SMU will offer a new master’s degree in datacenter systems engineering in fall 2014. A typical student would have a bachelor of science in an engineering discipline, computer science or one of the quantitative sciences or mathematics.
“This is a multidisciplinary masters degree program, first of its kind,” said Volkan Otugen, senior associate dean of Lyle. “This program puts Lyle School of Engineering at the cutting edge of datacenter engineering leading the world in this arena.”
The program, opened to full-time and part-time graduate students, is available on the Dallas campus and through the Bobby B. Lyle School of Engineering’s distance education program.
Current professionals in industry and government, as well as undergraduates in engineering, science, mathematics and business preparing to enter the field are expected to enroll.
“This new MS degree program addresses an urgent need in datacenter industry by educating engineering professionals and managers in a complex, highly technical and rapidly evolving industry,” Otugen said. “SMU’s datacenter systems engineering MS program will prepare professionals for leadership roles in this fast growing field.”
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, at least four million workers currently are associated with datacenter operations, and that is expected to increase by 800,000 in 2016. That number will increase by an additional 2 million by 2018. Approximately 70 percent of these workers will have bachelor’s degrees or higher.
Approximately 50 datacenters exist within the greater Dallas area.
“Our society has become intimately linked to a variety of digital networks including social media, search engines, e-commerce, gaming and big data,” Dean of the Lyle School Marc Christensen said in a press release. “Data center design is a fascinating challenge due to the millions of dollars lost per second of outage.”
The degree is built around five core courses that address the industry broadly, while offering specializations in three technical areas facilities: infrastructure and subsystems, datasystems engineering and analytics, and computer networks, virtualization, security and cloud computing.
“The number and sophistication of datacenters is growing exponentially in the U.S. and around the world,” Otugen said.
The program is directed toward preparing professionals for a leadership role in this field, whether specifically as a technical contributor or more broadly in management.
“The Lyle school is in a unique position to offer this multidisciplinary degree program that brings together many technical disciplines,” Otugen said.
