10.5 The IT SAN Management Professional

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At the top of InfoStor magazine, it says the publication provides News and Information for Data Storage Professionals. It s a given that data storage professionals exist, but are there SAN management professionals?

Yes, indeed. And the future looks bright for those developing careers in SAN engineering. A quick search under SAN and Storage Area Network at dice.com produced 1532 matching listings.

Titles range from some non-SAN sounding ones, such as Sr. Engineer (File Storage), to some very SAN-centric ones, such as Storage Area Network Architect. Two annual salaries that caught our eye were $104,000 and $120,000.

Go see for yourself. Closer examination will show that a large number of the openings are for those making SAN products: Dell, Brocade, Hewlett-Packard, etc. That s understandable. In terms of customers using SANs, one source estimates that SANs are showing themselves in only about 3% of data centers so far. That leaves a lot of data centers that will be installing SANs in the future.

A typical job description for an e-business reads:

Lead the technical development of new Storage Services using Storage Area Network (SAN) technology, for a rapidly growing Integrated Communications Provider (ICP) in the Boston area. Services to include OnLine Storage, Continuous Production, Disaster Recovery services, and other storage-centric services.

Identify new standardized services to be developed, based on an understanding of customer requirements and leveraging the capabilities of SAN technology. Develop Storage Services designs, standards, and procedures to enable services to be sold to customers and delivered in a repeatable and scalable manner. Lead development of the SAN environment in support of other E-Services (Application Hosting, B2B Commerce, ASP solutions, etc.) that rely heavily on storage as an integral part of the infrastructure.

The required experience? A BSEE or computer science degree, five years experience in data networking at a data center, and senior-level expertise in network design as it relates to Storage Area Networks.

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