There is good news and bad news for anyone considering
or already pursuing a career in
data storage. There is also some mixed news, depending on
whether you relish new opportunities or prefer to stick with what
you know.
The good news is that since the emergence of
Fibre Channel in the late 1990s, the options - and related
complications - around configuring, connecting and managing data
storage have increased. So much so that research conducted by the
Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) found that 55%
of European user companies believe they need a dedicated storage
team. The bad news is that 45% do not see such a need.
The mixed news is that IP (Internet Protocol) networking,
infrastructure management software and other developments are
together opening the prospect of storage becoming just another part
of the company network based on industry standards, thus reducing
the need for storage staff.
The opportunity here for optimists in data storage is that they
could expand their careers into networking.
Data storage is relatively new as a career option, says Bernard
Zeutzius, EMEA product manager at Cisco. "Fibre Channel created the
new job of storage networking manager in the late 1990s. Suddenly,
instead of having to have all the servers and storage in the same
room, you could connect them over a distance, and remote servers
could share central or distributed storage resources.
"But you now needed people who understood the options and the
architectures and how best to implement them depending on the
applications, the preferred suppliers and other factors."
The take-up of Fibre Channel and storage networking meant a
shortage of specialists that has never totally been met, says
Stephen Watson, Storageworks manager at Hewlett Packard in the UK.
HP sees the problem as so serious that it is putting £3m into a new
scheme to train staff at its resellers.
"Six years ago I was working for a reseller and there were only
82 HP storage specialists in the UK. You would see the same people
at every storage event," Watson says.
"We need specialists who can get user companies thinking about
things like redundancy, replication,
disc mirroring and whether to have a central consolidated file
system."
Staffing issues are such that they are influencing users'
decisions when they look at data storage, according to Ken Kaban,
European technology manager at Australian multi-beverage company
Foster's Group. "We were struggling for disc space - like everyone
else - and needed a new system, but we could not spend time
learning about and implementing Fibre Channel switches and then
diagnosing fibre issues.
"The impression you get of fibre is that you need a network
engineer with a Harvard degree and a PhD to maintain it. In ideal
circumstances it works fine, but then comes that Sunday when
something causes a little bit of fibre to heat up and your data
gets corrupted. We have seen our colleagues at the Foster's
headquarters in Australia facing these problems."
These skills considerations led Kaban to choose a storage area
network (San) hardware and software package from EqualLogic. This
needed no new skills, says Kaban. "It is out of the box and up and
running in 10 minutes."
Such a package might not be suitable for much bigger
organisations, but the availability of products like this
underlines the variety of options that has grown with the emergence
of Fibre Channel and other developments, such as
IP networking,
internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) and
Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (Sata). All of these have
come in a relatively short time and all are evolving fast.
"Two years ago suppliers said cheap Sata discs were just for PCs
and were no good for enterprise use, and now we have Sata
discs holding a terabyte," says Zeutzius.
"People say iSCSI is okay for small and medium companies, but
Fibre Channel is mandatory for large enterprises. However, a 10Gbit
iSCSI storage interface could change the way people look at storage
networking."
All this means data storage can provide a satisfying career,
although it may not appear exciting at first glance, says Watson.
"How can you get excited about something that apparently just sits
in the corner and does not do anything? IT people have perhaps
focused on some of the apparently more dynamic things like the
rapid progress in processor speed, server virtualisation and the
potential of IP.
"Ideally, you actually want storage to stay boring because if it
goes wrong the business impact can be dramatic. But to prevent it
going wrong you need people who can understand it, devise the right
strategies and implement and maintain the right systems," Watson
says.
"Storage is a satisfying topic in other ways too. Specialists
can streamline the equipment in datacentres, which means they
reduce the power requirements and have an impact on the environment
and on company costs. There is definitely a career in this
field."
However, there is no clear career path to become a data storage
specialist. Indeed, the job does not feature in
the
National Skills Framework of the Information Age, which defines
IT roles.
"Storage is an area that people tend to specialise in after
working their way up through the IT ranks," says Dave Jolley, a
data storage recruitment consultant at IT recruitment company
Greythorn. "This means training and experience are often gained on
the job, with professional certifications coming later.
"Specialists need good network-based experience and often a
technical background in testing or support. In terms of soft
skills, attention to detail and good communication on a specialist
technical topic are a must."
This view of a non-specific path into a data storage career is
confirmed by Declan Van Esbeck, managing director of storage
systems specialist Redstone Technology.
"Our engineers will have gained an appreciation of the concepts
over two or three years of implementing and managing standard
server
Nas systems. Strong site experience is invaluable. An
understanding of storage provisioning and experience of a major
infrastructure management software tool, such as EMC's Legato or
HP's Openview, is also essential."
Van Esbeck highlights issues surrounding proprietary products
and the problems of cross-training between some of them - issues
that are also underlined by the SNIA's latest annual survey of
end-users.
"More than 60% of users would be willing to pay more for a
tested and supported interoperable multi-supplier system than for a
single-supplier proprietary system," the association says.
"Barriers to new technology are seen as greater than in the
previous survey. These barriers are interoperability, heavy
reliance on supplier roadmaps, and significant certification and
testing."
Clearly people looking at data storage as their next step need
to be self-starters, prepared to get the right experience and
knowledge themselves. And the rewards are worth it.
"Storage is vital in all enterprise systems, so demand for
experienced data storage engineers is rising, and consequently
salaries are high, especially within the M25," says Van Esbeck. "A
senior consultant could expect about £60,000 a year."
Jolley agrees. "Experienced permanent staff in a user company
could be on £45,000-£50,000. Contract staff could expect £200-£220
a day, even at junior level. But staff need to be prepared to work
shifts or be on call 24 hours a day if IT operations run around the
clock."
All this has evolved in the 10 years since Fibre Channel
emerged, and the next 10 years could be very different again.
"There has been a real border between the storage networking team
and the traditional networking team, but there is the interesting
possibility of that barrier falling," says Zeutzius.
"The storage manager has seen his field as one that others do
not understand, and has guarded his responsibility for the
organisation's data, arguing that if that fails, the organisation
fails.
"However, standards are now well established, notably IP, and
the software tools are much better and easier to use than 10 years
ago, so IT departments can now think about making storage
networking just another part of the job definition of the
networking team.
"The border between the two has been blurred by storage
specialist
EMC's takeover
of Legato and other software companies, giving it general
systems management tools.
"You still need someone to define storage needs and talk to
suppliers, but when it comes to connecting things together over
distance and managing the service, why not use people who have
always done this: the networking team? Already some big
organisations have done away with a separate team."
Zeutzius does not see this becoming the norm overnight, but he
points again to rapid developments in related areas such as Sata
and the use of IP, which could quickly bring compelling arguments
around costs, consolidation and simplification.
Data storage specialists can look at this not as a threat, but
potentially as an opportunity to expand their horizons into
networking, he says.
Whatever the future, there is general agreement that data and
its storage will remain vital issues for organisations of all
sizes.
"Companies are storing more data than ever before, and there
will be no shortage of jobs for data storage specialists for some
time to come," says Jolley.
Whether those jobs will ultimately be in data storage or
networking remains to be seen.
ISCSI for
beginners >>
Big pay for
storage jobs >>
The Storage Networking
Industry Association (SNIA) Europe >>
Wikipedia: Fibre
Channel >>
Computer Weekly/SSL
salary survey >>
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