Emc Perspective

EMC Perspective

Managing Storage: Trends, Challenges, and Options (2007–2008) How are IT and storage managers coping with the organizational challenges posed by the overwhelming explosion of data, increasing criticality of digitized information, and rapid introduction of new storage technologies? This updated paper contains the findings of a study based on input from over 1,200 storage professionals worldwide. This research will assist IT and storage managers in comparing and correlating their environments and plans with the overall trends in the industry.

Table of Contents Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 2. Challenges Faced by IT and Storage Managers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 3. Complex Storage Environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 3.1 Storage Technology Segments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

4. Formalized Storage Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 4.1 Responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 4.2 Storage Group Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 4.3 Storage Group Skills and Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 4.4 Sources for Hiring and Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 4.5 Storage Group Skills Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16

5. Recommendations and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 6. EMC’s Response and Initiatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18

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Executive Summary The explosion of data, its criticality, and increasing dependency of business on digital information are leading to larger and more complex storage environments that are increasingly challenging to manage. Poorly designed or managed storage infrastructures put the entire business at risk in the event of a catastrophic failure. A robust storage infrastructure requires highly reliable equipment as well as a strong team of experts to manage it efficiently. This paper focuses on storage infrastructure and presents findings from a global survey of more than 1,200 IT professionals. This study will help IT managers benchmark their plans to the overall trends in the industry. The first such study was published in 2006 and a large number of IT and storage managers used the information to refine their planning and decision-making.

Key Challenges IT and storage managers and storage professionals across companies of all sizes face the following mission-critical challenges: • Managing storage growth • Designing, deploying, and managing backup/recovery • Designing, deploying, and managing disaster recovery • Making informed strategic/big-picture decisions • Designing, deploying, and managing multi-site, multi-vendor environments • Designing and deploying emerging storage technologies • Shortage of skilled storage professionals • Managing data availability/data retention compliance Explosive growth in storage requirements and a widening storage technology knowledge gap across the industry are making all of the above mission-critical tasks even more challenging.

Complex Storage Environments Despite the differences in industry segments and the sizes of data centers, there is a strong consistency across all companies in terms of the technology deployed, storage management practices, and challenges. Nearly all critical data is now stored on external disk storage subsystems. The average usable capacity is approximately 222 TB which is typically spread across multiple sites. Growth in storage requirements, larger capacity disks and subsystems, and affordable pricing have all led to large storage configurations. Over 45 percent of responding companies now have more than 100 TB of usable storage to manage. Storage subsystems, SANs, and backup/recovery technologies are most commonly implemented, followed by replication, NAS, and DAS technologies. IP SAN and CAS technologies have started to emerge in these companies. Each of these storage technology segments is unique, offering its own specific business and operational value. Each requires a different set of skills for effective design and management. Lack of knowledge and expertise in a specific segment can lead to under-deployment of one or more of these technologies.

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Criticality of Storage and the Need for Formalized Storage Groups Storage infrastructure is mission-critical. Losing storage in a catastrophic situation can severely damage a business. When a disaster does occur, information on storage subsystems can be lost permanently unless a well-designed recovery mechanism has been planned and implemented. In addition to reliable equipment, a well-structured storage group of highly skilled professionals is critical to build and maintain a high-performance, high availability storage infrastructure. Storage groups are responsible for overall planning, design, implementation, monitoring, administering, managing, and operations. While the structure of the group, titles, and roles may not be standardized, responsibilities and tasks are common across companies. A strong correlation was found between the installed storage capacity and the size of the storage group. The ratio is high at lower capacities, and it reduces as the installed capacity grows. One storage professional is deployed to manage every 20 TB (1:20) of usable storage for installations having up to 100 TB of usable storage. At 500 TB, the ratio reduces to 1:40. Based on IT and storage manager feedback, approximately one-half of existing storage teams can manage SANs, backup and recovery, and storage subsystems. However, only 10–25 percent of the existing storage teams are adequately prepared to manage IP-SAN, CAS, local replication, and NAS. Overall, the managers assess that approx 35 percent of their teams are very capable while the other approximately two-thirds of their teams require further development.

