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Management Issues in a 21st Century Data Center Environment (Case Study Pakistan). Group 9 F-10-151 Ghulam Subhani F-11-003 Lt Col tahir F-11-041 Syed Waqas F-11-029 Fawad Qaiser F-10-010 Shiraz F-11-007 M Haris F-11-005 Autangzeb F-10-132 Rashid Rabbani (DL).
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Management Issues in a 21st Century Data Center Environment (Case Study Pakistan) Group 9 F-10-151 GhulamSubhani F-11-003 Lt Col tahir F-11-041 Syed Waqas F-11-029 FawadQaiser F-10-010 Shiraz F-11-007 M Haris F-11-005 Autangzeb F-10-132 Rashid Rabbani (DL) Group 9 C@SE, Pakistan Dec 2011
Abstract • Data Centers are a pure product of 21st century with almost no previous precedence. They are the IT centers through which the pure knowledge based economies are run. Information content is distributed and managed, IT services are provided and billions are made in virtual and ultimately real money basing on the non-stop operational capability of these Data Centers. Almost all of its products are intangible, making its importance seem less at first sight, however for organizations basing their business operations on a stable Data Center are banking upon its non-stop, reliable operation throughout the Year, 24-7, with the constant dread that a few hours of outage can mean millions of dollars in real hard cash. • In the knowledge based era of fast computing, Think-Done® business strategies and even faster impending management issues, the challenging task of managing a product of this era with no precedence in the history of mankind in terms of complexity, technical resource and technological skills required to run is no mean task. The management Issues start from requirement, training, and retention of trained manpower, availability of hardware for constant operations, power reliability and availability, availability of Networks to distribute the information content, and the huge, ever increasing storage and computing requirements to name just a few.
Abstract • In this project the Pakistani Data Center Picture will be viewed and analyzed in the two most important spheres where these data Centers are being established and maintained, the Defense based Data Centers and the Civil Sector (Mostly Telecom Sector) based Data Centers. Both the public and private Sector organizations will be surveyed and evaluated to find out specific and common management Issues in the above mentioned areas and more, which may come into view during the process. Finally recommendations to improve upon the existing data Center management Issues will be given.
Objectives • Even in international Data Centers, finding qualified staff was as problem faced year after year, as per Symantec’ Reports of 2008- 2010 [4][5]. It can be easily surmised that establishing a Data Center in Pakistan, and trying to find qualified staff, and managing its power, hardware and communication requirements is a challenge in itself. These challenges can start from basic establishment of data Centers, and continue in every day-to day operation throughout the year. • Also the IT fields being covered in Data Centers are so diverse, that a normal university graduate has no clue about the technology base on which he is expected to work. Hence training of acquired staff is of extreme importance. Similarly the normal equipment being used inside any data center in not available in any of the training institutes teaching IT and communication to the masses. Similarly the massive networks deployed on top of these data centers are one of the largest in the world with one of the largest consumer base in the world in terms of sheer numbers. All these factors make the management of a Pakistani Data center a nightmare, as there is no assured supply and replenishment system of manpower, equipment, or even the most basic assumption, availability of electrical power.
Hypothesis • Pakistan is in embryonic stages as far as IT is concerned. A lot of progress is being made in Telecom Sector and in defense based organizations. In order to fully automate the processes and to meet growing needs of their customers, state of the art cloud based Data Centers are being established. These data centers can be compared to the world standards in terms of hardware used, communication infrastructure deployed and money spent. However when it comes to finding staff to manage these Data Centers, the availability of power, hardware, finance and information security issues, the overall resource crunch is lacking both technically as well as in sheer numbers to coop with the demand of all of the above mentioned factors. • Hence in a developing country like Pakistan, the problem of finding the right resources for this kind of technically advanced environment is a double challenge. The first being a venture challenge in acquiring a new technology and the second being the ability to sustain its operations to meet customer demands. So it can be said that the whole process of Data Center establishment, to its running requires extreme effort to find the right resources for the continued operations of the data center.
Research Methodology • In order to gather information of this nature a descriptive research involving peer reviews and Delphi method involving expert judgment of Data center managers of both public and private data centers has been used to gather information regarding the problems indicated in the hypothesis. A large source of information was based on the Network Management system or NMS, a repository of issues being faced with their record of resolution being kept automatically. Ample help was sought from International Data Center management Issues being faced globally, and once the same issues were checked in the local scenario, the problems were found similar, but at a much graver scale
Research Questions • The important research questions are what are the overall management issues in a Pakistani data center environment in both public and private data centers? Also, exploring each specific category of management issues, what specific issues caused maximum problems at the time of establishment of these data centers and later on during the O&M phase respectively. Under each category of management issues, sub areas like Human resource management, Information management, Facility management, Financial Management, Skills Management and finally Top Level Management sub issues in both private and public sector will be explored along with the degree of severity of each issue. Finally conclusions and recommendations based on the severity of each issue will be given.
