I sometimes peek at HostingJournalist and I saw this article come across the feed.
More than 650,000 users of data centers have taken more than one million courses from Schneider Electric University, which has a global user base with over 180 countries represented.
Fundamentals of power, cooling, racks, and physical security, as well as recommendations on how to optimize data center designs to promote resilience, energy efficiency, and sustainability, are all part of the recent updates to the Schneider Electric University Data Center Certified Associate (DCCA) qualification.
Being a data center guy is not easy. You’ve got to handle the power, cooling, physical security, biometrics, and a jillion vendors who provide gear and services on everything from UPS systems to card readers to the specific screws you need for some oddball rack some customer ordered from Outer Borneo. Plus you’re audited every 15 minutes and have to provide mind-numbing details. And then there’s disaster recovery and fire protection and tape vaulting and calculating the fiber distance between racks and it just goes on. Oh, and you need to do all the accounting, too.
It’s really less of an IT-specific job and more of a facilities role. Your typical datacenter manager probably has more in common some the building manager for a large industrial plant than he does a programmer. Your DC lead knows who Cogent is and where their line comes in, but he probably doesn’t know anything about BGP. He knows how to swap a drive on a blade server, but he has no idea what a RAID level is.
The article mentions that an industry survey shows an additional 2.3 million jobs needed in this industry. A third of employers said it was hard to keep employees and half said it was hard to locate new talent.
Now, that’s not 2.3 million data center managers. I’m sure that figure includes cabling guys, remote hands engineers, etc., and I’m guessing it’s those guys who are harder to keep because they gain skill and want to go off to make more money. Still, it’s a growing industry (the number of datacenters isn’t shrinking).
Schneider’s programs are CPD-certified and claims to be vendor-neutral. The article states that the courses are “free to access worldwide” and they are available in 14 languages.
Have you taken one? Sounds like an interesting credential. If you’ve taken any courses from Schneider Electric, please comment below!
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I enjoy writing technical articles here on LowEndBox to help people get more out of their systems. You can find me on LowEndTalk @raindog308
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I checked this out, nice find. Thanks for sharing raindog.
I am currently working as a tech, but the company has offered me a career path to move into a management position. The first step would be as a team leader, and then DC management.Now I am in the process of learning and searching materials for the DCCA.Does anyone know how difficult the exam is?
Thanks in advanced.
Nice post