Storage Technology Knowledge Gap Participants in this study and their companies have very aggressive plans to hire storage professionals in the next 12 months. Their forecasts indicate two to three times growth of their existing staff. Managers prefer to hire experienced or certified storage professionals. However, a severe shortage of such skills in the marketplace is causing managers to resort frequently to internal recruitment. The shortage of experienced storage professionals and the lack of storage technology education in the marketplace and in academics have restricted the growth of information storage and management functions. EMC has taken the lead and has initiated storage technology education by collaborating with several leading universities and IT training companies.

Recommendations and Conclusions Based on the findings of this study, IT managers and storage managers must ensure that: • Formalized storage groups are built and adequately staffed • Skills assessments and development of storage professionals are top priorities • Storage teams include specialists for each of the deployed storage technology segments • Application, systems, database, and network administration groups learn storage technology and work closely with the storage group

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The serious shortage of skilled storage professionals also creates attractive opportunities for the next generation of IT professionals and for those looking for a different career in a challenging, high-growth, and dynamic industry.

EMC’s Response and Initiatives EMC recognizes the need for more highly-skilled professionals in its customer base and across the entire IT industry. EMC conducted this study to identify deficiencies in the storage industry and to identify how we can contribute to addressing these challenges. The following key initiatives offer options for storage managers and professionals to acquire or improve their skills to benefit their organizations:

Education Solutions • ‘Open’ Storage Technology Curriculum – Unique offering in the industry; leads with concepts and principles – Covers all segments of information storage and management technology • EMC Technology-Specific Learning Paths – Help leverage extensive capabilities of EMC technology and solutions – Comprehensive coverage for all segments of EMC technology • EMC Proven™ Professional Certification Program – Formal validation and recognition – Option of ‘Open’ and/or more than 10 EMC technology specialties – Exclusive Knowledge Maintenance feature All of the above education solutions are available globally via EMC® Education Services to EMC customers, partners, and employees. In an attempt to help address the widening knowledge gap in the industry, the following exclusive programs were introduced to enable non-EMC users, as well as university students, to take advantage of the ‘open’ storage technology curriculum to build a successful career in this high-growth industry:

EMC Academic Alliance Program ‘Open’ storage technology curriculum for students in colleges and universities, targeted to help build a highly skilled pool of future storage managers and professionals.

EMC Learning Partner Program ‘Open’ storage technology curriculum, offered by leading, independent IT training companies, designed to build or improve storage technology skills leading to better design and management of efficient storage infrastructures.

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1. Introduction In a recent study commissioned by EMC, the industry analyst firm IDC estimates that the total volume of digital information created in 2010 will surge six-fold to an astonishing 988 exabytes—988 billion gigabytes—compared to 2006. And while most of this information will be created by individuals, 85 percent of it will be managed by organizations. This unprecedented explosion of data, its increasing criticality, and business’ dependency on digitized information are leading to larger and more complex storage environments that are increasingly challenging to manage. From the perspective of data availability and protection, information storage infrastructure is the most critical component of an overall IT infrastructure. It plays a critical role in making applications work efficiently, both locally and across multiple sites. With the increasing complexity and criticality of storage, highly skilled and focused storage groups are as mission-critical as the technology being deployed. This paper summarizes a global research study that was conducted to learn how companies are meeting these challenging requirements. These findings will assist IT and storage managers to compare and correlate their plans with the overall trends in the industry. Even though each company has unique requirements, this information will be helpful in building stronger and more-efficient storage management teams. Stronger storage management teams will, in turn, lead to more-robust storage infrastructures. The first such study was carried out by EMC in 2005–2006 and was found to be very useful by IT and storage managers globally. The updates and revisions include: • Most current information via global survey of over 1,200 managers (15 percent) and storage professionals (85 percent) • Information on data centers and processing centers instead of entire enterprise • Focus on usable storage capacities instead of installed raw capacities • Further details related to storage groups such as job titles, tasks and responsibilities, and hiring plans Global trends are identified in areas related to: • Technical environments • Management challenges • Practices for building storage management groups • Options for acquiring more or better storage skills The study was carried out between December 2006 and February 2007. We used comprehensive surveys and reached out to thousands of storage professionals to assemble and compile this information. The study included: • All major geographies and major industry segments • EMC users as well as those using storage solutions from other vendors • Large, medium, and small enterprises