Data Analysis • The study has been divided into two major strata’s of Pakistan’s data Center types, namely Defense based data Centers and Civil Telecom Sector Data Centers. Both the types have a lot of common issues affecting the acquisition and efficient utilization of its Human resources, Information management, Facility management, Financial Management, Skills Management and finally Top Level Management sub issues. The handling of all these issues may be different in both types of environments, however as the underlying issues are same, the same solutions can be applied to both types of environments in most of the cases
Limitations • Main limitations encountered were of exact data collections. While executives and Data Center Staff were ready to generally discuss the details of issues encountered in overall Data Center Management, no one in defense based organizations was willing to disclose exact details of individual Issues. While it can be understood in broad terms of security and secrecy related with such projects, it didn’t help in gathering wholesome, specific data regarding each and every Issue. Only by gathering data on telephone, and filling the survey forms informally, the picture of overall HR problems was made clear. However in a few cases, the HR managers gave candid views about their specific problems, which help identify the HR specific Issues.
Recommendations • These conclusions indicate that in public sector data centers, there is a need to beef up security, do contracts with OEM to ensure smooth facility management and conduct detailed training of staff for capacity building. In private sector Data centers, the staffs’ migratory behavior need to be controlled to counter ill impacts of staff leaving these DCs for better jobs, by giving more benefits to the staff. In order to come up to public’s expectations on these networks, the information management needs to be made foolproof. Due to increasing profits, the financial management is no more a serious issue; however, one wrong move can put all DCs operations in peril. Rest the trend is same in all the left over fields.
Human Resource Management Issues • Recommendations • In public center data centers there is a real need to undergo OEM partnerships and service level agreements in order to impart basic and advanced level training to the staff. In order to stop the increased trend of voluntary retirements, there is a need to increase benefits of permanent staff. In private sector data center picture, increasing migratory behavior and its subsequent impact on continuous recruitment are the major issues demanding increased pays and privileges to control the damage. Basic and advanced level training thus remain major issues, requiring continuous attention.
Information Management Issues • Recommendations • The public sector data center needs to improve their technical skills to manage DBs, Servers and Networks. However the realization need to be made at the top most level to impart advance level training to achieve these goals. In private sector DCs the emphasis is rightly on the financial transaction and all of its related areas including network security and DB management. In both sectors, the decreased emphasis on encryption is due to confidence on the advance level encryption provide d by OEM. However it must be noted that in many cases of advanced level hacking, many week encryption types were broken and systems were compromised. Hence the area can never be left un-attended and need continuous monitoring and R&D.
Facility Management Issues • Recommendations • In public and private sector DCs, there is a real need to review the possibility of consolidation of DCs to save the power. As already mentioned, in advanced countries like USA, DCs are being closed to conserve power. Similarly in a poor and power hungry nation like Pakistan, large number of DCs is not possible and need proper rethinking at national level to justify their existence. Also there is a need to strengthen the security of DCs of both public an private sector DCs, as these are the hubs of the information age. Any attack on their physical or virtual cores can lead to catastrophic results in times of peace and war.
Financial Management Issues • Recommendations • There is a real need to study the usefulness of Public Sector DCs as regards their effectiveness in terms of productivity increase vs. investment being made on a regular basis. Only after evaluation and consolidation of the data center picture in the public sector, a final recommendation can be made to run only the most necessary services. On the other hand, the private sector DCs are flourishing and their success should be capitalized by making their services available at international level. This is an area of business and services provision, which can be exploited internationally; provide our national power requirements are met first.
Skills Management Issues • Recommendations • In order to tackle the management complexity of DCs, there is a need to increase the staff. In a typical Google’s DC, the number of staff is up to 1500, resulting in division of labor. However in such cases the super specialization tends to increase as well. In public Sector DCs, there is a need to rotate the staff slowly to ensure that they get enough general training.
Top level Management Issues • Recommendations • There is a real need to institutionalize the DCs project inside the public sector in order to save billions of rupees being wasted in the longer run. Also in order to ensure that qualified staff get their due share, there is a need to adhere to qualification based promotion or pay increase policies, which are typically not supported in the public sector. In private sector DCs, there is a need to study the market trends vary carefully and offer services on competitive rates in order to maintain market share, otherwise any new entry from international market with better services or price tags can sweep the market. Also the promotion chances inside private sector DCs can also be improved by implementing already suggested steps for public sector DCs.
Conclusion • It can be safely concluded that in this new age of technology, the data Centers are here to stay for a long time, if not permanently. The technological concept is new, however the human element is based on the same age old concepts of human resource management. Only by motivation, training, employee welfare and long term benefits, an organization can develop and maintain the best possible pool of technically qualified and satisfied team of professionals. In this age of continuous growth both at personal and organizational levels, the implementation of good HR practices is of ever more importance. Similarly only by adopting to the ever growing needs of power and responding at national level to meet the challenge will enable us as a nation to meet the actual information age challenges of 21st century by embracing change.
