The BBC, the Olympics and the digital future

What were the key issues facing the chief technology officer for the BBC during the huge digital output delivered during the Olympics? John Linwood who holds that particular role, speaking in an interview in Computer Weekly magazine, does admit to ‘a moment at the end of the closing ceremony where we breathed a sigh of relief’. At one point 12 million video requests were made on one day making it ‘the largest online mobile streaming ever’. Planning infrastructure was vital with equipment rental and use of third party networks meaning that the huge capacity could be there for the event without excess investment. Linwood goes on the discuss the future direction for digital operations at the BBC including using cloud-based services and virtualisation. For more on what it took to successfully deliver the BBC Olympic output and future plans, read the whole article at http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240161490/John-Linwood-BBC-CTO-on-the-Olympics-output-and-digitisation

IT Skills survey 2012 – what do you need to progress?

IT professionals – what do you know and what do you need to know? To find out what skills are considered important by programmers, developers or IT managers, Computing.co.uk questioned 400 readers in a recent survey. Answers to questions such as “Which programming skills do you have?” and “Which programming skill do you see as the most important over the next two years?” are compared to find future trends. Today’s top three programming skills were given as SQL, HTML and Unix/Linux in comparison to the three languages seen as key for the future: Android, Java and .net. Readers were also asked about their skills in database management and analytics with just above and below 50% of respondents saying they possessed skills in the field of SQL Server, Business Intelligence and Oracle. For a detailed insight into how industry professionals see the future and more importantly why, read the full, detailed article at http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/feature/2192979/computing-it-skills-survey-2012/page/1