Cloud Security, DevSecOps

Cloud-native development is the top skill needed by most IT leaders

A student codes app programs during computer class Feb. 13, 2019, at Virginia Allred Stacey Junior/Senior High School at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas. (Staff Sgt. Krystal Wright/Air Force)

Research by WSO2 on Wednesday found that 65% of IT decision-makers (ITDMs) say cloud-native development was their organization’s most-needed skill to increase the pace of innovation.

The survey also found that 54% of ITDMs say that the talent shortage of developers has led to delayed projects and reduced productivity. In another important finding, 40% of ITDMs report that their development teams plan to introduced security measures earlier in the development process this year.

“For the majority of survey respondents, the ability to rapidly deliver innovative digital experiences has become a critical factor in their ability to compete,” said Eric Newcomer, WSO2 chief technology officer. “Cloud-native benefits, such as scale, resilience and agility, are integral to the experience, but not easy to achieve. Automating deployment is also essential, but adds a complexity of its own. Developers, especially those with these skills, are in short supply, and need better tools to compete and succeed.”

The pandemic abruptly forced reluctant organizations into the digital transformation breach, whether they were ready or not, said John Steven, CTO at ThreatModeler. Steven said one of the trends businesses feared most was the amount of tech change necessary to meet the speed-of-delivery demand of that transformation.

“Moving online – for that 65% of cloud-native development — often meant whole-cloth new cloud-native applications that might have to work with rather legacy business critical fulfillment functions,” Steven said.

Ratan Tipirneni, president & CEO at Tigera, said while security tools get better at detecting vulnerabilities and zero-day threats, security teams are under intensifying pressure to mitigate risks from exposure and remediate issues. Tipirneni said the exponential growth of new cloud-native applications, use of open source and agile development, combined with a limited supply of skilled security personnel, has resulted in a security gap that’s holding back businesses.

“And the gap will only worsen as cloud-native application architectures become the new normal,” Tipirneni said. “To close the security gap, businesses will need to actively reduce the broad attack surface with zero-trust and actively mitigate risks with the combination of preventive measures and the ability to remediate risks in real-time.”

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