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Up to $100m $100m– 17% $500m 14%

Europe & Middle East 28%

Americas 58%

Not Known 28%

Over $1B 31%

Asia-Pacific Japan 14%

Figure 1—Geographic distribution of participants represented

$500m–$1B 10%

Figure 2—Annual revenue of companies

2. Challenges Faced by IT and Storage Managers IT and storage managers and storage professionals identified the following activities and constraints as their key challenges. These challenges are common to both large enterprises as well as SME (small and medium enterprises) sectors of the industry. Challenges Identified by IT and Storage Managers and Professionals • Managing storage growth • Designing, deploying, and managing backup and recovery • Designing, deploying, and managing disaster recovery solutions • Making informed strategic/big-picture decisions • Designing and deploying multi-site environments • Designing and deploying emerging storage technologies (such as storage virtualization, IP SAN, GRID, etc.) • Lack of skilled storage professionals • Managing data availability/data retention compliance

Table 1—Most important activities/constraints identified as challenges by managers and professionals Each of these activities is ongoing at various levels in each of the companies. Activities such as backup/recovery have been in practice for decades; still the professionals believe that they are not doing enough or not performing them well. The following table summarizes the input from managers and professionals. There is a strong synergy between the managers and individual contributors as they have identified exactly the same challenges in similar priority order.

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IT and Storage Managers 80%

Managing storage growth

61%

Designing, deploying, and managing backup and recovery

58%

Designing, deploying, and managing disaster recovery solutions

48%

Making informed strategic/big-picture decisions

40%

Designing and deploying multi-site environments

36%

Designing and deploying emerging storage technologies (such as storage virtualization, IP SAN, GRID, etc.)

30%

Lack of skilled storage professionals

27%

Compliance regulations

Storage Professionals 73%

Managing storage growth

62%

Designing, deploying, and managing backup and recovery

61%

Designing, deploying, and managing disaster recovery solutions

42%

Making informed strategic/big-picture decisions

42%

Designing and deploying multi-site environments

36%

Designing and deploying emerging storage technologies (such as storage virtualization, IP SAN, GRID, etc.)

31%

Lack of skilled storage professionals

23%

Compliance regulations

Table 2—What keeps them awake; pain points in order of priority identified by managers and individual contributors Explosive growth in storage requirements and the storage professionals’ knowledge and skill gaps are the primary reasons for not executing many of these activities to the desired levels. These gaps are not necessarily due to lack of competence, but to the fact that a comprehensive storage technology education has not been available. For example, colleges and universities have not, until now, included storage technology in their courses. On the other hand, vendor training typically focuses on their products covering deployment and usage rather than building skills and competency to architect, design, integrate, and manage entire infrastructure and end-to-end information lifecycle. We will learn the methodology by which most storage professionals acquire knowledge and build skills to carry out their assignments in section 4 of this paper.

3. Complex Storage Environments This study sought to determine the similarities and differences among storage infrastructures. The responses reveal that data centers across the Americas, Europe, and Asia have deployed very similar storage solutions, including hardware and software. The sizes vary based upon business requirements, or in some cases, a particular vendor may have a stronger presence in a given environment, but on the whole, the deployed technology and challenges are very similar. • Nearly 80 percent of the companies have multi-site data processing environments. • Nearly 80 percent of the companies are at various stages of storage consolidation. • Nearly 45 percent of the companies have 100 TB or more usable storage to manage. • Average installed usable capacity is approximately 222 TB.

