I took a little time off this summer and the mind is refreshed. Once I got back and through the pile of emails, the blog-able item that was on my mind was how, why and will we continue to train our hardware engineers differently than our software engineers.
It has been said the hardware/software connection is much like the brain (the hardware) and the mind (the software). Each requiring unique components to perform their functions and each requiring different sets of actions for us to keep it fit. While a skilled brain-surgeon operates on malfunctions of the brain, the mind needs people with different skill sets to fix what is “perceived” to be broken or just to keep it functioning properly. The phrase, which I hear a lot, “Have You Lost Your Mind?” is one which requires a set of specialists (non-surgeons) to first determine if I have truly lost my mind, and then another set of them to go out, find it, and put it back into its rightful place. Rarely do I need a brain surgeon to fix this problem.
So what IT skills are needed in hardware and software? Just like the surgeon who needs to know what physical parts of the brain effect what parts of the mind, the psychologist needs to have knowledge of brain anatomy. Our hardware specialists need to understand software, and software needs knowledge of hardware. Hardware focuses on inputs and outputs related to the physical side, those of power consumption, throughput and efficient silicon design. Hardware creates the environment. Software training focuses on non-physical factors such as reliability, usability and those functions that allow us to master that physical side environment.
For example, both hardware training and software training teach how to measure reliability. Hardware reliability is affected and measured by use over time and how it holds up in various physical models. Hardware can fail when no one is using it. Software reliability has a whole different set of conditions and does not fail when it is not being used. If we must train our IT staff to understand and articulate the differences in something as mundane as reliability, then imagine the skills required to understand the more complex topics.
So when do you need the skills of a hardware engineer, a network engineer, a software engineer or a programmer? What skills are each trade expected to know of the other trade? Should I expect my graduates of 4-year universities in Computer Science to know how to fix a broken motherboard? Should I expect my database programming contractors oversees to help me fix my IP routing problems? Likely not, just like you would not expect your brain surgeon to go out and locate the mind that has become “lost” or have your neighborhood psychologist remove that annoying tumor attached to your frontal cortex.
But the two worlds are colliding fast. The rapid gain in the use of virtualization and “The Cloud” blurs the lines of software and hardware even further for the everyday user. Sure, there will still be hardware and still be software, there is just yet another layer of encapsulation between the two and one must understand a new set of skills and when they get applied. The world of where one computer unit (software) is run by one server (hardware) is over. In one main dedicated piece of hardware, several virtual software environments can coexist. Once again, I have heard the phrase “you are acting like an idiot”…My hardware has not changed so I must have some “idiot” software that got loaded and has taken over my normal, non-idiot, actions. So I have to know if it is the hardware’s fault or just a bad set of software commands controlling my hardware and thus remove the bad while not affecting the good.
With this new paradigm comes yet another essential aspect which you have to insure you have proper IT skilling in. The virtual world allows us to think there is less of a difference between the hardware and the software but in reality, it creates another set of IT skills that every IT worker needs to know.
Just another area of growth for the opportunities that exist out there to train IT professionals. As always, I look forward to your continued feedback and feel free to contact me anytime at aust1648@gmail.com
