Learn cloud security before it's too late
Cloud computing is real, it's here, and it will be adopted by your company, whether you're ready or not
Follow @rogeragrimesDon't believe anyone who says cloud computing is just a buzzword, doomed to become the next failed, overhyped industry former technology darling. Cloud computing is already here, and if you don't learn to secure it, you won't have much of a job to cling to in the not-too-distant future. Think of the information security version of a Cobol programmer.
Being a computer security professional is one of the toughest jobs in the world -- perhaps not as dangerous as an Alaskan crab fisherman or a high-voltage power lineman, but technically it is as tough as they come. In the computer world, technology changes so fast that you have to learn -- and master -- something completely new every two years. And you are evaluated on only what you've done lately. No one cares anymore if you were "da man" in fighting macro viruses or if you could disassemble VBScript worms. Your bosses only care how you fared fighting hackers and malware in 2009. Nothing else matters.
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Welcome to cloud computing! While the media and industry pundits have been trying to figure out if cloud computing is real and going to stay, Microsoft, Google, Amazon.com, IBM, and other major industry players have already spent billions on it. They have huge, distributed datacenters with acres of 18-wheeler containers filled to capacity with 1U servers. When a server goes bad, they don't even bother to replace it -- not until enough of them malfunction and they have to replace the whole container.
