The Digital Skills Gap: Growing the Talent Pool

The data center industry is experiencing a critical skills shortage and if it doesn’t evolve in time, it is only set to get worse.

As the recent Uptime Institute statistics suggest, half of existing engineering staff will retire by 2025, yet the number of staff needed to run the world’s data centers will grow from around 2 million to nearly 2.3 million by 2025, we need to act now.

In episode three we are delighted to welcome Andrew Stevens, President and CEO, CNet Training and Steve Hayward, Senior Director, European Operations at CyrusOne, to the podcast.

Guided by our Host, Matthew Pullen, EVP & MD Europe at CyrusOne we discuss the challenges of maintaining current workforces whilst growing the talent pool for the future. Our guests also share new approaches and fresh perspectives that organizations within the data center industry struggling to attract talent can adopt to combat this ongoing skills shortage.

We hope you enjoy this thought-provoking discussion with actionable advice, and thank you for listening. We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please don’t forget to like, share, comment and subscribe.  

Visit CyrusOne website.

Guests:
Steve Hayward, Senior Director, European Operations, CyrusOne
Andrew Stevens, President and CEO, CNet Training

Further Reading:
Combatting the Data Center Industry’s Skills Gap

Transcript

Peter Moser (00:01):

So I always ask customers to think about the workload, what are the requirements regarding a resiliency and availability standpoint of that workload because many of the public cloud options limit you to three nines of availability. I think we would all agree that there's certain workloads that require far greater availability than that, like five nines or more. And so really you want to tailor your cloud experience that's going to give you the kind of application resiliency and high availability that you need for your business.

Matt (00:36):

Today we're going to hear from Fred Holloway, who is CyrusOne's Global Head of Enterprise Solutions, together with Peter Moser, who is Chief Technologist and IOT and AI strategist for Hewlett Packard Enterprise, providing technology-based solutions and services for HPE's customers and assisting HPE's partners in developing joint solutions and go-to-market strategies.

(01:00):

Welcome to you both. Particular thanks to you, Peter, for joining this podcast with Fred and myself. I can't do your CV any justice. You've been in the industry for 27 years and been doing amazing things. Would you mind just giving the listeners a quick summary of your career and where you find yourself today?

Peter Moser (01:17):

You bet, Matt. So my career has really spans close to 40 years. When you think about when I first got out of college, so a lot older than you think. My career really started in IT doing a lot of applications development and then I moved into consulting where I worked with a lot of different customers to help them transform their business. A lot of times that focus was on their applications to newer technologies and platforms, but also business transformation as well, how can we help them better expand and grow their business through the use of technology and services. And a lot of that carried over into what's now Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

(01:58):

I was really a part of the early onset of HPE's cloud team and services and solutions back over a decade ago. And then over that period of time, I expanded my background and involvement at the edge, which I think most would agree is where most of the data is now growing and coming from connected things and devices. So I've been working with the industrial internet of things in artificial intelligence, which is the workload, if you will, [inaudible 00:02:31] merged to take advantage of all that new data that's being generated as well as the terabytes and petabytes of data that's already there. So that's been my career and a lot of that's focused on how can customers use technology and services to get greater value out of the investments they make in their business, mostly through their data and the services they provide their business.

Matt (02:57):

That's fascinating, Peter. Thank you. So Fred, turning to you, just help us understand how your career has emerged within the industry and where you find yourself today with Cyrus one.

Fred Holloway (03:10):

So thank you, Matt. It's a pleasure to join. So I joined CyrusOne just over 10 years ago, but prior to that, actually spent 16 years with Hewlett Packard and worked with Peter during that time and did some very interesting things. But since joining CyrusOne, it's just been very interesting to observe the evolution of the data center industry and it's supportive, the various cloud solutions that are out there along with the more traditional enterprise computing footprints. Today in my current role managing our enterprise business, it's the integration of both worlds that my team currently supports with our enterprise customers.

Matt (03:57):

Great. Thank you, Fred. So for our listeners' sake, this is for some a complicated topic, for others it's not. So I thought we'd start by going back to basics. So Peter, I'm going to ask you, what is the cloud?

