DCs´2013 Trend #6 TRAINING

Five years ago I read in AFCOM ppt that in few years all those professionals that have born during 50´s will retire; at this time that prediction is becoming more and more true; those that had taugth how to operate , construct & design the mission critical facilities are less & less in the field.

In the same five years the technolohgy has become an astonishing fall of new concepts, metrics, equipments and have pushed us to forget, learn, forget & RE-learn. Nothing in the human kind culture is moving so fast than the Data/Digital/Telecom world.

But do we have change at the same pace?

how many of us are sitill using a notebook -paper one-  for writing with a pen / pencil?;
how many of us are still using the same PC/Laptop/Notebook instead of a tablet ?
how many of us are still using a cel phne not a Smart Phone?
how many of us are still using a car that only burn petrol to move instead fuel cell or electricity?
how many of us are still using a land line as main business communication contact?
how many of us are using only e-mail instead social networking?
how many of us have not take a course in www.coursera.org?
how many of us still thinks that climate change is a complot from ....whatever? 
and, so, so, so,.........
  
 Yes, five years have change a lot of our economic, social, educational, political, enviromental perception of  the real world. But how many of us are trying to understand, that data centres are the location where most of the change are taking place in this very moment. have we change the way that we learn as apprentice of this new trends?

Today in the DC´s educational market we can find several offers from several institutions, associations, manufactures, consulting firm like AFCOM, BICSI, CISCO, CNet, Data Center Dynamics, Emerson,  ICOR, IDCP, Scheider Electric, HP, IBM,  INE, UIA, UNAM,  UTI, .........

Note: Of course there are those tranings that are devoted to a certain piece of equipment, to operate, configurate even fix them. But those should been (price / time / material / instructors) offer by the equipment (HVAC, Networkin, cabling, CCTV, supression, etc.) vendors since, they have made an offer to sell you their stuff. 

You can find several types of courses, those focused in OPEration, some in CONstruction and a lot in DESigning; as well exists different schemes that give you paths to enhace your knowledge in each one of those fields, some biased in classification programs, other more in availability / redundancy design, other just in cabling or networking.

Is it difficult to find which vendor give the better education?
Yes, at this moment beacuse each organization set their own course curricula as their experience drove,so  it is quite hard to find the best that fit your needs.

However my advise is:

1. to set clearly what are you wnat to get from training: knowledge, practice, hands-on, information, then
2. to revise each training offer at least

• Knowledge goals (what you should know AFTER you went into the class
• Teaching methodologies (On-line, lecture, workshop, symposium, panel,.......) hybrid
• Time (in class, on -line,  on the job,.....) you need to assign to learn.
• Material (on line, manual, excercises,.....) quality, dimension.
• Trainers´ experience  (teaching, designing, contructing, operating data centres)
• Language (english , your mother tongue,....) are you loosing value with a translation?
• Location  (far, close from home/job) time/cost to invest if the training is in other country, city
• DC´s industry good credit (ask your pair that have taken the one you are evaluating)

    3. Set enough resorces:

• Talent  (who will take the training, who will back up her/his activities)
• Time , training is a time consuming asset. you have to assign enough time for those that will learn something new or RElearn something old.
• Money; pricing  this is an important issue to evaluate against all the benefits that you must get from the investment. these course can go from 1.5-6 K  USD per course per pupil.

Now training is not a luxury asset in Data Centre industry / market, it is ciompulsory that your staff understand waht is happening in this business, if you want that your hardware / software and facilities investment give the revenue that has been planned, foremost  to have an efficent operation, the people have to know to deal with energy efficency, downtime planning, continuity business management, air flow, UPS, structured cabling, security, safety, cleaning,......and  alot of more and more topics that a mision critical facility involves everyday in the operation.


 But what do you think?

Roberto Sanchez, RCDD
México