Storage is trending, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing pace. There has been an explosion of storage data over the past year, and it is a vital skill for college graduates to learn, adopting new approaches and solutions on virtual shares infrastructure. In line with this concern and a vision towards a virtualized world, NetApp is collaborating with some of the leading colleges and universities across United States, providing a library of teaching materials and resources about storage-related IT skills, as well as flexible and innovative approaches towards storage management, in a program called NetApp Academic Alliance Program.

“The growth in storage and data management is undeniable and expected to only get larger, providing new and exciting career opportunities for graduates,” says Regina Kunkle, senior director for NetApp State and Local Government and Higher Education.

“Through the NetApp Academic Alliance Program, we are thrilled to be working with our higher education customers to enrich their faculty and program development efforts and to expand student learning opportunities. NetApp has established itself as the leading storage vendor to the higher education community, and we look forward to sharing our expertise and insight to help students grow,” she added.

The IT landscape these days seem to be speedy with changes which demands for amendments on IT curriculum. NetApp answers this call. Also, academic programs such as computer science, information technology, enterprise systems and architectures, and management information system will become the main beneficiaries of this partnership.

“Today’s IT landscape is undergoing a major shift as cloud computing and virtualization are becoming the norm,” says Xiao Su, associate professor, Department of Computer Engineering, San Jose State University. “As a result, data management and storage strategies are changing. It’s our job as educators to make sure our students have a knowledge base and understanding of these technologies so that when they graduate, they are prepared to hit the ground running. NetApp has proven to be an innovator and industry leader in enabling shared infrastructures, and working with them really helps me open up new doors for my students and get them ready for the real world,” he added.

NetApp is not the only one taking this initiative. Intel also recently announced a $100 million cash investment on U.S. universities that will be gradually poured over the next 5 years, tackling the area of computing and communications. The company will also open Intel Technology Centers across universities thoughout the year on top of the cash investment.

Much of the cloud giants are actually taking this kind of initiative on the education sector. Google Apps is also adopting educational apps from 19 vendors, as well as Juniper Networks conducting new training and education programs on areas of cloud networking, security, switching, routing and mobility. Moreover, Cisco started the second phase of project Samudaya and opened up two schools in the Raichur District of Karnataka, India. And just very recently, Oracle teamed with Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) to bring 21st century virtualization knowledge to students in california, Colorado, Maryland and Washington via its program called ThinkQuest.