How hot is a career in Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing is the latest technology that will make life easier for people in organisations dealing with huge amounts of data and information. Today institutions, both government and private, invest a great deal in maintaining servers to store that information. However, not all of this data is accessed frequently. This results is underutilisation of available services and unnecessary costs. That's where cloud computing helps.

It uses remote servers to store and maintain data for clients who can access it when they need to. You don't need software or a server for this; all a consumer requires is an internet connection to start sending emails. The server and email management software is on a 'cloud drive' on the internet and is managed by service providers like Yahoo, and Google.

"Since cloud services has a huge potential, the demand for professionals will be equally high in the coming years. Moreover, since India does not a have ready talent pool, they might command a premium," says Nitin Khanapurkar, executive director (advisory) KPMG, who works in the domain of cloud computing.

According to a study by global IT consulting firm Zinnov, the global cloud computing market is expected to be over $70 billion by 2015, and India will create job opportunities for about 3 lakh people in the same period.

Salary levels will be equally impressive. An entry-level professional, perhaps with 5-6 years of experience, can earn around 12-19 lakh; while a mid-level executive will get around 20 lakh. People with 10-15 years experience can hope to get 30 lakh or more.

For those who want to upgrade their skills, the options are, however, limited. For their staff, IT companies themselves are providing training and there are some certificate courses offered by Aptech and NIIT, among others. Job seekers and students who want to enter the exciting world of cloud computing, might have to wait a while before choices for study open up.