Study: Understaffed data centers rampant

The recession has taken its toll on the operation of data centers. A new survey of IT executives acknowledges that they have made significant cutbacks in this business unit and may be looking for further reductions.

A "State of the Data Center" report by security firm Symantec found that 50 percent of IT executives polled said their data centers are understaffed. That breaks down as 16 percent who said their data centers are extremely understaffed, and another 34 percent who called their data centers somewhat understaffed.

If the cutbacks were not bad enough, the survey found that IT executives view data centers as becoming harder to manage, with more applications, data and increasingly demanding service-level agreements. They also said they are looking to find additional ways to save money, perhaps at the expense of staff.

The survey involved data center specialists in 1,780 enterprises worldwide, each with at least 1,000 employees. A majority of companies surveyed said they have been hit both by budget constraints and problems finding enough qualified applicants. The survey found that 31 percent of those surveyed reduced their staffing levels in 2009, making up for the shortfall by training employees to do new tasks and by resorting to automation of other jobs.

The Symantec survey also discovered that mid-sized enterprises (those with 2,000 to 9,000 employees) are adopting new technologies much faster than the largest enterprises to compensate for the loss of staff.

For more on data center issues:
- see this NetworkWorld.com article

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