The answer lies in the tribe

Imagine for a moment. You are in mid-air, and you are having problems steering the plane. 

The natural thing to do is to follow all the guidance to handle such a difficult emergency, and it turns out your plane sensors happen to be faulty and giving you incorrect feedback. You try as you might, but you are not going to regain control of the situation

The above scenario could well be true for many industries, but I am talking specifically about the disconnect between the data centre industry's needs for human talent and how these needs are being met

When the subject of human talent is brought up in industry conferences, the recurring theme is that we are not getting (enough) human talent to run the data centres, and not getting the human talent with the right competencies to get the job done. This has been exacerbated in recent years as some of the most senior and experienced engineers are due for retirement (it has been more than 20 years since the first internet data centres were built), while the cloud players begin to poach or draw away experienced staff from traditional colocation and facilities management firms

"Split second decisions are needed, and then, complexity creates danger. All of this at great cost yet very little gain"

So why are we here? I would like to suggest this is due to the confluence of 3 factors

Data centre facilities involve multiple disciplines and with the increased emphasis on uptime, have become far too complex and huge for any one person to competently manage

It has been 17 years since Sun Microsystems published its data centre site planning guide. Since then, data centres have become increasingly complex to the point that facilities managers are expected to be familiar with electrical and mechanical systems, as well as the tens of dozens of best practices, standards, compliance codes and customer requirements.

Many recruiters expect data centre facility managers to be conversant in ISO27001:2013, ASHRAE TC9.9, PUE calculations, in the data centre standard of choice (it could be TIA942, BISCI-002, EN50600, GR-2160, GB50174 or any other) while still able to oversee the maintenance regime of the data centre facility (that could be worth tens to hundreds of millions, and supporting compute loads that are worth more than tens of millions to each of its enterprise customers)

"..Relevant knowledge and experience of the electrical and mechanical systems involved in critical data centre operations including systems such as feeders, transformers, generators, switchgear, UPS systems, ATS units, PDU units, chillers, pumps, and CRAC units.. knowledge of regulations on security, fire, and workplace safety, energy management, environment management, ISO standards, PCI/DSS, OSPAR certifications and Green data centre operations" extracted from a recently posted ad for a data centre facilities manager role

In fact, Google has suggested that data centre facilities are arguably too complex to be left to humans

"Consider one simplified scenario: Just 10 pieces of equipment, each with 10 settings, would have 10 to the 10th power, or 10 billion, possible configurations, a set of possibilities far beyond the ability of anyone to test for real"

This has also put more urgency in the conversation about better alignment between IT and facilities, digitizing and automating as many previously manual processes and procedures as feasibly possible, and improving the oversight of data centre facilities through data visualization, machine learning and AI

As an industry, we have yet to nail down the key functional roles and the respective competencies (breath of skills) and proficiency (level of mastery)

Having evolved out of the telecoms industry, many old time managers are likely from the facilities, network, cabling or even IT background who spent the last two decades learning on the job

In the last 15 years or so, we have seen EPI, DCDPRO, TechXact and CNET coming onto the training scene to provide data centre training courses, helping many make the switch from IT roles to data centre roles. In recent years, we have also seen distance learning courses offered by IDCP (Marist), Anglia Ruskins (in partnership with CNET) and IT Sligo. Dr Montri Wiboonrat's good work in setting up the data centre university in Thailand (in partnership with several parties including BICSI) is also noteworthy

What I would like to suggest is that though we have ample choices of training courses, I am not persuaded that the courses were designed to match current industry needs, not in terms of the breadth or proficiency needed to hand over a multi-million dollar facility to the hands of someone who has taken the courses

Perhaps I am being overly harsh, but I think it is incumbent on both academia (which is largely missing from the equation) and on training providers to take stock of where the data centre industry is headed, and to engage data centre operators to rationalize their learning and development needs. I am not suggesting this is an easy task, but without the right feedback from industry, it is akin to flying a plane with wrong sensor data, and we all know where that plane is headed

Many friends would dispute this, but I do think part of the problem lies with the assumptions of who takes these courses, why they take these courses, and what level of competency they bring before they take these courses.

Which leads me to the third point

Orientation takes weeks but competency (including perspective and insight) takes years if not decades

Given the ongoing transformation of the industry (be it in terms of the technological landscape or the new paradigms of running the business), how do we plan for a future that is unclear to us?

The military coined the term, VUCA, which stands for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. In a world that is changing too fast, we can only stay relevant by continually assessing where we are and continually adapting

Interestingly, you see many military veterans who join and are a great fit to the data centre industry, because of their technical background and ability to learn and adapt.

But soldiers are not born in a day. Good soldiers are groomed, and take many years to cultivate the attitudes and traits that suit them for war time and for the commercial world

The same could be said about learning the basics of power discrimination, maintenance of air circuit breakers, and even shrewd management of the white spaces to accommodate the delivery and installation of equipment into racks

“The skills needed to be successful in the cloud world are even more diverse than the varieties of cloud technologies”

So what do I suggest we could do? For one, we should start having the right conversations. And to get the right parties to be part of the conversation. You need all the small tribes (different bands of stakeholders) to come together to have more forthcoming conversations, including Government, Academia (and the schools), and industry

I also think we need to pivot and start thinking about going down to the schools to engage and attract prospective talents to join the industry. And maybe we need to start to groom some of these talents early, at the vocational institutes and universities (this is a separate subject, and one that I am taking up with interested parties)

I know it can be done. Just look at the maritime industry and how it has over the years rationalized its learning and development needs. I do not know how much effort it takes, but I know when to start. As Seth Godin aptly put it, the best time to start was last year, and the second best time to start is right now