Tuesday Morning Impact – September 5

Research: Formal Education Coming Up Short in DevSecOps

According to a new study, software developers are not receiving the training necessary for success in today’s DevOps world.

The 2017 DevSecOps Global Skills Survey, sponsored by Veracode and DevOps.com, found that while 65 percent of DevOps professionals believe it is very important to have knowledge of DevOps when entering IT, they’re not receiving the necessary training through formal education to be successful.

DevSecOps refers to the practice of integrating security into the development and testing of software for faster, better quality outcomes.

The study surveyed nearly 400 DevOps professionals globally.

Survey respondents said that their IT workforce is only somewhat prepared (55 percent) or not prepared (nearly 30 percent) with the skills necessary to securely deliver software at the speed of DevOps. In fact, nearly 40 percent of hiring managers surveyed reported that the hardest employees to find are the all-purpose DevOps gurus with sufficient knowledge about security testing.

Although nearly 80 percent of respondents have a bachelor or master’s degree – with 50 percent reporting that they studied and earned degrees in computer science – there is still a lack of cybersecurity knowledge prior to entering the workforce. About 70 percent of respondents said the security education they received is not adequate for what their current positions require, and 65 percent said that they’re learning their most relevant professional skills on the job.

“WannaCry and Petya are just two recent examples of large-scale cyber attacks that further demonstrate the importance of security in today’s exceedingly digital world,” said Maria Loughlin, VP of Engineering at Veracode. “Higher education and enterprises need to have a more mature expectation around what colleges should teach and where organizations need to supplement education given the ever-changing nature of programming languages and frameworks. The industry will have to come together to ensure the safety of the application economy.”

Channel Impact^®
The data underscore the need for substantial updates and more comprehensive training. In today’s application-centric economy, the knowledge gap described in this study can greatly hamper productivity and lead to lower quality offerings.

CXtec Stakes Position in Secondary Market Through Atlantix Acquisition

CXtec, a Syracuse, NY-based integrator, has announced the acquisition of Atlantix Global Systems, a reseller of new, reconfigured and refurbished IT equipment located in Norcross, Georgia.

“We believe this acquisition creates an industry-leading and dynamic organization that places us in a position to maximize the market,” said CXtec CEO Peter Belyea. “The addition of Atlantix accelerates our growth strategy by adding server/storage products to our equal2new brand, strengthening our RapidCare offering, and allowing us to enter the enterprise IT asset disposition (ITAD) space.”

Belyea will be the CEO of the combined company, which will retain its world headquarters in Syracuse. Brian Glahn will remain President of Atlantix, whose operations will continue in Atlanta, focusing on the expansion of its server/storage and ITAD segments.

Terms of the transaction were not announced.

Channel Impact^®
Both sides expect to gain synergies intended to help extend the customer base and also to gain traction in new market segments.

ScienceLogic Announces Technical Services Partner Program

ScienceLogic, a Reston, VA-based company, specializing in hybrid IT service assurance, has developed a new Technical Services Partner Program as part of its overall channel program.

The program essentially provides training and certification to support the company’s platform that enables them to auto-discover IT assets, visualize dependencies, monitor infrastructure and application performance, correlate events, and enable automations. The integration provides organizations with the ability to automate incident management and the population of accurate data in their Configuration Management Database (CMDB).

The company claims more than 47,000 global service providers, enterprises, and government organizations as customers.

Channel Impact^®
The program provides development and enablement for partners pursuing the cloud and IT monitoring and automation market, estimated in the company statement at $24 billion.