Cloud Foundry Foundation Creates New Cert for Developers

Good news for software developers: Your field appears to be in the midst of a golden age.

There are presently a quarter-million job openings with an average salary north of $104,000 (twice the average regional salary in many areas of the country). And with almost 92 percent of them outside Silicon Valley, you don't have to worry about astronomical housing costs and hours-long commutes.

Amazingly, in spite of these perks, the industry is hampered by a critical shortage. The Cloud Foundry Foundation (Foundation), home of the industry-standard platform for cloud applications is tackling this shortage head on. Last week on Wednesday the group released the "world's largest cloud-native developer certification initiative," the Cloud Foundry Certified Developer (CFCD) program.

The CFCD is a "performance-based certification exam designed to verify a candidate's expertise using the Cloud Foundry platform and building cloud-native applications." CFCD provides developers with the skills to set them apart from other applicants as they look for their first job or to upgrade their current positions. The general availability of the CFCD will be announced in June at Cloud Foundry Summit Silicon Valley 2017.

CFCD came about as a result of a 2016 CFF report that showed an increasing gap in cloud skills. This gap has now become severe enough that it is hampering the speed with which companies are able to move their IT operations to the cloud. The CFCD is designed to address the existing shortage of skilled cloud professionals by offering a preferred method of training while providing certified individuals with a lasting and marketable skill set.

Cloud computing has spread so widely that it's rare to find an enterprise that is not using cloud technology. According to the 2016 State of the Cloud Survey by Right Scale, which surveyed 1,060 IT professionals about their adoption of cloud infrastructure and related technologies, "95 percent of respondents are using the cloud, up from 93 percent in 2015."

As cloud use grows it's not just IT people who are using it. It's also changing the lives of ordinary people, especially in how they conduct everyday activities. "We are living in the future. Right now we have access to incredible amounts of information that enables us to conduct our business and everyday tasks," said CFF executive director Abby Kearns.

"I can access my flight information, print a boarding pass, call Uber, and do my banking. Whatever I need to do, I'm doing with the cloud. Five years ago, if someone had said I'd be doing all these things electronically, I'd have said, �You're crazy.' But now these things are a daily experience. Cloud adoption is changing the way we think of the world and our business models."

Companies have seen the writing on the wall and are now taking steps to address this critical gap in the availability of skilled developers. "Historically companies outsourced the development of applications, but now they're doing it in-house," said Kearns. "Enterprises are looking for developers and engineers who understand the cloud. As more organizations build out to the cloud, the shortfall is only going to increase."

"Companies need developers with the skills to build and manage cloud-native applications, and developers need jobs. We pinpointed this growing gap in the industry and recognized our opportunity to give both developers and enterprises what they need," said Chip Childers, CTO, Cloud Foundry Foundation in a media release.

"The Cloud Foundry Foundation is a nexus for collaboration and growth across industries with the open source mentality that everyone should win — our members, end users, developers — so it's logical for us to drive a training and certification program that enriches the professional lives of developers and makes them valuable assets to companies who prize them for their own digital transformation."

CFCD training will be offered by more than a dozen leading technology, education and systems integration organizations, including EngineerBetter, IBM, Pivotal, Resilient Scale, SAP, Stark and Wayne and Swisscom. The Linux Foundation will offer the online eLearning infrastructure for the CFDC certification. The CFCD suite includes:

? A free introductory course offered via the edX platform
? A self-paced eLearning Cloud Foundry Developer course
? A training partner program which includes licensed materials for in-person Cloud Foundry developer classes, offered by member companies
? The Cloud Foundry Certified Developer (CFCD) certification, awarded to individuals who pass a performance-based exam

Registration for the free introductory course on edX.org will be available beginning in May. The general public can purchase the self-paced e-learning course "Cloud Foundry for Developers" on June 13 for $500. The CFCD exam is available online for $300, it's expected that the exam can be completed within four hours. Attendees to the Cloud Foundry Summit Silicon Valley June 13 through 15 may take the exam in person.

Candidates for the certification exam should have hands-on practical experience building software that runs on Cloud Foundry. Exam topics covered include:

? Cloud Foundry basics
? Cloud-native architectural principles
? Troubleshooting applications on Cloud Foundry
? Cloud-native application security
? Working with services in Cloud Foundry
? Application management on Cloud Foundry
? Container management within Cloud Foundry
? Aptitude in modifying simple Java, Node.js and Ruby applications

"The cloud is changing the way every industry does business," said Kearns. "It's exciting to see the potential the cloud is unleashing for business. It's amazing. The Cloud Foundry really wants to enable developers to create and be successful, because at end of day it's developers that are at the heart of what we do."