Peter Moser (04:15):

That is a great question because you could ask 10 people in a room and you likely get 10 different variations of the answer. What we do is we hold to the NIST definition, which is the National Institute for Standards and Technology, and it's really consuming IT as a service and with that comes the automation that enables you to consume IT. So that's the definition that I hold to as the definition of cloud, is just the automated use and the pay per use, the consumption of IT resources from someone else.

Matt (04:54):

Peter, thank you. That was really straightforward. So Fred, I'm going to ask you the obvious question, which is where does the data center sit within these options? Often we talk about the fact that the cloud is not something fluffy up in the air, the cloud is effectively embodied by a data center. So over to you, Fred, bringing live for our listeners.

Fred Holloway (05:19):

Yes. It's very interesting. What we've seen with all of our customers is that, no matter where they start their cloud journey, it changes. And so the role that we've evolved into is that consistent environment where customers can plant their compute environments and then as they want to adjust their workloads, CyrusOne has the ability to provide the connectivity to whatever cloud solutions, be that public, be it hybrid, be it private. We become an enabling factor, not a limiting factor to how our customers can take advantage of the cloud journey that they're on. And of course, in addition to that, a major part of our business is supporting the cloud providers themselves. And so in many cases what we find, Matt, is that our customers are only a cross-connect away from whichever cloud environments they want to leverage with their workloads and they can change that dynamically and using the tools that CyrusOne provides them.

Matt (06:31):

And what we are saying is that the cloud is physically manifested in data centers. The type of cloud is a function of the type of offering that is being promoted from that physical environment. So Fred, and then we'll go to Peter, but is that correct, Fred? And then we'll revisit what Peter said.

Fred Holloway (06:57):

Very much so and the conversations that we're having today with our customers is that it's actually a bit challenging for some of them to take advantage of multiple cloud options from their legacy facilities because they have to bring that connectivity into their legacy data centers. Whereas for those who are working with us in our facilities or in multiple sites across our portfolio, the ease of taking advantage of the various cloud options that are available to them is a much simpler, much more automated process.

Matt (07:34):

Okay. So Peter, do you mind stepping in at that point because assuming that the dynamics that Fred just mentioned, connectivity, et cetera, are in play relative to a physical environment, I presume that releases effectively the range of cloud options that you were talking about.

Peter Moser (07:54):

It does. One of the things that customers have discovered over the last decade plus of the development of cloud services is the need to be able to consume cloud where you need to consume it. And so proximity does matter for latency sensitive workloads, but invariably all of our customers that I talk to have a hybrid cloud strategy. So to Fred's point, that time to value of being able to connect whatever cloud resource they need to in the most efficient way possible and effective way possible is critical to them. And so we've seen this evolution of customers really wanting the ability to right size their environment, placing those IT resources where they need to, with that interoperability in place that allows them to quickly connect to their multiple locations so they have that more that hybrid cloud experience regardless of where the cloud might reside.

Matt (08:55):

Thank you. That was great. But do you think that cloud options are misunderstood?

Peter Moser (09:03):

I think they are to some degree because cloud, like I said, can mean a lot of things to different people, and if you look at the core of it, it's about services. That services translates into connectivity. I mean, excuse me, consumption options and the speed to deliver the outcomes that the business expects. That's the automation piece I mentioned to earlier. And so we talked about the data center. The data center's morphed, if you will. It's not just traditional data centers in the big, what we call the NFL cities in the United States with the major metropolitan areas. Now we're finding data centers in smaller markets so that the data center now and all those IT resources are now closer to the data because there's more latency sensitive use cases, especially with artificial intelligence. So I would say that there's an evolution underway of what customer's expectation is of cloud, and it's not the way it originally started over a decade ago.

Matt (10:16):

Thank you, Peter. So turning to you, Fred. So okay, in that context, how do you see data centers in terms of physical manifestation and also location, addressing this industry, addressing the misconceptions? What observations have you got for our listeners in that regard?

Fred Holloway (10:38):

So what's interesting is lately, Matt, the latency conversation is not as hard and fast as it once was. I'd say maybe five years ago or more, there were latency requirements that you really couldn't veer too far from. Now, it just seems like there is more flexibility as our customers are learning more about how to interact with these cloud options. It gives us a little bit more flexibility to be able to support our customers and their desired connections to various cloud providers from various parts of our portfolio, be it different parts of the United States, different parts of Europe, et cetera. It's really opened up the options I believe that are available to our customers and I think part of that is because early in the game, some of the cloud options were not completely understood. Now that customers are becoming more experienced with it or with the various options that are available to them, they're able [inaudible 00:11:46] educated decisions.

