In Search of Storage Skills

Storage is growing at an alarming rate, but getting hold of the staff to manage it is easier said than done. Metadata, virtualization, and security skills are already posing problems.

A number of execs are steeling themselves for a tough 2007. "We're in an extremely competitive environment when looking for talented individuals in networking, data storage, and data management," warns Jonathan Rothman, director of data management at Livingston, N.J.-based healthcare firm Emergency Medical Associates (EMA).

The exec told Byte and Switch that people with experience in metadata management are particularly difficult to find. "What I am forced to do, as a result, is take that expertise from consulting groups," he says.

It is hardly surprising that demand for metadata skills is growing, says David Hill, principal of analyst firm Mesabi Group. "Understanding the metadata is going to become more and more important," he says, citing the impact of compliance regulations such Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) and the recent Federal Rules for Civil Procedure (FRCP). (See Top Tips for Compliance , EDS Selects StorageNetworks, and FRCP Tip Sheet.) "You have to now audit your data [and] you have to have a chain of custody as the information flows within your organization," he adds.

Elsewhere, virtualization is also posing a major skills headache. "Our two pain points are people with experience in virtualization and people with experience in encryption," says Christian Philips, chief security officer at Napa, California-based bill processing company Regulus Group. "We bring people up in-house where we have to -- it's a long, arduous process, but it's what we have to do."To illustrate his point, Philips explained that it can take as long as nine months to give one of his staff a full set of virtualization skills. "We're using all kinds of virtualization VMware, AIX, and Solaris," he says. "If a storage engineer makes a mistake on one of these environments, he doesn't bring down just one system."

These sentiments are shared by Brian Clouthier, LAN systems engineer at Chelsea, Mass.-based dairy firm Hood, which will roll out VMware on its Compellent SAN in the next few months. "The big challenge is getting people that understand the different components of [virtualization] -- the network side, the hardware side, and the operating system side," he says.

The skills problems facing IT directors in 2007, though, are not just technical. An additional challenge for EMA's Rothman, for example, is finding storage professionals capable of communicating with the hospital staff that form his customer base. "They have to wear multiple hats and they have to know how to speak to the clients," he says.

The exec told Byte and Switch that he tried to find "techies" with knowledge of healthcare on two occasions last year, but was unable to get the right people at the right salary: "It's easier to recruit someone with healthcare experience and teach them the technology."

For Roy Rabey, IT manager of Dallas, Texas-based gaming company Ensemble Studios, Windows skills are top of the storage hit list. "If I was looking for a candidate, it would be someone familiar with the latest storage features in the Windows Server operating system," he says. Rabey told Byte and Switch that he expects Microsoft to enhance the distributed file system and encryption features within its Windows Server product sometime this year.Unlike his counterparts, though, Rabey does not anticipate major problems getting the staff he needs. "I am in a somewhat enviable position in that there's a lot of people that would like to work in the gaming industry," he says. "A lot of people are gamers and they want to get into what they perceive as a sort of fun environment."

The exec, though, warns that life at a gaming firm is not all about enjoying the latest video games. Ensemble Studios, which developed the Age of Empires series, can be a demanding work environment. (See Gaming Companies Eye Storage.) "The demands on the IT infrastructure can be quite high because the developers are always pushing the envelope," he says. "They need the fastest processors and tons of storage."

— James Rogers, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch