Half of All Data Centers Understaffed

alphadogg writes "Fifty percent of IT executives say their data centers are understaffed, and companies are still looking for more ways to cut costs, according to Symantec's latest 'State of the Data Center' report. Sixteen percent of survey respondents said their data centers are extremely understaffed, and another 34% called their data centers somewhat understaffed. At the same time, data centers are becoming more complex and harder to manage, with more applications, data and increasingly demanding service-level agreements. 'Data center complexity has led to a lot of staffing challenges,' says Sean Derrington, director of storage management and high availability at Symantec."

Comments

12 hour shiths are not the ansaser

[Joe The Dragon]

12 hour shifts are not the answer as well makeing people work every weekend holiday night while the boss / PHB never does any of that.

Would this be a good time for a union?

[starbugs]

> 50 % understaffed, 16 % seriously.
So how many of you have to answer your blackberries after work?
Is this not the kind of situation that a Union would prevent?

(just an honest question btw, I'm not trying to troll)

Re:Would this be a good time for a union?

[gclef]

That's going to be very dependent on the union. (Devil's always in the details.) Many IT folks still have the free-wheeling "just get out of my way & I'll get this fixed" attitude, and in those cases union interference in their work will not be welcomed.

Basically, a collective bargaining agreement is one thing...having someone outside the organization set the bounds of your job (and set limits on how you can be promoted, or which incompetent f-up can be fired) is quite another. I won't say a union is impossible, but it probably wouldn't be one of the big names.

Re:Would this be a good time for a union?

[Anonymous Coward]

however considering everything else that has been done for union's sake lately (see: destruction of US auto industry) I would suggest you take the unionization decision VERY seriously.

Hahaha. As much as I dislike unions, the destruction of US auto industry was caused by complacent & incompetent US auto industry management.

The US auto industry kept designing & building cars at a price point that few people wanted to buy. Simply put, foreign car companies (on average) made better, more reliable cars.

The union wanted better salary & benefits for their members (entirely understandable, we all want to make more money). But if management agreed to ridiculous levels of compensation, to the point where the business is no longer viable, then that is the fault of management for making stupid decisions.

Should this be surprising?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this really surprise anyone?

Many data centers these days are no longer run by engineers or technologists, who have at least some idea regarding the technical aspects of the operation. Rather, many of them are run by people who received their higher education in finance, commerce, accounting, "business" or (perhaps worst of all) even marketing.

Of course, such people have a very hard time seeing beyond the numbers, since they usually have absolutely no understanding of technology, nor what it takes to truly run an effective data center. They insist that the current number of staff are sufficient, even when they clearly aren't, and even when they could easily afford to hire more employees.

I think this just reflects a greater problem of the American corporate society as a whole. People with actual technical knowledge in a specific field get pushed out in favor of people with meaningless MBAs (but all of the right "connections"). So it's no wonder American productivity and competitiveness is grinding to a halt.

Other areas of the world, namely Asia, India and Eastern Europe, realize that it isn't the accountants and financiers who provide productivity, but rather the engineers, scientists and technologists. That's why they can build better cars at a far lower cost than their American competitors can, for example. That's why Korea and Japan have broadband networks that put to complete shame anything in America.

Re:Should this be surprising?

[vlm]

I don't think that it's a big deal that people with diverse backgrounds get into IT. Either they are competent or they are not, and there's no reason someone in finance can't become competent in IT and switch careers.

No problem, but put them at the end of the very long line of folks whom already know what they're doing.

Re:Should this be surprising?

[Fastfwd]

Actually it only takes about $2K of labor to build all cars and trucks

That's probably true of most things/services. There is an amazing amount of "friction"(ie: added cost) from all levels of management, marketing, etc. Some of it is necessary, a lot of it is not. It's strange that the people you are 100% sure you need(engineers/builders) are often at the bottom of the salary food chain.

What is "understaffed"

[vlm]

I believe understaffed means no one (in the US) is replying to the following ad:

Want to hire data center cat5 cable install tech, mandatory 60 hr week overtime, weekend 2nd 3rd shift and holidays required, require CCIE, MBA, at least masters level degree (prefer phd), minimum ten years experience with "windows server 2008R2" yearly salary $25K/yr no benefits.

Golly, we got us a shortage, best open the H1B floodgates!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re:Whatever.

[Captain Splendid]

In the meantime, get on your knees every morning and thank your personal god that you have a job.

It's attitudes like that why wages stagnate. Gonna get flamebait for this, but what happened to the yankee spirit? The Founders would puke at the current complacency.