Category: Education

Extending the Reach of Storage Developer Education in 2019

khauser Leave a comment

With another successful year of SNIA Storage Developer Conferences (SDC) completed, SNIA on Storage spoke with Mark Carlson, SNIA Technical Council Co-Chair, on 2018 highlights and 2019 plans to educate and support this important technical community.

SNIA On Storage (SOS):  In 2018, SNIA volunteers provided key resources and time supporting our storage developer community, a central focus for the Technical Council.  What activities were the TC most pleased with in 2018?

Mark Carlson (MC):  For the past several years we have been pushing SDC to expand globally. Starting with SDC India and this year adding SDC EMEA, we are reaching developers around the world now with educational content. Each year we get better and better talk proposals and the hard part is not being able to present more content. I always encourage developers to submit talks on their latest discoveries and architectures. Other developers want to hear about it.

SOS:  There was a lot of good feedback on the content from SDC North America in 2018.  What was your overall impression of this 21st SDC event? Read More

Registration Now Open for Storage Developer Conference India – May 25-26 in Bangalore

khauser 1 Comment

For the third consecutive year, SNIA will present their highly successful Storage Developer Conference (SDC) in Bangalore, India, on May 25-26, 2017 at the My Fortune Hotel.  The 2017 agenda, developed under the supervision of the SNIA India agenda committee, leads off with a keynote by Indian Institute of Science Professor P. Vijay Kumar on Codes for Big Data:  Error-Correction for Distributed Storage, followed by Amar Tunballi, Engineering Manager at Red Hat, speaking on Software Defined Storage and Why It Will Continue To Be Relevant.  Thursday keynotes will feature Anand Ghatnekar, Country Read More

SNIA Ranked #2 for Storage Certifications – and Now You Can Take Exams at 900 Locations Worldwide

khauser Leave a comment

The SNIA Storage Networking Certification Program (SNCP) provides a strong foundation of vendor-neutral, systems-level credentials that integrate with and complement individual vendor certifications. Its four credentials – SNIA Certified Storage Professional; SNIA Certified Storage Engineer; SNIA Certified Storage Architect; and SNIA Certified Storage Networking Expert  – reflect the advancement and growth of storage networking technologies, and establish a uniform standard by which individual knowledge and skill sets can be evaluated, thereby providing employers in the storage industry with an independent assessment of the individual. Read More

Storage Training Your Way – Education for 21st Century Professional Development

khauser Leave a comment

paul_talbut_snia

By Paul Talbut, SNIA Global Education and Regional Affiliate Program Director

It is widely accepted that those who are considered knowledge workers (those who use a screen or the internet as a part of their daily work routine) face constant disruption and distractions. The constant flow of emails, online news feeds, social media, and personal interests tend to draw people away from the need to concentrate on the job at hand.

Recent studies suggest that workers are interrupted on average every five minutes, ironically often by work applications or collaboration tools. If this is happening to the work function, then it is not surprising that the opportunity to undergo training or personal development, where focus and concentration without distraction is key to learning, is severely restricted. The same studies suggest that around 1% of the working week is all that workers have to devote to focus on training and development.typorama

This has led to a dramatic shift in the way people consume their training content. It is no longer practical or cost effective to lock people away in a training room for five days. Any such educational value is now much more likely to be absorbed on the train or the bus on the way to work, and so the nature of the content delivery has to change.

Educational content needs to be delivered in modules and in a variety of formats to match the plethora of personal devices and platforms available today. Even without the formality of instructional design and a comprehensive curriculum, content such as podcasts, webcasts, and training materials need to be accessible on the move and in such bite-size chunks that we can give people the information they need and make it available at the times that suit them best.Education_continuum_new_resize

SNIA is changing the way study guides and materials are made available to our constituents by collaborating with our members and training partners to focus on a wide variety of educational channels. Materials and study guides are now available via e-book, PDF, YouTube, BrightTALK webcasts, podcasts, and online instructor led courses.

The challenge now is to make the content compelling and attractive enough to compete with all the other digital content available for consumption, and provide the opportunity to learn something new about storage rather than watching ice-buckets, mannequins or the latest cute cat.

To date, SNIA has certified over 12,000 storage professionals worldwide, and our vendor-neutral certification program continues to be the industry leader in the independent assessment of storage technology skills.

 

Recognize Volunteer Contributions – Nominations Open for the SNIA Individual and Group Recognition Program

khauser Leave a comment

Each year, at the Annual Members Symposium, SNIA members recognize their own – volunteers and organizations who have dedicated expertise and time to contribute to the important work done by SNIA technical work groups, committees, and initiatives.  SNIA recognizes with a “Volunteer of the Year” award an individual contributor  who has stepped up to help SNIA achieve new and groundbreaking work or significantly advanced an existing program.  Past winners have included Mark Carlson of Toshiba, Jim Ryan of Intel, and Alex McDonald of NetApp.  Wayne Adams accepting award finalWith the Exceptional Leadership award, SNIA recognizes an individual who has advanced a cause for SNIA leading to an impact on the industry or the Association.  Past winners have included Wayne Adams of EMC, Eric Hibbard of Hitachi, and Paul von Behren of Intel. SNIA also recognizes unsung heroes who work tirelessly under the radar expecting no attention but who in fact probably deserve more than the rest, and new contributors of the year who begin work in new areas.

SNIA also recognizes groups with several awards, including outstanding achievement of a SNIA Technology Community, significant contribution by a SNIA Committee or Regional Affiliate, significant impact by a previously existing SNIA Technical Work Group or Task Force, and contributions by new SNIA groups.  winners2Previous recipients have been acknowledged for their work in Persistent Memory, Solid State Storage, Storage Management, and Object Drives, and with SNIA India and the SNIA Global Steering Committee.  A list of all individuals and groups recognized since 2008 can be found at http://www.snia.org/about/awards.

Also at the Annual Members Symposium, SNIA honors Deborah Kay Johnson, a SNIA member whose volunteer dedication to educating the industry on technology left a lasting impact, with the Deborah Kay Johnson Memorial Award.  Past winners of this award for their outstanding contributions to education include Charles Tasse, Dell; Nancy Clay, SNIA; and David Deming, Solution Technology; all recipients are listed at http://www.snia.org/about/awards/dkj.

It’s time for the 2016 awards, and SNIA encourages all members to enter their nominations for both individual and group categories.  The window to submit is open until December 9 and your selections can be made at this link.  Awards will be announced during the SNIA Annual Members Symposium, January 17-20, 2017, at the Westin San Jose.  Register here to attend the Symposium and view the agenda.