In-Depth
Industry: Economy Not Hurting Virtualization Jobs
Other IT segments virtualization skills is that the number of jobs is actually increasing -- and at a healthy rate.
The struggling economy has everyone nervous, including IT workers wondering if their companies are going to be around two years from now or if they need to be sprucing up their resumes. Although no one is immune from layoffs in a recession, the good news for those with virtualization skills is that the number of jobs is actually increasing -- and at a healthy rate.
Tom Silver, senior VP and chief marketing officer for the technology jobs Web site Dice.com, says that the total job count for his site was down 12 percent from January 2008 through the first week of November. But for those with virtualization experience, including both VMware and general skills, available jobs increased by 43 percent and 37 percent, respectively.
The numbers aren't large, but they're gaining momentum, Silver says. At press time, about 1,500 jobs called for VMware skills, and 960 for more general virtualization skills. Silver believes that will continue, even in the uncertain market. "I think that specific skill area, while small, is growing now and will continue growing in 2009 and beyond," he says.
| Money: Need Help Calculating TCO?
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By Tom Valovic/VR Staff
If you're currently evaluating virtualization for your department, total cost of ownership (TCO) is one category that should be at the top of your list. Fortunately, to help with what can often be a very complex and time-consuming process, a number of virtualization vendors now offer TCO calculators on their Web sites. Here are a few useful ones:
Pano Logic Inc. is a start-up desktop virtualization company offering a zero-client solution, which Wired magazine has called "the prettiest thin client ever." But if you're more wowed by things like cost savings and return on investment (ROI), check out their calculator at http://tinyurl.com/3hj9g9. VMware Inc. offers a TCO calculator developed by ROI consultancy Alinean Inc. Products covered include Virtual Infrastructure, Lab Manager and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. You can access this tool here. BEA Systems Inc., which was acquired by Oracle Corp., offers a line of enterprise application middleware. The company developed a model that analyzes TCO for different types of enterprises, including Java applications moving to a hypervisor-based virtualization platform. Give it a spin.
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Dice.com, according to Silver, is the largest exclusively tech job site on the Web in terms of audience, averaging around 2 million unique visitors per month. That puts it ahead of even Monster.com and CareerBuilder.
Silver won't try to predict the future, or how long the tough economic times will last, but he doesn't believe that IT is about to experience a savage round of layoffs. He does think, however, that gaining experience with virtualization technologies can help IT pros weather the coming storms. "Tech is not in a huge downturn," Silver adds. "Overall, technology is still a good place to be, [especially with] skills like virtualization or VMware."
About the Author
Keith Ward is the editor in chief of Virtualization & Cloud Review. Follow him on Twitter @VirtReviewKeith.