CompTIA Forecasts Ongoing Challenges for IT Pros

Once upon a time (2005, to be precise) in the acting career of Vin Diesel, before he circled back into doing Fast and Furious films and made himself cool all over again, Hollywood's favorite musclebound, shaven-headed action hero took a brief, Kindergarten Cop-like detour into family comedy. In Disney's The Pacifier, Diesel stars as highly-trained Navy SEAL Shane Wolfe, who gets more than he bargained for when called upon to babysit the children of a slain government scientist. Like many a movie tough guy before him, Shane Wolfe finds himself racing to keep up, learning new skills right and left as his new job description taxes his abilities to the utmost.

That, in a nutshell, is the future envisioned for modern tech pros in a study released by IT industry association CompTIA earlier this month. Not the part about taking care of children, or being played by mid-career crisis Vin Diesel. The new report, Building Digital Organizations, asserts that computer professionals are likely to find themselves grappling with an ever-steepening learning curve as businesses across the modern industrial spectrum go all in on new digital business solutions and harness organizational growth to rapid-fire technological evolution.

The report concludes that IT professionals shouldn't expect to get comfortable or complacent, possibly ever again. Instead, IT job roles are expected to change and grow at a steady clip as companies go further down the yellow brick road of computerization and advances in data utilization push the frontiers of business opportunity well past the horizon. Just when you thought it was safe to dink around on Facebook or Twitter for an hour in the middle of the day, CompTIA says it's time to consider having the words "continuing education" tattooed on the backs of your eyelids. (You know, so that you have the right goal in mind even while sleeping.)

In particular, the Building Digital Organizations report predicts that already stiff challenges to ensuring cybersecurity will get worse as usage of mobile devices and apps explodes, and already accumulating mountains of business-critical data start to really pile up. Cloud computing is also expected to drive the deepening need for up-to-the-second training and unceasing vigilance. (One thing that can help besieged IT pros stay abreast of evolving technology is certification. CompTIA, not at all coincidentally, is the leading purveyor of vendor-neutral credentials that provide a solid foundation for a range of different IT careers.)

Seth Robinson, senior director of technology analysis for CompTIA, said in a media release that cloud technology and mobile devices have already dramatically redrawn the traditional IT business landscape. "New threats have emerged as a result of cloud and mobility, so understanding these threats is a top priority for the IT team even as traditional threats continue to be effective," Robinson said. "It's no simple task."

The Building Digital Organizations report is available free of charge, but can only be accessed by CompTIA registered users (registration is free) or premier members.