An email conversation with Sandip Gupta, president of NetMagic, who discusses his presentation on the data center skills shortage, set to take place 8:30 a.m., Tuesday, at next week's HostingCon event.
By Liam Eagle, theWHIR.com
In advance of HostingCon 2008, we're contacting some of the speakers presenting at the event and asking them about the content of their sessions in an effort to give readers a sense of what to expect from HostingCon, and perhaps help them choose which sessions to attend.
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July 23, 2008 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- About this time last year, NetMagic (netmagicsolutions.com), which describes itself as "India's leading managed IT service provider," was at HostingCon, offering a new twist on the typical IT outsourcing model.
As is pretty widely understood, many hosting companies based in the US outsource their level-one tech support to overseas countries, particularly India, because the lower cost of labor in such countries can make it possible for a smaller hosting company to provide the 24-hour phone support it otherwise couldn't. Or, in cases where the company could afford the staff locally, they'd just rather spend less.
What NetMagic began offering last year was an outsourced, remote service for data center management. Along with all the standard managed hosting services, which the company provides from its several India-based data centers, NetMagic offers hosting providers remote management of their data centers from NetMagic's India-based NOC to data centers anywhere in the world.
Sandip Gupta, representing NetMagic at HostingCon 2007.
The service has an obvious tie-in to NetMagic president Sandip Gupta's Tuesday session, titled "Infrastructure Management Skills Shortage: Are you Prepared for the Inevitable?" in which he will discuss strategies hosts can use to deal with an apparent upcoming shortage of data center management skills - talents he says are learned on the job more often than they're taught in schools.
Among the solutions, says a NetMagic press release, are in-house training programs, new certifications and outsourcing partnerships. All of which Gupta intends to discuss in the session.
"Infrastructure Management Skills Shortage: Are you Prepared for the Inevitable?" will take place Tuesday, July 29 at 8:30 a.m. in room 324.
Can you describe what some of those data center management skills that aren't taught in schools include?
SG: Data center skills are divided into two broad categories - facilities skills and IT skills - and these traditionally have been allocated to separate sets of people. Skills required today go beyond those just purely around facilities management (real estate, architecture or power/fire protection and detection etc.), or around IT management (server/storage administration, application/network management etc.). Today's data center management needs skills that cut across these two disciplines: power/rack, cooling/aisle, load/sq. ft. etc. These skills are acquired, not taught.
You say things like "preparing" and "inevitable" in describing your session, which suggests that this skills shortage hasn't quite arrived yet. How far away do you think it is?
SG: Data center infrastructure is evolving as we speak. Application content is richer, more sophisticated and highly distributed - and is producing exponential data growth. Compliance, control and security are not making it simpler. Data center managers have to keep up with challenges like energy conservation, 24x7 availability and on-demand performance. Retiring workforce, skills being too narrow and employee retention are all creating staffing issues and a skills shortage that will peak in the next three to five years.
What are some of the strategies you're proposing data center companies use to prepare themselves? I suspect it may involve remote management, possibly from NetMagic?
SG: A combination of people, process and tools makes up the framework for the "infrastructure management" challenge that data center managers face today. Data center managers have to create customer-facing products and services that need to be delivered by a service factory. This would lead to an off-the-shelf catalog of services with a homogeneous infrastructure that is monitored and management with minimal human intervention and a lot of automation.
Remote management is surely one option by which data center companies can overcome some of the skills shortage issues, incorporate processes that don't exist in their company today and leverage a combination of tools that they do not have to buy or maintain. Netmagic is offering Remote Infrastructure Management (RIM) as a service and can enable data centers deliver an SLA at an affordable price.
To what extent can a remote solution make up for a shortage of skills actually located in the data center? Is there a difference, in your opinion?
SG: Data centers will become more human-less and lights-out once they are built. Most or all of the monitoring and management will be done remotely. Whether it is done from a remote NOC located in the company's own offices or from a partner's NOC in a remote offshore location, does that really matter? No. The tools and technology are making it easier than ever. RIM can potentially save 25 to 30 percent of overall operations cost if done right.
Do you intend for people who come to your presentation to walk away with a specific plan of action? What would that be?
SG: - Process comes before people and tools - Automate, automate, automate - Think services not technology - Partner where you can to avoid the staffing shortfall
