Storage virtualization: The skills you need

Just as it has for the server infrastructure, virtualization promises wondrous things for storage. For instance, viewing storage as a pool makes managing, backing up, archiving and migrating data far less complex than when storage is aligned with physical devices. You do have to know where you want your storage virtualization to reside, however. You can use a host-based system from Brocade Communications Systems or Symantec, for example, as part of the fabric with an appliance from EMC or IBM, or in the array, as such vendors as HP and 3Par offer.

As companies are diving deeper into virtualized storage projects, IT managers are getting a better understanding of the staff skills they need to make those projects succeed. The exact talents required depend on the type of storage implementation, but most employers say they're in the market for two kinds of IT worker: technicians with vendor-specific SAN or NAS knowledge, and systems administrators and IT architects who understand the complexities and interdependencies among applications, operating systems and I/O, all of which affect storage requirements.

But the different approaches to storage virtualization demand different skills. For example, IT organizations that have created virtual server farms have typically relied on storage professionals who are knowledgeable about the types of platform being used and how best to allocate storage for those configurations, says Vincent Franceschini, chairman of the Storage Networking Industry Association.

That's one reason why IT leaders and industry observers say systems administrators and IT architects have skills that can help organizations manage storage virtualization efforts. Workers with such backgrounds are typically adept at configuration management and understand how storage, or "block," virtualization interrelates with disciplines such as disaster recovery planning and server clustering, says Irwin Teodoro, director of engineering at Laurus Technologies Inc., a systems integrator in Itasca, Ill.

What's needed is targeted instruction in how virtualization works.

For example, IT professionals who want to get involved with storage virtualization "need to know how the operating systems treat disk or what the disk limitations are to be successful in this environment," Teodoro says. Plus, systems administrators "are familiar with some form of data storage layout, and what you find is that 80% to 90% of storage administrators have backgrounds in systems administration," he adds.

The importance of those technical and process interrelationships in storage virtualization efforts also helps explain why there's strong demand for IT professionals who have ITIL process-transformation experience, says Brian Brouillett, vice president of data center services at Hewlett-Packard.

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Homegrown Talent

Meanwhile, IT organizations crafting their own virtualized storage environments often use their existing SAN or NAS technologies and draw on IT staffers who are experienced with them, says Rick Villars, an analyst at market research firm IDC. Employees who are adept at tuning system performance and optimizing system utilization can help make those technologies more cost-effective in a virtualized environment, he says.

For at least some members of Share, an IBM user group, the goal is to simplify their organizations' virtualization efforts as much as possible "so you don't have to go out and find a storage virtualization expert," says Robert Rosen, a past president of Share and CIO at the US National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. Instead, many IT managers are opting to tap "well-rounded" systems administrators who can be trained, Rosen says.

That might also be a more financially prudent approach. According to David Foote, chief research officer at management consultancy Foote Partners, the average base pay for senior SAN administrators in the US is US$96,478. Foote Partners doesn't classify storage virtualization as a separate job category because those tasks are typically a component of what a SAN administrator does, says Foote. Nevertheless, IT professionals with such skills have commanded a 6.7 percent compensation increase over the past six months, he says.

Foote says employers prefer to develop their own IT staffers with virtualization skills -- including those with sought-after security and networking acumen -- instead of hiring contractors. That's partly because contract workers with such skills "don't come cheap," he notes.

Although most employers look for technicians with specific types of storage and virtualization expertise -- including iSCSI and Fibre Channel experience -- having a solid storage management background is a critical asset, says Babu Kudaravalli, senior director of operations for the business technology services division at the US National Medical Health Card Systems.

"It's a very laborious and manual process to deploy storage," he says. "You have to have an expert or experts who absolutely know what they're doing to manage the storage."

NMHC began creating its own virtual storage environment using HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Arrays in late 2002, says Kudaravalli. To help strengthen its knowledge base in this area, the company has cross-trained some of its Unix and Windows administrators, he says. That approach has not only provided growth opportunities for some of its IT staffers, but it has also been cost-effective for NMHC, says Kudaravalli.

For example, although its storage capacity has swelled from 5TB to 6TB in 2002 to about 70TB today, the company hasn't experienced a corresponding increase in manpower, says Kudaravalli. "We still have to manage the same amount of dollar figure, but we have to do more," he says. "That's why there's more emphasis on cross-training."

Besides, these types of nascent skills are tough to find. It's particularly challenging in the public sector because storage virtualization specialists must also have the necessary security clearances to do the work, says Rick Gonzalez, vice president of strategic alliances at NJVC a government services provider. In fact, IT professionals with security credentials typically command US$5,000 to $10,000 above the standard market rate for people with storage virtualization skills alone, he says.

And the human resources needs are even more complex at companies like Xerox, which manages some of its storage internally while also using storage virtualization services from third-party vendors.

"We need sourcing talent that not only knows how to contract [for virtualization services] but to monitor that contract successfully," says Bob Davis, vice president of global strategy, change and performance at Xerox Information Management, a predominantly outsourced IT organization with about 800 employees.

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The Training You Need

Storage vendors such as EMC, IBM, Hitachi Data Systems and HP offer extensive training for users of their storage systems. HP, which is an authorized training partner of virtualization vendor VMware, has provided training to 10,000 people, says Nancy Lunger, general manager of HP Education Services.

Virtualization training classes offered by local user groups can also be useful -- and they're popular. For example, a northern Nevada chapter of the HP user group Connect hosted a storage virtualization training session in May that attracted 42 people, says Steve Davidek, a Connect board member who is also a systems administrator for the city of Sparks, Nevada. In contrast, the previous Connect meeting for that chapter drew 20 people. Similar virtualization classes around the country have also been well attended, he says.

Even though some IT organizations have been involved with various types of virtualization for a few years, storage virtualization is still a brave new world. "Nobody's an expert yet," says Davidek. "We're all still learning this as we go along."