(11:47):

That's one of the things that I think that we're truly enjoying with our relationship with HPE's GreenLake team, where we have become one of their global data center standards. And so we support many GreenLake solutions across our portfolio that they're delivering to their customers. And so I think customers are getting a bit more savvy as a result of their experience about what their options are, what the nuanced differences are from the various cloud options. We see that as we directly, as we engage with HPE's GreenLake teams in pursuit of helping their customers through this world of cloud. So it is evolving for sure, and I think customers are becoming more savvy and that's opening up options for us to cater our solutions to the various options that they want to take advantage of.

Matt (12:44):

That's great. So that segues to Peter. So if you are putting yourself in the shoes of the customers that you are debating everything Fred's just talked about, how do you explain to them what you think are the right options for them, whether they be an SME or a very large enterprise, how do you explain how you vision cloud evolution in terms of services, and what could be right for them?

Peter Moser (13:18):

So I always ask customers to think about the workload, what are the requirements regarding a resiliency and availability standpoint of that workload? Because many of the public cloud options that limit you to three nines of availability, and I think we'd all agree that there's certain workloads that require far greater availability than that, like five nines or more. And so really you want to tailor your cloud experience that's going to give you the kind of application resiliency and high availability that you need to in your business.

(13:52):

The second element to that is the data, because when you think about application entanglement, when you start talking about moving workloads to different locations and separating them from other workloads that they're dependent on, as well as data, that adds a great deal of complexity to the equation. And so that's why when you look at the data today, I think we all agree that the cloud has been around for a decade or better, but there's less than around 30% of the workloads are in what's currently thought of is the cloud, which is the public cloud.

(14:30):

And I think what that proves out is that not all workloads are suited for the public cloud for those reasons. And so customers started saying, "Well, I need to have higher lines of availability. I need to have my workloads closer to the data because all this application entanglement and just migrating an application to the public cloud is not as easy as I thought it might be, so I need to be able to run these workloads in my own data centers or in a co-location facility like CyrusOne, where I don't have these complexities and I can get what I need for my workloads, my data."

(15:12):

So I think that's been the realization over the last 10 years as customers have tried to move to what the cloud is normally thought of as is the public cloud with the realization that they need other cloud options. That's why GreenLake was created, bringing the cloud to the customer where they need it.

Matt (15:30):

Peter, thank you for explaining that. That was great. Also Fred, thanks for putting it in the context of the physical environment of the data centers.

(15:38):

What I wanted to turn to now quickly is that, we're seeing some economic headwinds, particularly around the cost of power. The question that I'm going to pose is, those economic headwinds and the increased cost of power, are they going to decelerate or accelerate the enterprise, move to the cloud? And Peter, do you mind if I start with you with that question?

Peter Moser (16:04):

So I'll give you an example of a real customer that's a large chemical company and they have very aggressive targets for getting to what they consider to be goal zero, which is net neutral emissions. By consolidating their IT environments in to the CyrusOne data centers combined with the GreenLake data center consolidation of their infrastructure and the fact that the CyrusOne uses green energy to power their data centers, we're able to reduce their carbon footprint to the equivalent of removing 417 automobiles from the roadways per year. So, when you had the ability to choose the technologies that you run your workloads on and you choose the data centers in which you run that infrastructure, you can achieve some sufficient and significant savings, not only from a power consumption standpoint, but also help your business achieve their carbon reduction goals.

(17:15):

So I would say that those are the things... So it's a qualified answer I guess, Matt, what I'm trying to say is yes, energy, the sustainability goals are always top of mind as they should be, but I'm suggesting that customers can help as they consolidate and they take the right approach can help contribute to achieving the sustainability goals by the choices they make.

Matt (17:40):

Do you think it's accelerating or decelerating demand?

Peter Moser (17:44):

It's accelerating. To be quite candid, more and more of my customers are telling me they want to get out of the data centered business because they realize that trying to run a data center very efficiently takes a lot of resources and also the whole challenge of technology and refresh and all that, they just found that being able to consume IT as a service I.e the definition of cloud that I put forth earlier, they're finding that more favorable for them going forward than them doing that on their own, which allows their IT resources which are very valuable to them to focus on the business and not the basics of running IT.