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Over 1PB 15% One 21%

More than three 42%

500TB–1PB 10%

Up to 100TB 55%

Three 11%

100–500 TB 20%

Two 26%

Figure 3—Distribution of multi-site data processing environments (Number of data center/processing facilities across represented companies)

Figure 4—Distribution of storage capacity across represented companies

3.1 Storage Technology Segments Storage technology deployment and its importance to the data center aligned with general market trends for each of the storage technology segments. • Storage subsystems, by default, are the most important segment as they provide the backbone infrastructure, storage capacity, reliability, availability, performance, and connectivity. • Two segments, storage areas networks (SANs) and backup/recovery (BR), were rated important by more than 75 percent of the storage professionals. • Remote replication was considered important by 50–75 percent of storage professionals • NAS and local replication are considered important by 25–50 percent of the professionals. • CAS, IP-SAN, and emerging technologies are considered important by 10–25 percent of the professionals. Each of the technology segments is unique, bringing its own specific business or operational values. For example, SAN and NAS provide connectivity options with unique functionality, while BR and replication technologies provide options for information protection against planned and unplanned outages. 100%

% Respondents

80% 60% 40% 20% 0% SAN

Backup/ Recovery

Remote Repl.

NAS

Local Repl.

CAS

IP-SAN

Figure 5—Storage technology segments and their relative importance

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100%

% Respondents

80% 60% 40% 20% 0% SAN

Backup/ Recovery

NAS

Replication

DAS

IP-SAN

CAS

Figure 6—Most common storage technology segments implemented These technology segments (Figures 5 and 6) are at various stages of evolution and maturity. Each is considered sophisticated and complex, and each requires unique skills to assess, plan, design, deploy, and manage them effectively. Deploying specialized experts within the teams, dedicated to their specialty segments, is the most effective way to manage such diverse technology.

4. Formalized Storage Groups Storage infrastructure is mission-critical and nearly 40 percent of infrastructure budgets is allocated to storage-related products and services. A well-structured storage group of highly skilled professionals is critical to building and maintaining high-performance, highly available storage infrastructures. Job titles and descriptions of dedicated storage professionals are evolving. The following are the most common job functions being deployed by the studied organizations: • Storage Manager

Manager of the formalized storage team or used interchangeably for Storage Administrator

• Storage Administrator

Responsible for day-to-day administration, provisioning, configuration management, monitoring, availability management, etc.

• Backup and Recovery Administrator

Responsible for day-to-day backup and recovery-related operations

• Storage Architect

Responsible for capacity planning, technology planning/design, and process management

• Disaster Recovery Administrator or Business Continuity Administrator

Responsible for disaster recovery, backup and recovery, planning, implementation, and management

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Storage Managers Storage Administrators BR Administrators Storage Architects BC Adminstrators Others 0

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

Figure 7—Distribution of storage-related functions across 660 respondents

4.1 Responsibilities Storage groups are responsible for the overall planning, design, implementation, monitoring, managing, testing, and operating all components of the infrastructure. Interactions with IT and storage managers and professionals resulted in the list of activities/tasks for which they are responsible (Table 3). The list includes various job functions, including storage administration, architects, DR admin., BR admin., etc. Percent time captured for each of the activities highlights the effort involved and possible importance of the tasks. This list could be used as a tool to define responsibilities of the storage group and individuals. Storage Group—Tasks & Responsibilities

% Time Spent

• Design and/or participate in design of storage infrastructure

12.3%

• Troubleshooting

11.3%

• Managing the implementation of storage infrastructure

10.7%

• Backup and recovery of information/data

9.9%

• Integration of the storage infrastructure, databases, and applications

9.9%

• Provisioning of storage infrastructure

8.6%

• Monitoring of storage infrastructure

7.2%

• Storage capacity planning

5.4%

• Evaluating storage technologies from different vendors

4.8%

• Other storage-related activities

3.9%

• Monitoring of local and/or remote replication data

3.0%

• Storage infrastructure reporting

2.7%

• Educating non-storage functions (DBAs, Network Admins., etc.) on storage technology

2.7%

• Participating in IT disaster recovery exercise or drill

2.4%

• Developing and maintaining storage service-level agreements

2.2%

• Designing and managing storage and information security

1.7%

• Defining and implementing archival requirements

1.4%

Table 3—Typical tasks and responsibilities of storage teams and percent of time spent over past 12 months

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% Time invested in last 12 months

Another equally important dimension of these responsibilities is their alignment to different storage technology segments. Skills and processes are required to manage these tasks against expected expertise in one or more assigned “specialty” or storage technology segments. Figure 8 illustrates the percent of time spent in the last 12 months by key technology segments implemented.

