DataStax Survey Shows Increasing Demand for Apache Cassandra Experts and Massive Skills Gap in the NoSQL Industry

SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwired - Mar 15, 2016) -

• DataStax Academy survey reveals only eight percent of respondents believe the current pool of skilled NoSQL technologists is large enough to meet industry demand
• 73 percent of respondents agree Apache Cassandra is critical to their job function, yet nearly 60 percent indicated it wasn't critical six months ago
• DataStax Academy removes the barriers to expert NoSQL knowledge with free, self-paced online training and resources for Apache Cassandra and DataStax Enterprise
  
  

DataStax, the leading provider of database software for cloud applications, today announced survey results that show an increasing demand for NoSQL database experts, specifically those trained on Apache Cassandra. With more than 250 responses from DataStax Academy members, the survey confirms the massive skills gap in the database industry and highlights the increasing need for skills in managing and implementing Apache Cassandra and DataStax Enterprise (DSE) within engineering, administrator and architect job functions.

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Survey Findings

• Apache Cassandra is becoming even more important for engineers to understand and be able to use. 73 percent of survey respondents agreed that Apache Cassandra is critical to their job function. Of this group, nearly 60 percent said Apache Cassandra was not critical to their job six months ago.
• More than a quarter of respondents held existing certifications in Hadoop, MongoDB, SQL Server and Oracle, but felt it was necessary to receive additional training/certification in Apache Cassandra.
• Only eight percent of respondents believe the current pool of skilled NoSQL experts is enough for the demand in the DBMS industry.
• Engineers are introducing new database management platforms into the workplace. More than half of survey respondents reported that they are responsible for introducing new technologies to their organizations that would help increase productivity, improve efficiencies and inspire innovation.
• There is a high demand for more Apache Cassandra and NoSQL training courses. 37 percent of survey respondents are interested in increasing their knowledge of Apache Cassandra, specifically for personal growth reasons. Respondents found that the skills are becoming a job requirement and want to have an advantage for future career prospects. 85 percent of survey respondents also agreed that free courses are one of the most important factors to encourage participation in a new training course, followed by an online format and the ability to proceed through a course at his or her own pace.
  
  

Perspectives on the News
"As today's modern applications drive new data management requirements, it's clear through the survey results that the expertise and skills required for today's developers, administrators and architects is also changing," said Christian Hasker, Director of DataStax Academy at DataStax. "DataStax Academy helps address the widespread adoption of Apache Cassandra and DataStax Enterprise, as well as the increasing importance placed on NoSQL expertise, by offering free self-paced courses and removing costly training programs as an obstacle to learning."

According to Gartner¹, "Skills shortages remain a challenge and searches for 'qualified data scientists' have become project impediments. Many organizations said that service providers didn't have the industry depth and related business process skills. In many cases, the skills were outside an organization's region, and the organization found it difficult to transfer them to its operations. Some of these organizations decided to 'go it alone' and then discovered that they faced multiple challenges in addition to a steep learning curve."

DataStax Academy Meets the Increasing Demand for Apache Cassandra Database Skills
DataStax Academy, the company's online learning platform, addresses the growing need to develop and expand the NoSQL and Cassandra talent pool by providing free online self-paced training and resources for Apache Cassandra and DataStax Enterprise. The resources available enable developers and administrators to build and deploy cloud applications powered by leading open-source technologies.

"Access to free online courses helps engineers lower the barriers to adoption for teams to quickly learn how to use the latest open source technologies," said Frank Staszak, a Software Engineer at American Family Insurance. "Coming from a background in the relational database world, DataStax Academy made it easy to grasp new concepts and has been an invaluable resource in keeping me up to speed on Cassandra to build cloud applications."

Resources

• Read about DataStax Academy's 2015 Year in Review
• Sign up for DataStax Academy's free online courses and resources
• Register for a Cassandra Certification Exam
  
  

About DataStax
DataStax, the leading provider of database software for cloud applications, accelerates the ability of enterprises, government agencies, and systems integrators to power the exploding number of cloud applications that require data distribution across datacenters and clouds, by using our secure, operationally simple platform built on Apache Cassandra™.

With more than 500 customers in over 50 countries, DataStax is the database technology of choice for the world's most innovative companies, such as Netflix, Safeway, ING, Adobe, Intuit, Target and eBay. Based in Santa Clara, Calif., DataStax is backed by industry-leading investors including Comcast Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Meritech Capital, Premji Invest and Scale Venture Partners. For more information, visit DataStax.com or follow us @DataStax.

¹ Gartner, Bridging the Strategy Gap for Big Data Adoption, Daniel Yuen, Twiggy Lo, October 21, 2015