I didn't get a "storage" education when I was in college. I had to learn on the job.
At work I learned about spindles, cylinders, tracks, seek times, head bumps, rotational latency, and transfer rates. These things represented critical knowledge to help me do my job as a software engineer building storage products.
What's the critical knowledge that you need to help do your job in 2008? What topics should you be learning about at your university?
You gotta start with the fundamentals.
Data Versus Information
If you want one of the growing number of worldwide storage technology jobs in the next few years, start by understanding the terms "data" and "information", and know why they're different.
I like to use the word "raw" to define data. Think about bits and bytes. 1s and 0s.
The raw data gets turned into "information" when those bits get analyzed. Both individuals and businesses analyze data to generate information in order to make decisions. You probably already understand this. As an individual you often have to make decisions about what to do with your data. So let's focus on businesses. Knowing what businesses need will help you get a job.
Different Types of Media
Next fundamental: where does data end up? Where do the bits actually "live"? Businesses have choices, and traditionally these choices fall into three categories: tape systems, jukeboxes, and disk arrays. Think of these as large collections of casettes, CD-ROMs, or disk drives, respectively. There's also a new option for businesses to consider: flash drives.
It's critical to know both the characteristics and use cases that are associated with each of these choices. Individuals may use CD-ROMs to archive photographs. When would a business use a jukebox versus a tape system versus a disk array? This is exactly the sort of material that needs to be taught and learned.
Data Center Infrastructure
Businesses that purchase and deploy these media types often put them into a data center. In a data center the storage media becomes one piece of a larger infrastructure. This infrastructure typically contains five core elements: applications, database management systems, servers and operating systems, networks, and storage media (such as a disk array).
It's critical to have a basic understanding of how a transaction flows across these five core elements.
Smaller businesses may deploy subsets of these five core elements. Learn about the large case first; this knowledge will translate to smaller deployments.
Storage Requirements
Businesses that run a data center have a choice of what storage products to deploy. They purchase storage based on their requirements. Does their storage need to be available around the clock? Does it need to be scalable so that it seamlessly facilitates growth?
There's a set of well-known requirements that should be learned, including data integrity, availability, security, capacity, scalability, performance, and manageability.
Businesses that identify their requirements then have to balance them against constraints. Learn these constraints. Some questions that often get asked are:
- How much can I spend on storage?
- Are there any limitations due to the physical environment that will house the storage?
- How do I maintain and support the storage?
- Are there compliance regulations and laws that pertain to my storage?
- How do I secure my storage?
- What is the total cost of ownership (TCO) after purchase?
The Foundation
Data. Information. Media Types. Data Center Infrastructure. Requirements. Constraints.
Start with these. Know these terms cold. Everything else builds of these foundational concepts. I may sound like I know what I'm talking about. You know why? Because I just finished telling you everything I learned in the first section of EMC's Academic Alliance curriculum.
EMC Academic Alliance
It's important for EMC to sponsor the training and education of students looking to enter the storage and information industry. Many colleges agree. Professors around the world are learning EMC's Academic Alliance Curriculum, and are going deeper into the topics I introduced today. Specific case studies are part of the curriculum, and these case studies illustrate and illuminate the topics I've outlined here.
And once you've learned these fundamentals, each lesson logically builds from it. The curriculum builds all the way from bits on media to security and virtualization.
For those considering a high-tech career in CS and/or IT, I hope you can see that there's a learning curve. I hope you've read about the digital big bang. There's opportunity out there.
Find a school that teaches you this kind of stuff. Or have your school official email EMC Education Services about the EMC Academic Alliance program.
Then hit the books.
Steve
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