40%

20%

0% SAN

Backup/ Recovery

Storage Subsystems

NAS

Remote Repli.

Local Repli.

CAS

IP-SAN

Figure 8—Percent of time spent by storage professionals by storage technology segment (last 12 months)

4.2 Storage Group Size The storage group consists of multiple roles that include storage architects, managers, and administrators. We continue to find a strong correlation between the number of professionals engaged in storage-related activities and installed storage capacity. The ratio of installed capacity to the number of professionals in the storage team is high at lower capacities and it reduces as the capacity increases. If we count 100 percent dedicated storage professionals (if two individuals are spending 50 percent of their time on storagerelated activities, they are counted as one professional in this exercise), the current ratio at 100 TB is 1:20 (one professional for every 20 TB installed). In other words, five fulltime, dedicated professionals are managing a storage pool of 100 TB and its associated applications.

Installed Usable Storage Capacity (TB)

The ratio reached 1:40 at 500 TB, where approx. 12–13 professionals are managing 500 TB. In larger storage infrastructures, the ratio continues to reduce. Typically, 17 professionals are managing 1 PB of storage (ratio nearly 1:60).

1600 1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0 2

3

4

5

12

17

25

# Professionals dedicated to managing storage infrastructure

Figure 9—Number of storage professionals vs. storage capacity they manage

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4.3 Storage Group Skills and Performance Analysis of IT and storage managers’ assessment of skill levels leads to the conclusion that about 35 percent of their teams are properly skilled to carry out their responsibilities, whereas the remaining nearly two-thirds of their teams require additional skills, knowledge, and development. This is a key challenge for storage managers because it underscores the very real skills gap in their teams. Sub-optimal skills yield sub-optimal storage deployment. On the other hand, a well-skilled team will lead to higher productivity, better deployment and management of technology, and optimization of the number of professionals required. Figure 10 below illustrates the overall rating of the storage teams against the identified tasks and responsibilities (Table 3). Strong, moderate, and weak bars indicate the level of expertise within the overall storage team in the represented companies.

Design Storage Infrastructure Manage Implementations Backup/Recovery Integration with Applications Provisioning Monitoring Capacity Planning Vendor Assessments Replication Reporting DR Maintain SLAs Security Archival 0%

20%

40%

Strong

Moderate

60%

80%

100%

Weak

Figure 10—Ability to execute tasks—skill levels of storage professionals to carry out their tasks and activities

SAN B/R Subsystems NAS Remote Repl. Local Repl. CAS IP SAN 0%

10%

20%

30% Strong

40%

50% Moderate

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Weak

Figure 11—Competence by storage technology segments Figure 11 maps skill sets of the storage teams against the important technology segments. Skill levels of the teams in SAN, backup/recovery, and storage subsystems are rated high, while skills in NAS, remote replication, local replication, etc. are rated low. A correlation between ability to execute tasks (as shown in Figure 10) and competence in relevant technology segment (from Figure 11) will paint a clear picture of the effective competence of the storage group. Detailed assessment of each individual within the group is required to ascertain strengths and weaknesses for each task and related technology segment.

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4.4 Sources for Hiring and Development The most significant challenge faced by IT and storage managers is the shortage of skilled storage professionals in the marketplace. In fact, lack of skilled storage professionals is the most serious industry challenge. Considering the aggressive hiring requirements and plans, the lack of skilled resources becomes a serious bottleneck. Figure 12 highlights the level of hiring requirements across the industry. The hiring plans indicate a growth of two to three times the number of existing staff are required to be hired, trained, and deployed.

