How does one get started?

sambuca69

A bit bored here at work, and the mind is wandering...

How does one "start" in storage? What background/certifications are usually seen/needed?

UnixGuy

sambuca69 wrote: »

A bit bored here at work, and the mind is wandering...

How does one "start" in storage? What background/certifications are usually seen/needed?

It's a matter of luck & opportunity.

Usually you start when you work with servers, you get a chance to work with storage. Working with service providers/Channel partners will give you better opportunity...


As far as certs involved, there's the SNIA SCSP cert, which is purely theoritcal. I don't recommend it, as experience is the key here.

NightShade03

EMC provides a basic "storage" class that is just the basics. They also have a book on amazon somewhere about the basics which I have and it's pretty good.

Amazon.com: Information Storage and Management: Storing, Managing, and Protecting Digital Information (9780470294215): EMC: Books

blargoe

I tend to agree with UnixGuy. I sorta fell into storage in my current sysadmin role and have been trying to absorb as much as I can (kinda hard with all of my other responsibilities, but have learned a bunch over the past 5 years). I feel like I could land a job that is more centered around storage if I wanted.

tiersten

What UnixGuy said. I did regular system administration which then had extra tasks and responsibilities added regarding storage. I think it'd be very difficult to get into storage directly without some kind of experience and the easiest option is to get it whilst doing another role.

bertieb

My experiences are similar to the others. Personally, there's no way I'd let someone with no SAN experience directly on my production systems without several years of Sys Admin experience and whom have either learned the hard way or had to clean up after someone had accidently or mistakenly wiped data on a server or two. Only then, after fighting political fires, ending up with sweaty palms and surviving that horrible sickness feeling in your gut - do you really begin to understand the potential consequences and importance of terabytes of corporate data

I'd say that with good sys admin experience these days, you'll likely be introduced to storage technologies naturally in due course.

This is not to say you can't be a good storage admin without such experiences, but you often need to 'speak many languages' i.e. MS/Unix/Network in order to be fully effective.

In the immortal words of a former storage engineer I used to work with, "PLEASE. PRETTY PLEASE. Don't press the wrong freaking button!'