A Successful Failure to Collaborate on Storage Technology Education

Introduction

Enterprise systems are focal points for business and information technology, and storage technologies are becoming a core element of these systems. To meet growing storage needs, industry has introduced a selection of storage solution alternatives, each addressing specific data storage and management needs (Duplessie, 2006). Direct attached storage (DAS) systems attach storage drives directly to servers, network attached storage (NAS) environments are made up of specialized servers dedicated to storage, storage area networks (SANs) are highly scalable and allow hosts to implement their own storage file systems, and content addressable storage (CAS) systems are a mechanism for storing and retrieving information based on content rather than location. Because the storage needs of all organizations are growing exponentially today, huge investments are made each year in storage-related hardware and software. Skilled employees are needed to design and navigate through these complex enterprise solutions.

Business’ information technology budgets are responding to storage demands, spending an estimated 40% on storage-related needs in large organizations (Hecker, 2004). IDC predicted that IT spending on storage and services will exceed $60 billion in 2007 (Gantz, 2007). Increased spending on storage makes it the fastest growing segment of IT. Despite these large investments in Storage by industry, Universities lag behind significantly with respect to curricula related to this expanding area.