Matt (18:29):

Peter, thank you. That's really clear to our listeners.

(18:32):

So Fred, turning to you, obviously you are going to be agreeing, but also I guess lamenting on the fact that with the complexities of power availability with the complexities of increased land costs, bill cost, et cetera, it's still beholden on the co-load providers, including CyrusOne to deliver capacity against what shouldn't be an unrelenting demand because of this uptick in power cost that you know are wanting to see more and more companies like CyrusOne deliver solutions for their customers.

Fred Holloway (19:10):

Yes, I would say look, we're going to have to manage to deliver against this demand and we'll continue to work very closely with the various utility providers that we work with historically, and we'll continue to expand as we expand our portfolio. I think one of the things that's going to be increasingly important is you can't manage something unless you can measure it. And so what we're finding is our customers are truly appreciating the tools that we provide, particularly that we provide in partnership with HPE GreenLake. They'll allow for our customers to manage what they're actually using and to monitor what they're actually using and also to be able to quantify how much of that plays to their sustainability goals to what Peter was just talking about with the carbon footprint. So I think look, we're in a very interesting supply and demand situation right now in our industry and that hopefully at some point will begin to level out. I think we're years from seeing that, but we're going to have to manage to that. It's just what we do and it's what our customers are demanding of us. But I think ultimately customers can deal with these changes in the marketplace as long as they can measure it and monitor it and we'll be a continuing helpful partner in that respect.

Matt (20:41):

Peter, Fred, thank you so much. I'm going to ask you a final question. It's crystal ball gazing to be honest, but what do you think is the next thing when it comes to the evolution of the cloud and what role data centers are going to play?

Peter Moser (20:57):

Well, I think that looking into the proverbial crystal ball, I think you're going to see more and more customers move to co-location facilities and away from them owning data centers and actually owning IT assets. There's a lot of reasons for that technical debt, the leaning if you will, I call it the leaning out of IT because their budgets have been flat or reduced. They don't have the time to do a lot of the automation that they need to run IT efficiently, and they're turning to partners like us, HPE and CyrusOne, to provide them with what they need, where they need it, and to take that responsibility away from their IT teams that they want to have focus more on the business. So the trend that I'm seeing with our customers is user valuable IT resources to focus more on the business and then leave the keeping operations running efficiently and effectively helping them achieve their sustainability goals to people like us.

Fred Holloway (22:04):

So Peter, thank you for your perspective. And Matt, I would just add that I think as this world of ours evolves, and this may be a bit opportunistic from where I sit, but I see the data center as an absolutely critical foundational element of what our customers are going to need going forward because their IT organizations or the businesses that those IT organizations are supporting are going to require greater flexibility and greater elasticity of how workloads are being supported. So by having that core data center element that has the connectivity and the flexibility to allow them to push workloads out or repatriate them back in and take advantage of other platforms as they need it, is going to be an increasingly important part of their strategies going forward.

Matt (23:02):

Fred, thank you. So just as a wrap, Peter, Chief Technologist and IOT and AI Strategist for Hewlett Packard Enterprise, thank you so much. Fred Holloway, Enterprise Solutions Lead for CyrusOne Globally, thank you so much.

(23:22):

You've both effectively leveled for listeners what the cloud is all about, how the physical manifestation of the cloud sits within data centers but has multi-facets as it faces customers. I'm so appreciative and I'm sure our listeners will be of the time you've taken to make this a very, very straightforward and simple topic, so thank you so much.

Fred Holloway (23:47):

Thank you, Matt. Thank you, Peter.

Peter Moser (23:48):

Thank you, Fred. Thank you everyone.

Matt (23:55):

A big thank you to both Fred and Peter for their time today. A really interesting discussion on what the future might hold as it relates to cloud and how we are continuing to adjust post pandemic. Thank you again for listening to today's episode.

(24:09):

We'd love to hear your thoughts. Remember to like, share and comment and tag us at CyrusOne with a hashtag, cyrusone connects.

(24:17):

I've been your host, Matt Poland. Thanks again and take care.