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

Managing Storage: Trends, Challenges, and Options (2007–2008) 3

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 increas-
ingly 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 equip-
ment 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 manage-
ment 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 compa-
nies now have more than 100 TB of usable storage to manage.

Storage subsystems, SANs, and backup/recovery technologies are most commonly imple-
mented, 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 manage-
ment. Lack of knowledge and expertise in a specific segment can lead to under-deployment
of one or more of these technologies.

Managing Storage: Trends, Challenges, and Options (2007–2008) 4

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 sub-
systems 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 pro-

fessionals 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 fur-
ther 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 inter-
nal recruitment.

The shortage of experienced storage professionals and the lack of storage technology edu-
cation 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

Managing Storage: Trends, Challenges, and Options (2007–2008) 5

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 stor-
age 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 stu-
dents, 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 compa-
nies, designed to build or improve storage technology skills leading to better design and
management of efficient storage infrastructures.

Managing Storage: Trends, Challenges, and Options (2007–2008) 6

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 informa-
tion 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 pro-
tection, 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 man-
agers 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 compre-
hensive 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

Managing Storage: Trends, Challenges, and Options (2007–2008) 7

 Up to $100m
17% $100m–
$500m
14%
$500m–$1B
Europe & 10%
Americas Not Known
Middle East 28%
58% 28%

Over $1B
31%
Asia-Pacific
Japan
14%

Figure 1—Geographic distribution Figure 2—Annual revenue of companies

of participants represented

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 summa-
rizes 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.

Managing Storage: Trends, Challenges, and Options (2007–2008) 8

 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 com-
prehensive 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 man-
age 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 infrastruc-
tures. 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.

Managing Storage: Trends, Challenges, and Options (2007–2008) 9

 Over 1PB
15%
One
More than 21%
three 500TB–1PB
42% 10%

Up to 100TB
55%

100–500 TB
Two 20%
Three 26%
11%

Figure 3—Distribution of multi-site data processing Figure 4—Distribution of storage capacity

environments (Number of data center/processing across represented companies
facilities 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%

80%
% Respondents

60%

40%

20%

0%
SAN Backup/ Remote NAS Local CAS IP-SAN
Recovery Repl. Repl.

Figure 5—Storage technology segments and their relative importance

Managing Storage: Trends, Challenges, and Options (2007–2008) 10

 100%

80%

% Respondents
60%

40%

20%

0%
SAN Backup/ NAS Repli- DAS IP-SAN CAS
Recovery cation

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 avail-
able 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 Responsible for disaster recovery, backup

Business Continuity Administrator and recovery, planning, implementation,
and management

Managing Storage: Trends, Challenges, and Options (2007–2008) 11

 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, 9.9%
and applications
• 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.) 2.7%
on storage technology
• 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

Managing Storage: Trends, Challenges, and Options (2007–2008) 12

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 seg-
ments. Figure 8 illustrates the percent of time spent in the last 12 months by key technology
segments implemented.

40%

% Time invested in last 12 months

20%

0%
SAN Backup/ Storage NAS Remote Local CAS IP-SAN
Recovery Sub- Repli. Repli.
systems

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 profes-
sionals 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 storage-
related 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, ded-
icated professionals are managing a storage pool of 100 TB and its associated applications.

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
Installed Usable Storage Capacity (TB)

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

Managing Storage: Trends, Challenges, and Options (2007–2008) 13

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% 60% 80% 100%

Strong Moderate 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% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Strong Moderate 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 tech-
nology 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.

Managing Storage: Trends, Challenges, and Options (2007–2008) 14

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 exist-
ing staff are required to be hired, trained, and deployed.

Storage Managers 203%

Storage Administrators 153%

Storage Architects 88% % Growth in

Staffing Requirements
BC Adminstrators 103%

BR Administrators 126%

Others 415% Current To Hire

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500

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 expe-
rienced 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 indi-
viduals 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 aspir-
ing professionals.

Managing Storage: Trends, Challenges, and Options (2007–2008) 15

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 oper-
ating 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 certifi-
cations 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.

Managing Storage: Trends, Challenges, and Options (2007–2008) 16

 - Expert level knowledge to maximize
Advanced or performance and availability
cross technology/
- Application integrated
application
storage infrastructure
expertise

- Align to assignments
Specialization based on deployed and responsibilities
technology and assignments - In-depth skills in selected
technology segment(s)

- Technology concepts
Build strong foundation & principles
across all storage technology segments - All storage technology
segments

Figure 15—Storage Group Skills Pyramid

Specialization: Advancements in technology and the rapid introduction of highly sophisti-

cated 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 plan-
ning 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 mak-
ing 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 expe-
rienced or certified professionals.

Nearly two-thirds of the storage professionals employed today require additional knowl-
edge and skills to perform their responsibilities efficiently. This is an important revelation.

Managing Storage: Trends, Challenges, and Options (2007–2008) 17

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 man-
age 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 univer-
sity students to take advantage of ‘open’ storage technology curriculum and to build a suc-
cessful career in this high-growth industry.

Managing Storage: Trends, Challenges, and Options (2007–2008) 18

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 compa-
nies, 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
Shrivastava_alok@EMC.com

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, sys-
tems 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) 19

Contact Us

Online:
www.EMC.com/training
http://education.EMC.com

E-mail:
EdServices@EMC.com

Phone:
888-EMC-TRNG (888-362-8764)

International:

EMEA_Education@EMC.com
+44 208 758 6080 (UK)
+49 6196 4728 666 (Germany)

APEducation@EMC.com
+61 2 9922 7888 (ANZ)
+65 6333 6200 (South Asia)

Japan_Education@EMC.com
+81 3 3345 5900 (Japan)

Korea_Education@EMC.com
+82 22125 7503 (Korea)

EMC Corporation
Hopkinton
Massachusetts
01748-9103
1-508-435-1000
In North America 1-866-464-7381

EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice.

THE INFORMATION IN THIS PUBLICATION IS PROVIDED “AS IS.” EMC CORPORATION MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND WITH RESPECT TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS
PUBLICATION, AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Use, copying, and distribution of any EMC software described in this publication requires an applicable software license.

EMC2, EMC, and where information lives are registered trademarks and EMC Proven is a trademark of EMC Corporation.
All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners.

© Copyright 2007 EMC Corporation.

All rights reserved. Published in the USA. 05/07

EMC Perspective
H2159.2

www.EMC.com