Cloud developer skills related to open source software are in greater demand than knowledge of proprietary platforms, a new report from IBM and O’Reilly claims.
Polling 3,400 developers and technology managers, the two companies found that 94 percent of respondents prioritize open source skills, while almost three quarters (70 percent) prefer to use a cloud provider that’s based on open source.
Skills related to underlying open source technologies, such as Linux or Kubernetes, are also significantly more popular (64.6 percent) compared to skills related to specific platforms, such as AWS or Azure (35.4 percent).
Also, most respondents said contributing to open-source software impresses potential employers and creates better business opportunities for them.
“Modern software architects and developers should remain aware of both trending open-source technologies and cloud offerings,” the report states. “Over the long term, a knowledge of the most fundamental open source projects will provide major benefits in job growth and other professional activities.”
Most companies, the report further claims, will adopt an open hybrid cloud approach, in which they combine and unify public cloud and private cloud services from various vendors. By doing so, they will create a single, flexible IT infrastructure based on open source tech.
“The skills you develop related to these technologies are transferable across the developer community and ecosystem, and of course to any proprietary cloud that you work on,” the report states.
IBM and O’Reilly expect hybrid cloud adoption to grow by almost half (47 percent) within three years. An average organization is expected to use approximately six hybrid clouds in their infrastructure.