The Shortage of Skilled Storage Professionals in South Africa and Coping Strategies Employed

摘要

Organisations are faced with the requirement to store increasing amounts of data, yet the skills needed to design, manage and maintain the storage environment are often lacking. This paper presents the findings of a study undertaken to investigate the shortage of skilled storage professionals in South Africa and to find out what coping strategies are used as a result of this shortage. Interviews were conducted with IT/storage managers and storage service providers. Analysis of the data indicated that emigration, lack of training and training budget, lack of awareness, increase in use of Storage Area Network (SAN) technology and data growth are all factors that have lead to the shortage of skilled storage professionals. The study also identifies a number of coping strategies that organisations are implementing to cope with this shortage. This includes on-the-job training, vendor support, academic alliance programmes, and provision of incentives.