ARMONK, NY — A new, two-year associate's degree from the Metropolitan Community College in Omaha, Neb., is being touted as the first of its kind to give students an intensive focus on designing and managing green data centers.
The program was launched today in cooperation with IBM, and will offer students coursework on virtualization and server consolidation, energy efficiency, security and compliance skills. The training center is built on IBM hardware, software and online training resources.
The online component was developed between the MCC and IBM's Academic Initiative, a project that provides online training to more than 3,000 schools worldwide. As a result, the courses in MCC's green data center program will be offered online to remote students.
"We're seeing a dramatic increase in demand here in Nebraska for specialists who understand how to help companies reduce the costs associated with running an energy-intensive data center," said Tom Pensabene, Dean of Information Technology of Metropolitan Community College. "Now, our students are getting exposure to leading edge IBM technologies, increasing their chances of being hired for jobs in this growing area."
Among the courses on offer in the program are:
• Hardware, Disaster Recovery, & Troubleshooting;
• Introduction to Data Center Management;
• Virtualization, Remote Access, & Monitoring• Data Center Racks & Cabling;
• Building a Secure Environment;
• Applied Data Center Management;
• Networking Security; and
• Data Center Internship
The news comes during a significant push for increased training in the nation's colleges and universities to help meet the demand for skilled workers in the green economy. Some green job training programs are already graduating their first alumni, but green IT training has some room to grow.
More information about the MCC data center management degree is available online, and we'll have more coverage of the degree in the coming days. And of course, in the interim GreenBiz.com has a great green jobs board that has plenty of listings for people with green skills already.