EDITOR ’ S QUESTION
STEVE BOWES-PHIPPS , DCA ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER AND SENIOR DATA CENTRE CONSULTANT , PTS CONSULTING
here is an assumption
T that if you throw training at people to fill skills gaps , this is all that ’ s required . There are a number of reasons why this may not always be the case :
1 . All data centres are different ; different design and construction , policies , process and procedures , combined with the culture of the organisation , make every data centre feel different and operate differently . Standards can be brought to bear to mitigate this variance and site specific knowledge .
2 . Different skillsets for the emerging technologies being deployed in constructing and operating the building are ill-defined . To compound this , will emerging technologies fundamentally change some of the power and cooling requirements , making some skills redundant ?
3 . If you leave training and development to the individual , you may not have the skills you need and yet , understanding holistically how a modern data centre will change over the next five to 10 years is akin to staring into a crystal ball .
4 . Data centres exist because of the IT – to truly understand what drives the data centre is to really understand how the IT is deployed and what the end-user of the IT requires .
5 . Data centres may seem like black boxes but how they interact with their customers is crucial .
Given the difficulty identifying the capability gaps and what training is needed to fill them means your hiring and retention strategy should be focused on staffing data centres with people who have the right attitude and technical competence , and not necessarily just
YOUR HIRING AND RETENTION STRATEGY SHOULD BE FOCUSED ON STAFFING DATA CENTRES WITH PEOPLE WHO HAVE THE RIGHT ATTITUDE AND TECHNICAL COMPETENCE because they have the right skills . As per point ( 4 ), understanding your customer is critical :
• What do they need from your data centre now ?
• What IT technology will they be deploying in the next 12 months ?
• What challenges are they going to ask you to accommodate as a result of existing or future business requirements ( capacity , network , access , space , security , etc .)?
With the knowledge you gain and the foundation of the right set of staff attributes , you are ideally placed to undertake a meaningful skills gap analysis and action plan .
Consider also undertaking continual improvement action plans that may feed into capability gaps on the periphery of the operation of the data centre , but may be crucial to its effectiveness ( e . g . project management ). As a result of this , automate where necessary , skill up elsewhere and then inform , educate and develop your staff to retain currency and retain people invested in your business and supporting customers to deliver theirs . ◊
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