Managing Information Storage - EMC Education, Training, and ...

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Storage Group - Tasks & ResponsibilitiesManaging the implementation of storage infrastructure 11.9%Integration of the storage infrastructure, databases, and applications 10.9%Backup and recovery of information/data 10.5%Design and/or participate in the design of storage infrastructure 9.8%Provisioning of storage infrastructure 9.7%Troubleshooting 9.1%Monitoring of storage infrastructure 8.1.%Storage capacity planning 6.2%Evaluating storage technologies from different vendors 4.9%Other storage-related activities 3.6%Storage infrastructure reporting 3.2%Monitoring of local and/or remote replication data 2.7%Educating non-storage functions (DBAs, network administrators, etc.) on storage 2.6%technologyParticipating in IT disaster recovery exercise or drill 2.6%Designing and managing storage and information security 1.7%Developing and maintaining storage service-level agreements 1.4%Defining and implementing archival requirements 1.2%% Time SpentTable 3: Typical tasks and responsibilities of storage teams and percentage of time spent over past 12monthsAnother equally important dimension of these responsibilities is their alignment to different storagetechnology segments. Skills and processes are required to manage these tasks against expectedexpertise in one or more assigned “specialty” or storage technology segment. Figure 8 illustrates thepercentage of time spent in the last 12 months by key technology segments implemented.IP-SANCASVirtualizationLocal ReplicationNASPlatformsBackup/RecoverySAN0% 10% 20% 30% 40%% Time invested in last 12 monthsFigure 8: Percentage of time spent by storage professionals by storage technology segment (last 12 months)10
4.2 Storage Group SizeThe storage group consists of multiple roles that include storage architects, managers, and administrators.We continue to find a strong correlation between the number of professionals engaged instorage-related activities and installed storage capacity.The ratio of installed capacity to the number of professionals in the storage team is high at lowercapacities and it reduces as the capacity increases. If we count 100 percent of the dedicated storageprofessionals (If two individuals are spending 50 percent of their time on storage-related activities,they are counted as one professional in this exercise), the current ratio at 100 TB is 1:20 (one professionalfor every 20 TB installed). In other words, five full-time, dedicated professionals are managinga storage pool of 100 TB and its associated applications.The ratio reached 1:70 at 500 TB, where approximately 14 professionals are managing 500 TB. Inlarger storage infrastructures the ratio continues to reduce. Typically, 17 professionals are managing1.5 PB of storage (ratio of nearly 1:90).Gigabytes160014001200100080060040020003 4 4 5 7 14 17Number of professionals dedicated to managing storage infrastructureFigure 9: Number of storage professionals vs. storage capacity they manage4.3 Storage Group Skills and PerformanceAnalysis of IT and storage managers’ assessments of skill levels leads to the conclusion that about35 percent of their teams are properly skilled to carry out their responsibilities, whereas the remainingnearly two-thirds of their teams require additional skills, knowledge, and development.This is a key challenge for storage managers because it underscores the very real skills gap in theirteams. Sub-optimal skills yield sub-optimal storage deployment. On the other hand, a well skilledteam will lead to higher productivity, better deployment and management of technology, and optimizationof the number of professionals required.Figure 10 illustrates the overall rating of the storage teams against the identified tasks and responsibilities(Table 3). Strong, moderate, and weak bars indicate the level of expertise within the overallstorage team in the represented companies.ArchivalSecurityMaintain SLAsDRReportingReplicationVendor AssessmentsCapacity PlanningMonitoringProvisioningIntegrations and ApplicationsBackup/RecoveryManage ImplementationsDesign Storage Infrastructure0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%Strong Moderate WeakFigure 10: Ability to execute tasks—skill levels of storage professionals to carry out their tasks and activities11
Page 6 and 7: EMC’s Response and InitiativesEMC
Page 8 and 9: 2. Challenges Faced by IT and Stora
Page 10 and 11: IP-SANCASLocal ReplicationVirtualiz
Page 14 and 15: SANB/RPlatformsNASRemote Replicatio
Page 16 and 17: 4.5 Storage Group Skills ModelAnoth
Page 18: About the AuthorsAlok Shrivastava i

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