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Five skills all datacenter managers need

Managing a datacenter is more than simply a question of knowledge. With ever-increasing demands for more data from end users and pressure from organizations to make savings in the name of greater efficiency, DCMs must constantly adapt their skills and competencies. Let’s look at five key personal skills recommended by industry recruiters.

1.     Self-motivation and commitment
Datacenter managers should be proactive in seeking out new ways to improve their datacenter and its staff, thinking beyond any immediate pressing needs. They should also be highly aware of everything that’s happening in their facility to keep pace with problems when they happen.

2.     Great communication and leadership
The datacenter manager should be the glue between the IT facility and the customer or end user. Poor communication is all too often a stumbling block to progress, and can hamper a swift response during customer downtime. Then there’s your staff. A successful DCM should feel the weight of responsibility of keeping your highly skilled staff happy and retained, as well as putting them to best use in the context of your organization’s rules and procedures.

3.     Organization
It’s been said that a disorganized person invites chaos. That may be particularly true of DCMs. By balancing your priorities (and those of your staff) you should be able to reduce the number of incidents caused by human error. DCMs must also represent their facility at their organization’s top table – and it doesn’t look good to appear chaotic.

4.     Professionalism
DCMs must remain calm in the face of danger, putting on a confident façade for customers even when outages and system failures happen. As a result, customers should come to you first to report their concerns, and your staff should feel more confident accepting your leadership.

5.     Experience
There’s simply no substitute for ‘on the job’ knowledge: working closely with customers, responding to support tickets and escalating concerns. However, with Simulcation Datacenter – a new datacenter simulation – you can model some of your most crucial decisions without the huge risks. For instance, choose from a range of real life hardware, software and support services, and see the impact they have on your productivity without spending a fortune. Developed in collaboration with IBM, you can have confidence that the impacts are reflected as accurately as possible, enabling you to make decisions virtually that you could translate to real life.

Preregister now to build your own virtual datacenter – and boost your knowledge of leading architecture in practice.




About Simulcation

We believe learning shouldn’t be laborious. Simulcation Datacenter is an engaging, competitive environment that simulates the complex challenges faced on a daily basis by IT infrastructure professionals. Preregister now to be one of the first to experience it – or contact us to find out more.

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