenStack Foundation has announced professional certification programs that are meant to provide a baseline assessment of knowledge and be accessible to OpenStack professionals around the world. Some of the first steps in advancing the program are taking place now, and Red Hat is also advancing OpenStack certification plans..

The Certified OpenStack Administrator is a professional typically with at least six months OpenStack experience and has the skills required to provide day-to-day operation and management of an OpenStack cloud, according to the Foundation. There is more at the website: http://openstack.org/coa

Certification testing for the Foundation's program will be administered with the help of the Linux Foundation, which has created a virtual testing platform, making it possible to access the COA test anywhere in the world at an affordable cost. Testing for COA is expected to be available in Q2 2016.

This OpenStack professional certification program addresses the need for well-trained and highly qualified OpenStack administrators,” said Jonathan Bryce, executive director, OpenStack Foundation. “We expect COA certification to become a valuable credential that any hiring manager would want to see on the resume of viable candidate. Further, it is our hope that the OpenStack professional certification program will encourage new entrants into the OpenStack community and expand the talent pool within the industry.”

Meanwhile, Red Hat has announced a cloud management certification for Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform as part of the Red Hat OpenStack Cloud Infrastructure Partner Network.

Red Hat has been working closely with cloud and network management solution providers, including iBMC and HP. As members of the Red Hat OpenStack Cloud Infrastructure Partner Network, these vendors are supporting Red Hat's platform certification process.

Radhesh Balakrishnan, Red Hat's general manager of virtualization and OpenStack said, in a statement:

“As OpenStack is becoming a core element of the enterprise cloud strategy for many customers, Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform is architected and backed by the broadest partner ecosystem to be the preferred platform. The growth and maturity of the ecosystem reflects the evolution of the product moving from addressing infrastructure-centric alignment to help with early deployments to now be well-managed, to be part of enterprise hybrid cloud implementations.”

Atul Garg, vice president and general manager of Cloud and Automation at HP added:

“We are excited to work with Red Hat to certify HP Cloud Service Automation and its solutions with Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform, to help our mutual customers build and manage private and hybrid cloud services. Our joint efforts are aimed at enabling customers to have choice and flexibility as they deploy cloud environments which can easily flex and adapt to business needs while supporting heterogeneity and leveraging existing investments in the datacenter.”

The Linux Foundation is also collaborating with edX to offer an online course titled, LFS152x. The comprehensive course includes seven chapters, and a quiz at the end of each chapter. There is a required final exam, but here is the great news: the complete course is available at no cost. Students can obtain a certificate of completion for $99.

The Introduction to OpenStack course is described as follows on the edX site:

OpenStack is growing at an unprecedented rate, with over 65% of OpenStack deployments now in production - a number which continues to rise. The demand for individuals who have experience managing this cloud platform is also accelerating. According to the Open Source Jobs Report from The Linux Foundation and Dice, 51% of hiring managers say experience with OpenStack and other cloud technologies are driving open source hiring decisions. Now is the time to build an exciting and rewarding career managing OpenStack clouds.

This introductory course is taught by cloud experts from The Linux Foundation, which also delivers the Certified OpenStack Administrator (COA) exam. As host to some of the world's leading open source cloud projects, The Linux Foundation provides training and networking opportunities to help you advance your career.

This course is perfect for IT professionals seeking a high-level overview of OpenStack, and who want to find out if OpenStack is the right solution to meet the IT needs of their organization.

Of course, we’ve covered a number of other options for OpenStack training. You can learn more about what Mirantis offers at: https://training.mirantis.com.

Also keep in mind that MapR Technologies and other providers are offering free Hadoop and Spark training.

With its sights set on making Hadoop training for developers and administrators easy to complete, Hadoop distribution provider MapR Technologies has unveiled several free on-demand training offerings. You can visit here to see the full list of courses, certifications and to sign up for free classes.

MapR's leaders are wrapping Spark into the teaching curriculum as well. When we launched these free on-demand courses, we set an ambitious enrollment goal of 10,000 students, which is estimated to be a $50 million in-kind contribution to the open source community,” said Suzanne Ferry, vice president of global education and training, MapR Technologies. “With a response fives times over original projections, the On-Demand Training offerings are updated continually to address new technologies, like Spark, which in turn helps meet the ongoing skill development interests of company employees, industry consultants, and individuals. Our comprehensive online curriculum is driving the emergence of a strong community in support of the latest advancements in big data technologies.”

Cloudera also has an expanded Apache Spark training curriculum, although many of its classes are available for small fees. For more information about the courses on Spark and to register for a class, visit university.cloudera.com.

Cloudera has announced an updated lineup of training courses and performance-based certification exams for data analysts, database administrators, and developers. The expanded training offerings address the skills gap around many top open source technologies, such as Apache Impala (incubating), Apache Spark, Apache Kudu, Apache Kafka and Apache Hive. 

According to Dice, the most in-demand technology skills are in big data, Spark and Hive. Although the need for these skills has increased in the past few years, employers are still challenged to find qualified candidates. The Taneja Group saw similar findings in a global survey sponsored by Cloudera of nearly 7,000 technical and managerial-level professionals working in big data. The survey found that nearly half of the respondents see the big data skills gap as the most significant challenge to deploying Spark, and one-third named complexity in learning Spark as a barrier to adoption. Cloudera's answer to all of this is Cloudera University, which has trained over 45,000 people and certified more than 10,000 individuals to date, the company claims.

