Big data and cloud computing skills shortages

Speaking at EMC’s recent Inform conference, the company’s Chief Technology Officer, Chuck Hollis, said we are witnessing the entire deconstruction and reconstruction of IT - and it’s called the cloud.

“The twin benefits are saving on IT and agility, but the result at the end of the journey is big data,” Hollis said.

A recent EMC-sponsored, Digital Universe study from IDC - titled ‘Extracting Value From Chaos’ - found that the world’s data is more than doubling every two years. According to the study, 1.8 zettabytes of data will be created and replicated in 2011.

IDC says there were 1.2 zettabytes of data created around the world in 2010, but in a decade this figure will have risen to 35 zettabytes, which equates to a 1000% increase of server images over that period.

NetApp’s Peter O’Connor, Area Vice President, ANZ and ASEAN, said, “In calendar Q1 this year, 82 petabytes of storage was sold by all vendors in the ANZ region, which is up 100% on the same period a year earlier.”

“To manage all this data we are going to require a lot more IT by 2020. Roles will have to change and organisations will have to change. New roles such as different types of cloud architects, clouds business solution consultants, capacity planners and cloud services managers will be in demand,” said Hollis.

O’Connor said, “The skills resource pool is continually shrinking. The NBN will soak up a lot of skills but there are not enough skills out there and there are no government programs to assist.

“In the last month NetApp has employed three of EMC’s best system engineers. Everyone is headhunting each other’s people and this churn of skills is not good for the industry,” said O’Connor.

EMC is offering certification for cloud process engineers, cloud infrastructure administrators and cloud security administrators. If you want to become a Cloud Master, then attending the Cork Institute of Technology in Ireland will get you the title.

EMC’s Marketing CTO for ANZ, Clive Gold, said, “EMC is developing ‘Cloud’ qualifications to help people transition to the new cloud computing model. EMC has had requests for courses to enable people to become ‘Cloud Architects’.

“Today, EMC has started at the infrastructure level and offers one of these courses locally - the ‘Virtualized Data Centre and Cloud Infrastructure’ course. Due to the demand, this course is being run once a month and is offered though EMC’s Education division, which provides education and training for EMC customers and partners,” Gold said.

NetApp’s Channel and Marketing Director for ANZ, Todd Parsons, went so far as to say that the complete lack of skills for big data, storage and consequently the cloud is holding back the industry and increasing costs for customers.

He cited visiting five channel partners in Melbourne recently who between them needed a total of 74 skilled people. So these partners have to hire people who are over-qualified for the job and pay them more, and this is driving up the cost of IT.

NetApp is supporting channel partners in ANZ by waiving the $12,000 cost of certification courses for their people. In addition, NetApp is working with various universities in ANZ in a program called the Academic Alliance program. Universities such as RMIT and Monash in Victoria, Nelson in New Zealand and the University of Western Australia are assisted with course materials plus hardware and software. It is in discussions with the University of Adelaide, University of New South Wales and Swinburne in Victoria.

Parsons admits that it will take time for these university programs to bear fruit but when students do graduate with the appropriate certification they can look forward to a starting salary of $110,000.

Candidates can acquire cloud skills at Dimension Data Learning Services (DDLS), which currently provides training courses in VMware’s vCloud and vSphere.

ITIL is also key in terms of establishing an understanding of the services that are being delivered in a cloud environment, so DDLS provides ITIL courses.

A DDLS spokesperson said: “In terms of interest in the courses - across the board, there’s a pick-up across all courses relating to virtualisation - Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix and VMware. With VMware, DDLS is expecting the release of vSphere 5.0 will see a significant rise in demand.”

In addition to NetApp’s Academic Alliance program with universities, Bond University offers as an option to study cloud computing as part of two information technology degrees: the Bachelor of Information Technology and Master of Information Technology degrees.