What's consistently one of the fastest-growing skills for job postings on Dice, boasts above average salaries, and is changing the way companies—small and large—are thinking about data storage? It's cloud, and the future for tech professionals with this experience is anything but gloomy. An analysis of searches by hiring managers in the Dice resume database highlighted the key skills companies are looking for from cloud professionals. Not surprisingly, Java is all too important to firms hiring cloud candidates. The programming language and platform is the foundation for so many technologies today that it remains one of the top skills on Dice year after year, and while other languages are gaining speed, Java is still king of the hill. Cloud-specific skills like SaaS, Virtualization, vCloud and Salesforce all rank on hiring managers' wish lists for candidates. Salesforce hit 1,000 job postings in April this year and continues to grow in popularity, with job postings up 26 percent year over year on Dice. Open source technologies like Linux, Python and Hadoop create value to companies looking for cloud professionals. Tech professionals with Hadoop experience doubly benefit as other movements like Big Data continue. What's the future of a technology without professionals to sell it? Companies are frequently looking for cloud professionals with sales experience who can drive the product forward and hit goals while doing it. And you can't have a conversation about cloud without the mention of security. Companies are looking for security professionals who can communicate best practices to colleagues, define vulnerabilities and act quickly in the unfortunate event of a breach. One thing that hasn't changed since we last reported on Cloud via Open Web, our Big Data sourcing tool, is that Amazon/AWS is still the preferred vendor, but unlike last year, there's another kid on the block. VMware also popped up frequently in hiring managers' searches, proving that as the cloud proliferates, so will companies looking to capitalize on and further enhance the technology. Shravan Goli President, Dice Image: Dice