203%

Storage Managers 153%

Storage Administrators Storage Architects

88%

BC Adminstrators

103%

% Growth in Staffing Requirements

126%

BR Administrators 415%

Others 0

50

100

150

200

250

Current 300

350

To Hire

400

450

500

Number of People

Figure 12—Hiring requirements for next 12 months Figure 13 shows the preferred hiring options. The majority of managers prefer to hire experienced professionals to reduce the learning period and reduce risks associated with hiring new employees. The next best alternative is to hire well-trained and certified individuals.

Hire Experienced Hire Certified Internal Appointment Engage Consultants Hire College Graduate 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

% of Managers

Figure 13—Managers’ preference for hiring or acquiring storage skills With the shortage of skilled manpower in the industry—capable, experienced, skilled individuals are usually not available for hiring. Major factors for this skills shortage include lack of storage technology education in the marketplace and in academia. EMC has taken the lead and successfully introduced storage technology curriculum (and certification) in several universities as well as in the open market via public classes. A lot more needs to be done to convert this industry-wide bottleneck into lucrative employment opportunities for aspiring professionals.

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Given that there are very limited numbers of certified or well-skilled storage professionals in the market, managers frequently resort to internal recruitment. Often the internal recruitment involves moving an existing valuable employee who has a different expertise (such as operating systems, databases, etc.), but has very limited knowledge about storage technology.

On-the-job Training Vendor Training Self Development Certification Training IT Training Companies In-house Training 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

% of Managers

Figure 14—Most-trusted training sources for development of storage skills On-the-job-training, technology vendor training, and self-development by reading manuals are preferred sources of storage training and development, followed by training for certifications and training provided by independent IT training companies. On-the-job training, technology vendor training, and self-development by reading manuals typically cover usage and management of products and technology that is either already implemented or is in the process of being implemented. In addition, there is a need for wider and deeper training focusing on underlying technology concepts, planning, designing and managing. This will enable the storage professionals to independently and more-efficiently design and deploy storage infrastructures fully leveraging the capabilities of all applicable storage technology segments.

4.5 Storage Group Skills Model Another important aspect to consider is breadth and depth of knowledge and skills required to perform the storage-related functions effectively. There is a need for a well-defined skills model which can be applied to both development and deployment of expertise in the group. At the very least, three distinct requirements can be identified (represented as Skills Pyramid in Figure 15). Foundations: Required for all members of the team. Strong understanding of underlying technical concepts across all storage technology segments is a must to be able to: 1. Fully understand products and technology in each segment; 2. Design and manage end-to-end lifecycle of information/data from creation to archiving; and 3. Make accurate technology decisions while designing information infrastructure for critical processing environments.

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Advanced or cross technology/ application expertise

- Expert level knowledge to maximize performance and availability - Application integrated storage infrastructure

Specialization based on deployed technology and assignments

Build strong foundation across all storage technology segments

- Align to assignments and responsibilities - In-depth skills in selected technology segment(s) - Technology concepts & principles - All storage technology segments

Figure 15—Storage Group Skills Pyramid Specialization: Advancements in technology and the rapid introduction of highly sophisticated solutions have made it nearly impossible for “everyone in the team to be expert at everything.” The number of individuals and their specialties can be assigned based upon the assignment requirements (such as storage administration and management or planning and designing) and technology deployed in the infrastructure (storage subsystems, SAN, NAS, CAS, replication, backup/recovery, etc.). Formal specialization assignments also will help address the development needs for nearly two-thirds of the existing workforce. Expertise Development: Depending upon deployed technology and application environments, a number of experts may be required in the storage group. Two distinct focus areas can be identified for expertise development: • Deeper knowledge of deployed products and technology will help maximize performance and availability. • Ability to integrate technology with applications (databases, e-mail systems, etc.) will help deploy well-integrated solutions.

