After systems, networking, embedded and mobile technologies, now it is the turn of the storage devices space to attract engineering students. As storing up large number of data is becoming vital and complex, experts in the industry now predict teams should be built to manage storage of data and overcome bottlenecks in the process.
A recent NASSCOM-McKinsey report puts the demand for storage professionals in India to be 10 million in three years. Within the IT sector, it is also said to be the fastest growing segment. However, it is also believed that a big gap still exists in terms of knowledge and expertise in the area.
"This gap can be attributed to the sea change that is sweeping through the data centre," said Krishna Kant, Education programme manager, EMC India and SAARC, whose company is one of the key players in the storage segment and is currently introducing a training and certification programme to create a breed of specialised talent in storage segment.
"We must remember that traditional data centres have been flooded by an avalanche of information from completely new sources such as the consumers. And they also come in different forms such as voice, video and images. So, traditional best practices guiding data centres can no longer be effective and the infrastructure at large is becoming unsustainable."
He also says today's infrastructure isn't designed to handle security and privacy, along with the pressing need to store, manage, protect, retrieve and leverage critical information, which is turning out to be vital for businesses. Weighing this against compliance with newer regulations and policies such as IT Act, SOX, Clause 49, HIPPA, etc, the need for manpower in managing the data centre with superior skill-set becomes apparent.
EAP's course
The course offered by the EMC Academic Programme (EAP) enables students to have basic and foundation level knowledge of storage technology. It introduces students to topics such as storage system architecture, network storage, information availability, managing and monitoring storage infrastructure etc. "EAP has tied up with around 45 colleges in India," Krishna Kant revealed.
"In these institutions, we are in the process of introducing the information storage technology curriculum along with their existing IT syllabus. Our focus is on students who are in their third or fourth year. The significant aspect of our programme is that this is the only technology-based, product agnostic training and certification programme in the industry," he further added.
EAP has plans to increase the number of partner institutions to 100 by 2010, which would then become EMC academies. Assistance from EMC to these institutions includes faculty training, maintaining the quality of the programme and mentoring them to improve the standards of their technical education. Delhi College of Engineering, Manipal Institute of Technology, UPTEC, BITS Pilani, IIIT Bangalore, IIIT Allahabad etc are some of the institutions EAP is now working with to implement the programme.
Currently around 1,500 students are enrolled in the programme and EAP is also expecting to train around 10,000 professionals by 2010. "Since this is product-agnostic, students completing our certification can join EMC, our partners or even our competitor. So, as you can see, their employability is guaranteed," Krishna Kant said.