Data centre employment opportunities


As IT in general becomes increasingly important to organisations so does its accompanying demand for data processing, data storage and the supporting communication networks. Large companies typically spend a staggering 25% of their IT budgets on this activity (1)

Data Centres are typically highly automated; therefore the relationship between capital investment, facility size and the number of jobs created is not the same as it would be for example a factory or a manufacturing business (2)

As automation and efficiency within the IT sector continues, coupled with businesses needing to reduce their spending it’s likely the number of people required to support a facility will drop even further (3).

The types of skills required by workers in a data centre range from general IT “know-how” to those with specific working knowledge of servers, networks, security and storage management and the operating system being used (windows, unix etc) (4)

Broadly speaking there are 2 separate sets of IT workers in a facility; implementation/set-up and operational. The initial setting up of a new client can be done with more generalist IT knowledge (physical installs and cabling) whilst the operational and longer term service staff require the specialist skills. (5)

Other than IT staff the facility will require a security presence for 24 hour surveillance; in the form of an automated monitoring system and a physical an on-site presence. (6) The actual number of guards will vary in relation to the size of the facility, its site, the level of automation of the security system and the surrounding area (7)

 

Refrerences used on this page

(1) Kaplan, J: Forrest, W; Kindler, N, 2008:  Revolutionizing Data Centre Efficiency, McKinsey, July
(2) http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2008/01/18/the-economics-of-data-center-staffing/ accessed 7 May 2010
(3) http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2010/03/09/240544/datacentre-staff-costs-increase-by-10.htm accessed 7 May 2010
(4) John Scally, Personal communication, 22 April 2010
(5) http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2008/05/09/230618/opportunities-in-the-datacentre.htm accessed 7 May 2010
(6) http://www.csoonline.com/article/220665/19_Ways_to_Build_Physical_Security_into_a_Data_Center accessed 12 May 2010
(7) http://h71028.www7.hp.com/services/us/en/always-on/security-data-center.html Accessed 12 May 2010