5. Recommendations and Conclusions From the perspective of data availability and protection, information storage infrastructure is the most-critical component of an overall IT infrastructure. It plays a critical role in making applications work efficiently, both locally and across multiple sites. With the increasing complexity and criticality of storage, highly skilled and focused storage groups are as mission-critical as the technology being deployed. This study underscores a widening knowledge and skill gap in this mission-critical industry. A very aggressive hiring requirement is possibly the most important challenge faced by the managers today, which becomes even more challenging considering the shortage of experienced or certified professionals. Nearly two-thirds of the storage professionals employed today require additional knowledge and skills to perform their responsibilities efficiently. This is an important revelation.

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Due to the lack of comprehensive storage technology education in the industry, most of the currently deployed professionals have relied on on-the-job training, vendor product training and self-development. Though probably adequate for day-to-day administration, however, the ability to make informed strategic decisions and to proactively plan, design, and manage storage infrastructure is hampered by a lack of broad and deep knowledge. Well-constructed, comprehensive, and strategic plans must be efficiently implemented to meet the challenges of managing multi-site, multi-vendor environments. • Companies without formal and focused storage management groups must evaluate this mission-critical requirement. • Companies with dedicated storage teams must carefully analyze skills requirements and current skill levels in their teams. • Companies must develop specialized experts in each of the storage technology segments they have deployed. • Storage technology vendors should develop knowledge and skills in the industry when they introduce new technologies. • Leading universities, colleges, and training providers must include storage technology courses in their curricula to offer their graduates career opportunities in this high growth industry. The next generation of IT professionals, or anyone looking for a different career path, has a great opportunity to learn the skills and meet the demands in this high-growth, dynamic environment.

6. EMC’s Response and Initiatives EMC Education Services conducted this study to identify and address challenges faced by managers in the storage industry. The following key initiatives offer options for storage managers and professionals to acquire or improve their skills to benefit their organizations:

Education Solutions • ‘Open’ Storage Technology Curriculum – Unique offering in the industry; leads with concepts and principles – Covers all segments of information storage and management technology – Adapted by several universities – Public classes by independent training providers for non-EMC users • EMC Technology-Specific Learning Paths – Help leverage extensive capabilities of EMC technology and solutions – Comprehensive coverage for all segments of EMC technology – Prepare for EMC Proven Professional Certification • EMC Proven Professional Certification Program – Formal validation and recognition – Option of ‘Open’ and/or more than 10 EMC technology specialties – Exclusive Knowledge Maintenance feature All of the above education solutions are available globally via EMC Education Services to EMC customers, partners, and employees. In an attempt to help address the widening knowledge gap in the industry, the following exclusive programs have been introduced which enable non-EMC users as well as university students to take advantage of ‘open’ storage technology curriculum and to build a successful career in this high-growth industry.

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EMC Academic Alliance Program • ‘Open’ Storage Technology Curriculum for students in colleges and universities, targeted to help build a highly skilled pool of future storage managers and professionals. • Introduced in mid-2006, the program has helped establish alliances with a large number of universities in several countries.

EMC Learning Partner Program ‘Open’ Storage Technology Curriculum, offered by leading, independent IT training companies, designed to build or improve storage technology skills leading to better design and management of efficient storage infrastructures. For more information on the programs, offerings, alliances, and partnerships, visit www.EMC.com/training. Alok Shrivastava Senior Director, Education Services EMC Global Services EMC Corporation [email protected]

About the Author Alok Shrivastava is responsible for technology education, certification, and programs within EMC Education Services. Key areas of his responsibility include technical training and field readiness, EMC Proven Professional Certification, internal communications and program management, new product readiness, Storage Technologist “Open” Training and Certification, EMC Learning Partner program, and the EMC Academic Alliance program. Prior to joining the EMC Education Services team in 2003, Mr. Shrivastava was responsible for building and leading a strong sales engineering team for the EMC Asia-Pacific/Japan region. In his nearly 25-year professional career, he has been an application developer, storage manager, systems manager, pre- and post-sales consultant, sales engineering manager, and director of the sales engineering function at the regional level.

Managing Storage: Trends, Challenges, and Options (2007–2008)

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