Colm Keegan, a senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), researches cloud computing and software-defined data center (SDDC) technologies. His latest research will focus on the current state of data center transformation. In the following interview, Keegan answers questions about his upcoming research and shares his advice for infrastructure specialists who are navigating a rapidly changing IT landscape.

You recently wrote about the future of the IT infrastructure administrator and mentioned that your upcoming research will address these questions. What do you hope to uncover in your survey?

Right now a very small percentage of businesses say they have the private cloud fully enabled. The vast majority of people are still getting their data centers ready. For those select few that claim to be there, I’ll be asking pointed questions about how they’re crafting themselves in this new landscape, and what has happened as a result of implementing the IT as a service operating model. A big part of their time isn’t spent doing the day-to-day care and feeding management stuff anymore, so how are they evolving?

I’ll try to figure out what the typical IT admin’s work is going to look like once they become more “cloudified,” if you will. With that information, I hope to provide some long-term guidance.

Won’t there still be a need for the individual specialists, even with this new IT model?

Yes, for a while there’s still going to be a place for them. In the next three to five years, they’re certainly not going to become obsolete. Beyond that it’s anyone’s guess. With converged and hyper-converged infrastructure, you could get to a point where, by and large, the private cloud infrastructure just works, and things are tightly integrated. People who are accustomed to putting this stuff together, integrating it, deploying it, managing it – those sorts of tasks may go away.

At some point in time the things that some people have built their careers around are going to be obsolete. The good news is you have time to prepare.

The ones who will succeed in making the transition are the self-starters that have the ability to think outside the box. A good management team should be able to recognize those people as integral parts of that change. The customers we’ve talked to who are embracing that change are quickly becoming technology-business liaisons. They understand what business owners are looking for and can put it in a technical context to deliver a new business capability.

But as you’ve pointed out, data center transformation isn’t happening as quickly as we once thought, and rushing into it isn’t something you advise. Can you elaborate?

Like anything else, you shouldn’t try to force data center change too quickly. If you’re someone who’s never been to the gym before and you try lifting 1,000 pounds, it’s not going to be a good outcome for you. Software-defined is something we’ll probably all be doing at some point in time, but the fact is most people aren’t ready. And if they end up getting there too quickly, there could be consequences. It’s important to take it one step at a time.

Implementation of software-defined networking (SDN) is a good example of that. The two prominent vendors in that space right now are Cisco and VMware. Cisco has close to 1,000 SDN adopters, and VMware has somewhere around 700. But if you look at their overall install bases, that’s just a drop in the bucket. Many people just aren’t ready for it yet. They’re still finishing up their server virtualization journey.

About 30 percent of businesses are saying the have a basic internal cloud where they have virtualized non-core business workloads like dev/test and IT owned applications while nearly 60% claim to have an advanced internal cloud where a higher percentage of their applications are virtualized, including mission-critical systems. And only 11% report having a fully functional private cloud where they have a compete IT-as-a-Service (ITaaS) operating model where everything is virtualized, they provide end-user self service provisioning, chargeback, etc.

What would you recommend for an organization that is virtualized but wants to move toward cloud-like agility?

It depends on the end goal. If your goal is to leverage what’s in the public cloud to complement what you’re doing from an on-premises standpoint, for example, then look at some of your peers that have had success building on hybrid cloud. What was the process they went through, and what were the phases they took it by?

You also need to be able to identify what workloads aren’t core business applications. Let’s say your core business application is some sort of financial application or ERP. Newer companies who have a green field are embracing the cloud readily for those core applications, because it doesn’t make sense for them to build out their own data centers. But any company more than 10 years old probably has some infrastructure they want to continue to leverage. So what they’re asking is, “Do we really need to have an exchange administrator and all these file servers that are serving up end user documents? Do we really need to be distracted with this stuff, and could our users consume it just as well in office 365?”

IT needs to clear the deck and separate core applications from non-core. If it’s distracting and it keeps you from spending time and resources on the things that really matter, it may be a good candidate for public cloud. We’re seeing this now with the adoption of SaaS, whether it’s ServiceNow, Workday or Salesforce.com. My advice is to figure out how you can streamline and, where it makes sense, consume software-based offerings. Go where you can get some easy wins, get some experience, and get some confidence to move onto the tougher challenges.

What advice do you have for IT specialists who are concerned about the future of their careers?

The good news is that data center transformation isn’t happening overnight, and there is time for IT specialists to address their own skills gaps. Sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know until you start doing it. You’re going to find out where the gaps are as you begin to modernize. But that doesn’t mean you have to go it alone. Ideally you should be working with some partners and/or vendors and seeking training and knowledge from them. They’re there to help push you along. If you haven’t already engaged in those types of discussions, that’s a good place to start.