How Storage Admins Can Keep Up In the Software-Defined Age

Routes for Storage admins

It would be right to say that not only data centers, but every individual need to develop with the changing IT atmosphere in order to remain consistent. By specifying this, I mean that the maturing technology doesn’t simply require hardware and software upgrades, but the personnel connected with the infrastructure needs to improve their skill set as well to keep up.

Here I am addressing the storage admins, the long-held position with a distinct set of responsibilities in regards to managing storage environments and the related tasks, are now being replaced. To be specific, the storage admins are losing their jobs. Not to lose hope, as there’s a choice accessible for them to compete: Evolving.

Routes for Storage Admins

Due to the inception of flash storage, virtualization, software-defined storage and most importantly, cloud computing, micro-manage storage systems have lost its true essence. This was meant to happen and the feasible solution standing ahead of the storage admins is progression. Storage admins can eventually turn into data admins, which could be an effortless transition. People with storage-specific profession needs to think beyond their capacity and move from simple equipment management to controlling more complex technicalities.

IDC predicts that by 2019, software-defined data centers and cloud Hosting solutions will cut down nearly 25% of conventional IT operation job titles. So it’s high time for the storage admins to match pace with the changing time and adopt new skill sets. They need to concentrate more on innovative and smarter storage approaches which are virtualization, Application Programming Interfaces (API), hypervisor integration, automation, orchestration and more.

Another thing is that software-defined infrastructures are enabling organizations to make overall environment developer oriented. This means it allows creating a self-service interface through which the developer can access and configure storage. But storage admins need to understand the entire concept thoroughly before they completely get into it. This can be done by learning crucial programming languages such as Python and Go that plays a major role in automating and programming IT infrastructures.

The evolution will stay constant and it is us that need to adjust by following the advancing direction. Technology has been trend-setter and since decades, we’ve been experiencing the change. Software-defined services will dominate the IT infrastructure and storage admins need to be prepared for it.