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- Today is a brand new year.
What are you going to do this year to improve your life?
In this video, I'm gonna give you five skills
that I think you should learn in 2021,
if you haven't learned them already.
I believe that if you study what I'm gonna explain
in this video, it will really help you in your career.
(upbeat music)
I believe strongly in riding waves.
I've ridden waves in my career over the years.
♪ Time to wake up ♪
- I got ahead when I learnt about Voice over IP.
And the whole industry changed
from traditional telephony to Voice over IP.
I got ahead when I learnt about open flow
and network automation, network programmability.
I like to ride waves
because I think it can really accelerate your career.
So my advice is,
learn these five skills if you wanna get ahead in 2021.
They can really help you.
Now, before I talk about the skills,
I wanna talk about career paths.
I'm often asked, "David, what should I study?
"What should I become in my career?"
And that decision is a decision that you need to make.
My advice would be do what you love.
You don't wanna spend your whole life working
in a career that you hate.
If you enjoy development, become a developer,
or a coder, or a programmer, whichever term you wanna use.
But perhaps you don't enjoy coding,
then you may wanna become an ethical hacker.
Decide what you wanna do with your life.
You have one chance, so make the most of it.
Do what you love don't spend your time
doing things that you hate,
if you can at all possible.
So work towards where you wanna go.
If you wanna be a software developer,
then spend time on skills that help you
become a better software developer.
If you wanna become an ethical hacker,
then spend time on skills that help you
become a better ethical hacker.
The good news is that the five top skills
that I'm talking about in this video,
will help you in multiple career paths.
So you could start more generalist
and then become more specialized
as you find out what you enjoy doing.
Four paths and I think can really help you.
Software development, become a software developer,
or become an ethical hacker, or work in cybersecurity,
or become a network engineer,
or have an understanding of networking
or work with analytics, data science, machine learning,
and artificial intelligence.
Any of those four paths or tracks if you like
I think can lead you to a lot of success
but decide what you enjoy.
Either focus on development or on cybersecurity
or ethical hacking or on networking
or on the data science, analytics, machine learning.
But again, you could be a developer as your core skill
but have a strong knowledge of networking
or you could become a network engineer
and have understanding of programming.
I don't think you can be a network engineer today
or a good network engineer
if you don't understand development.
So become the person
that's a good network engineer
but also very strong on programming
using Python as an example.
Differentiate yourself from others
by having skills in multiple areas
but focus in on one.
There's too much information to learn in a lifetime.
So focus in on one of the technologies
and become the best that you can be in that specific area.
But there's nothing stopping you
from having skills in multiple domains
but decide what you wanna do.
And with that in mind, here are the top five skills
that I think you should get in 2021.
Number one is Python.
If you don't know Python you're gonna be at a disadvantage.
It doesn't matter if you're a network engineer.
Doesn't matter if you're a ethical hacker,
doesn't matter if you work in data science
it doesn't matter if you're a programmer
you need to know Python today
it really opens up doors for you.
Number two, you need to know Linux.
The world runs on Linux.
If you work in the Cloud
if you work in Internet of Things devices or IoT
if you work in networking, it doesn't matter where you are.
Linux runs a lot of the world
so you need to know Linux.
I don't know how many times I need to say it
but you need to learn Linux
you need to learn Python.
Thirdly you need to know the cloud.
Networking has been changing for many years,
from on-premise to applications hosted in the cloud.
There's a reason that Amazon are as big as they are.
Cloud technologies, AWS, Azure, Google Cloud
make sure that you learn about Cloud technologies.
You don't have to learn about all of them
but make sure you at least have an understanding
of one of those cloud technologies.
So AWS or Azure or Google Cloud as an example.
You need to have an understanding of networking,
the world runs on networks.
Applications, doesn't matter what application
you're using today.
Generally today, you're gonna have a client
talking to a server a cross a network.
Big issues are caused because application developers
write code, that works on their laptop
but doesn't necessarily work in production
because they make the mistake of thinking,
unlimited bandwidth.
The world doesn't have unlimited bandwidth
networks don't have unlimited bandwidth.
Your application will be affected by bandwidth issues.
There is delay in a network.
You can't assume that because it works on your local laptop
it's gonna work in production
because there is delay or latency in a network.
So a good application developer
is aware of how networks work.
Think about it as follows,
is your application gonna use TCP?
Is it gonna use UDP?
Why is UDP better in some cases than TCP
why is TCP better than UDP?
You need to have an understanding of basic networking.
Do you understand IPv4 addressing IPv6 addressing,
that stuff is really basic.
Make sure that you at least have understanding
of networking.
Now again, which path are you taking?
If you're gonna be a software developer,
your focus is on writing code
but you need an understanding of networking.
If you're a networker, your focus is on networking
but you need to have an understanding of coding.
You may not code all the time
but you need to know how to automate networks.
You need to know how to talk to an application developer.
And that gets me to the next big topic, APIs.
The world runs on APIs today
because we have applications talking to applications.
And how do they communicate?
through application programming interfaces
We as humans use a language
let's say English to communicate.
Programs will use something like a REST API
to send information from one application to another.
So a client would talk to a server
using a REST API.
For instance using a GET to get information
or a POST or a PUT to put information on a server.
So you need to have an understanding of APIs.
And I've put this in as a bonus
you need to understand Virtualization,
learn technologies like virtual machines.
VMware as an example has been in the game
for many, many years with software such as ESXi
used in many enterprises around the world.
You have a physical server
with virtual machines running on it,
but the world has also moved on
and now we have containers.
So you need to have an understanding
of containers versus virtual machines.
So think of technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes.
This is the way the world is going.
Follow the trends, look at where the world is going.
I think if you focus your time on these five areas
it will help you in life.
This is where the world is going.
So make sure you learn Python, make sure you learn Linux
make sure you have an understanding of the cloud.
Again, depends where you want to focus your time.
You may wanna be a cloud engineer,
so you become really good at AWS
but you can't be a good cloud engineer
if you don't understand networking,
just because you put an application into the cloud
doesn't mean that you can ignore networking.
You actually have to understand networking
because you have to understand concepts such as,
load balancing, you have to understand subnetting
you have to understand firewalls.
You can't have one without the other.
So if you wanna put applications in the cloud
and you wanna manage those applications
you need to have an understanding of networking.
Even if you running applications in Docker containers
you need some kinda networking
because how are your client applications
gonna talk to your server applications?
Notice how all of these technologies work together.
So learn networking if you are gonna be a developer
as an example, you may just have a little bit
of understanding of networking.
If you're a network engineer
you may have a strong focus on networking
and a smaller focus on application development.
Make sure you learn APIs
and make sure that you learn virtualization.
Just remember, no one expects you to learn this by tomorrow.
You may just be starting out
but here is a roadmap that I think can help you in 2021
if you focus your time in on these areas
it will help you a lot in the coming years.
Okay, so that's my viewpoint, what do you think,
do you agree?
Put in the comments below.
Do you agree with what I've said,
do you disagree?
Is there anything that I've missed?
Now if you enjoyed this video, please like it
please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel
and clicking on the bell to get notifications.
I'm David Bombal, and I wanna wish you all the very best
in 2021, go and make a success of your life.
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