Gartner Institute's IT Workforce Performance service focuses on IT workforce improvement issues from the IT professional's perspective and serves as a complement to other GartnerGroup research on IT management and IT human resource management. To bridge the ever-widening chasm between demand for networking expertise and availability of skilled resources, Gartner Institute research discusses why enterprises must make substantial budgetary commitments to certification and training and consider outsourcing. With a migration to integrated packet networks, networking skills requirements are shifting quickly. Network Availability Is Critical Network professionals are becoming accountable for implementing and managing secure packet networks that have the same resiliency as the public phone network. This is because e-commerce sites that operate 24 hours a day and seven days a week cannot tolerate hiccups in availability.
Any downtime has devastating business ramifications.
Redundant network design, server load-balancing and caching are thus critical for the successful support of these sites. Meanwhile, traditional telecommunications managers steeped in circuit-based voice technology but willing and able to embrace packet networking can be valuable assets in helping their companies succeed in their network migrations. Those managers who eschew packet technology, however, should be planning now for retirement. Network expertise in general will move from intraenterprise voice and data network management to the public backbone as more and more enterprises turn to application service providers, Web hosting services and public packet network services. Much expertise will move off the customer site and into the services domain.