EMC Corporation today announced a unique, 'open' storage technology curriculum to provide information technology professionals and students with a strong foundation for designing and managing a storage infrastructure using heterogeneous technologies. As an extension of the EMC Proven Professional Program, this new curriculum will be offered through EMC Education Services, universities including Penn State University, and via the EMC Academy Program and Learning Partners, enabling all IT professionals an opportunity to earn EMC Proven Professional - Storage Technologist (EMCST) Certification. "Storage and information management has become more challenging," states Tom Clancy, Vice President EMC Education Services. "A need for professionals in this increasingly important IT discipline is leaving no other option for managers but to insure staff are highly skilled and trained in this area. We are helping by providing the widest and most comprehensive set of education offerings to our customers, partners and now, the IT industry at large." To meet the growing need for formal storage education and certification in the marketplace, the EMC Storage Technologist courses will be offered through EMC and leading training companies, including Global Knowledge and Learning Tree International. Additionally, several institutions in the US, Europe, India, China and Mexico have introduced this curriculum in to their programs. Most recently, the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology collaborated with EMC to adapt its curriculum to a new undergraduate course that focuses on storage networking and architecture. "Storage education adds another unique differentiator to our existing Information Sciences and Technology curriculum and more important, the relationship with EMC represents our continued efforts to partner with industry leaders," said Brian H. Cameron, Ph.D. Penn State, Assistant Professor of Information Sciences and Technology. "Partnerships like this further enable us to offer our students the real world education and experience they need to successfully design, implement and manage a storage environment to meet an organization's ever-evolving business needs." EMC Proven Professional is a robust learning framework enabling role-specific structured learning and assessment in core segments of storage technology including business continuity, storage area networks, network attached storage, content addressed storage, storage management, backup and recovery and select product-specific certification tracks. To date, more than 10,000 individuals have attained EMC Proven Professional credentials, the largest number of storage certifications in the industry. "The EMC Proven Professional program has been highly regarded as a strategic learning framework by the initial target audiences of EMC customers, partners, and employees, with record adoption far surpassing forecasts," said Alok Shrivastava, EMC Education Services Sr. Director. "With the Storage Technologist curriculum and certification, we, with the help of Penn State University, Global Knowledge and Learning Tree International will be able to help build a workforce of very capable storage professionals across the industry."