“Cloudera University has established itself as a valuable resource for preparing data professionals across every industry. We’ve seen throughout the years that organizations which invest in training up front drive deeper results from their big data initiatives and move more quickly from proof of concept into full production environments,” said Mark Morrissey, senior director, Education Programs at Cloudera. “The skills gap continues to be the biggest hurdle in our industry, so we’ve made it our mission to overcome this challenge by offering the world’s most comprehensive training curriculum, and performance-based certifications, for the Hadoop ecosystem.”

Cloudera University’s new training and certification offerings include:

• Updated Cloudera Data Analyst Training
  • Teaches SQL developers how to apply traditional data analytics and business
    intelligence skills to big data using leading open-source engines like Impala and Hive interact with Hadoop and Spark
  • New course content includes Hive on Spark and complex types in Impala
  • Available now
• Teaches SQL developers how to apply traditional data analytics and business
  intelligence skills to big data using leading open-source engines like Impala and Hive interact with Hadoop and Spark
• New course content includes Hive on Spark and complex types in Impala
• Available now

• New Cloudera Certified Associate (CCA) Data Analyst Performance-Based Certification Exam
  • Assesses foundational SQL analysts skills, such as how to query and pull information from existing data sets using Impala, Hive, and Pig
  • Exams can be purchased today; first exams begin January 1
• Assesses foundational SQL analysts skills, such as how to query and pull information from existing data sets using Impala, Hive, and Pig
• Exams can be purchased today; first exams begin January 1

• Updated Spark and Hadoop Developer Training
  • Teaches developers how to import data from relational systems using Apache Flume and Apache Kafka, write and run Spark applications, how to analyze incoming data in real-time with Spark Streaming, and much more
  • Provides a general overview of various CDH platform components and how they work with Spark and Hadoop
  • Available now
• Teaches developers how to import data from relational systems using Apache Flume and Apache Kafka, write and run Spark applications, how to analyze incoming data in real-time with Spark Streaming, and much more
• Provides a general overview of various CDH platform components and how they work with Spark and Hadoop
• Available now

• Updated Cloudera Certified Associate (CCA) Spark and Hadoop Developer Performance-Based Certification Exam
  • Assesses a candidate’s ability to leverage standard development tools (typically solved using Spark) to ingest data, and transform into new values or formats
  • Update available early 2017
• Assesses a candidate’s ability to leverage standard development tools (typically solved using Spark) to ingest data, and transform into new values or formats
• Update available early 2017

• Updated Cloudera Administrator Training
  • Provides a comprehensive understanding of all the steps necessary to operate and maintain a Hadoop cluster using Cloudera Manager
  • Now teaches concepts for managing your cluster using Cloudera Director
  • Update available early 2017
• Provides a comprehensive understanding of all the steps necessary to operate and maintain a Hadoop cluster using Cloudera Manager
• Now teaches concepts for managing your cluster using Cloudera Director
• Update available early 2017

• New Cloudera Certified Associate (CCA) Administrator Performance-Based Certification Exam
  • Assesses how to install CDH, maintain clusters and do basic troubleshooting in Cloudera Manager
  • Includes a performance-based exam suited for IT professionals who manage Hadoop clusters using Cloudera Manager
  • Available early 2017
• Assesses how to install CDH, maintain clusters and do basic troubleshooting in Cloudera Manager
• Includes a performance-based exam suited for IT professionals who manage Hadoop clusters using Cloudera Manager
• Available early 2017

• New Introduction to Apache Kudu Training Course
  • Provides a high-level course on Kudu fundamentals, use cases, strengths of the platform, basic architecture concepts, and how to develop Kudu applications with Impala
  • Available through Cloudera’s OnDemand course library in early 2017
• Provides a high-level course on Kudu fundamentals, use cases, strengths of the platform, basic architecture concepts, and how to develop Kudu applications with Impala
• Available through Cloudera’s OnDemand course library in early 2017

• New Introduction to Machine Learning Training Course
  • Provides a high-level look at Machine Learning, including coverage of collaborative filtering, clustering, classification, algorithms, and data volume  
  • Available through Cloudera’s OnDemand course library today
• Provides a high-level look at Machine Learning, including coverage of collaborative filtering, clustering, classification, algorithms, and data volume  
• Available through Cloudera’s OnDemand course library today

These training programs promise to make a difference. According to Nick Heudecker and Lisa Kart, research directors, Gartner Inc., “As more organizations invest in big data, the shortage of available skills and capabilities will become more acute. Instead of facing a difficult recruiting market, organizations should focus on adapting available skills and engaging with established service providers to fill the skills gap.”

Finally, you can also get trained and certified for Kubernetes. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) has launched a program to train, certify and promote Kubernetes Managed Service Providers (KMSP), which will provide enterprises with Service Level Agreement (SLA)-backed support options, consulting and professional services by highly trained and certified service partners. You can find out more here.

As enterprises deploy open source tools, they are increasingly concerned about being able to hire skilled workers and use existing infrastructure and management tools with their deployments. The new certification programs found here should go a long way toward fostering much needed expertise.