Data management company Nexenta has announced that it will be teaming up with universities to develop technical curricula that will prepare students for the technology workforce — especially a future corps of data storage engineers.
Nexenta provides open source-driven software-defined storage, or OpenSDS.
Its first course for graduate students, Computer Storage Systems, was developed in tandem with the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado Denver. It will begin January 19th, 2016 and continue throughout the spring semester, and will be taught by Doug McCallum, formerly a storage engineer with Oracle and Sun Microsystems.
Leila Meyer of Campus Technology quoted Gita Alaghband, Professor and Chair of Computer Science and Engineering at CU Denver, who said in a statement:
Nexenta’s knowledge of open source and software-defined technology should help out students to gain a higher level of expertise, so, as new storage engineers, they can hit the ground running when they start their first jobs.
Eric Ray, the Director of Platform Development for Nexenta, said:
Universities like CU Denver are known for preparing undergrads for the workplace, but they can’t do this alone. Bridging the knowledge gap between what they learn in college and real world practices is essential to their success. These schools are doing an excellent job of laying the groundwork. It’s up to industry to do our part to link theory with practice, provide the tools and infrastructure to round out the curriculum, and set the stage for tomorrow’s software innovators.
Nexenta’s next courses will be in partnership with San Jose State University.
The job outllook for software developers is expected to grow by 22%, compared to the 11% growth in all categories, according to a press release from Business Wire. This means that it’s critical to train new developers to meet the oncoming demand.
Nexenta was founded in 2005 by Alex Alzman and Dmitry Yusupov with the goal of combining Linux with the codebases of OpenSolaris and Open Storage. The company offers a variety of data management products for hardware vendors, software developers, systems integrators, OEMs, and resellers. Their services include data management for companies, cloud storage, data protection, and backup.
Their partners include Cisco, Citrix, Dell, HP, Quanta, SanDisk, Seagate, Supermicro, VMware, Western Digital, and Wipro, among others. Many of their products are used by higher education institutions, including the University of Toronto, as well as by governments and healthcare providers.
The company offers training for storage administrators, and customized classes for their partners.
