Data Center Managers Hard to Find

Computerworld has an in-depth story on the data center job market and the difficulty finding qualified data center managers. Data center staffing trends have been a major concern for AFCOM, the data center industry group, which predicted last year that the talent pool of qualified senior level technical and management data center professionals will shrink by 45% by the year 2015. Computerworld interviews executives from AFCOM and the 7x24 Exchange, who note that managing a data center is becoming an increasingly complex task. IT managers who educate themselves about facilities management and infrastructure issues will be better positioned for advancement in this environment.

The move toward energy-efficient computing has added another layer of requirements, managers told Computerworld. "We have extreme environmental pressures, and I have had to educate myself on what it means to be a 'green' data center," said Doug Lauterbach, data center director at Bay Care Health Systems in Tampa, Fla. "This is not something that the typical IT person has in their bag of tricks."

Data center automation has played a role in the industry's employment challenges. Headlines about unmanned "lights out" data centers could depress the number of young people entering the field, stoking wariness that trained professionals could find their positions replaced by software.

If you're hiring for your data center, consider using our Data Center Jobs Board, which lists job openings in the data center field.