EMC Proven Professional Spotlight: Joanna Liu

Title

Senior Technical Support, Customer Service for EMC in Shanghai, China

Certification(s) Achieved

• EMC Proven Professional: Information and Storage Associate
• EMC Proven Professional: Storage Administrator - Symmetrix Solutions Specialist
• EMC Proven Professional: Storage Administrator - Storage Area Network (SAN) Specialist
• VMware Certificate Professional 5: Install, Configure, Manage

Education

• BS, Telecommunications Engineering, Tianjin University

Area of Expertise

• Symmetrix Storage Management

Social Networks

• ECN: Happyseed
• LinkedIn: Joanna Liu

---

Give us a brief overview of your Knowledge Sharing article.

My Knowledge Sharing articles is an illustrated technical guide for virtual provisioning of storage. So if you want to learn what storage virtual provisioning is, or need to quickly look up some commands to complete storage management tasks, instead of going through hundreds-of-pages documents, you can read my 14-page article: “The Illustration Book on Virtual Provisioning on Symmetrix”.*

What was your chief motivation for writing on this topic? Is it related to your work, or a personal interest?

It’s related to my work. In my experience providing tech support, I found that it takes a great deal of time for beginners to review voluminous technical guides to grasp the concept in detail and become confident with storage management tasks. Even experienced storage admins who understand thin provisioning well sometimes need to revisit documents for definitions or Solutions Enabler commands. I wrote this article to explore a new way for delivering this technical knowledge.

Did you write this article with the idea of providing material for others to implement your ideas? How do you see other people using the knowledge that you’ve shared?

I hope my article can serve as a fast track for beginners to get to know the key points of virtual provisioning, and help them to become more confident with storage management tasks quickly.

I use the Solutions Enabler command in the illustration because I feel that it can help us better understand the technical concept. Lots of storage admins, unfortunately, tend to shy away from using commands since they find it too complex. I hope through this article that they will find those commands are no longer a mystery, but a fun thing to play around with.

Describe the process of writing the article. What was most challenging? What did you enjoy the most?

I’m a tech support for Symmetrix management software, and I ran into people who seek help with virtual provisioning in my daily work. The challenging part is how to arrange and condense the complex technical concepts in a way that is simple and logical, and put them into an illustration format that would enable people to understand it quickly. Besides, in order to draw the illustration nicely, I spent some time to learn how to use Adobe Illustrator, which I barely knew anything about before.

Is this the first time you’ve participated in the Knowledge Sharing Competition?

Yes, this is the first time that I’ve participated in the Knowledge Sharing Competition.

Can you briefly describe your background? For example, how did you first become interested in IT? What training did you undertake to start your career?

My major was Telecommunications Engineering when I was in university, and I joined the IT center of a world-leader chemical company right after my graduation. I started with performance test and configuration management, not what I learnt in university. But they offered 3 months technical training for graduates which covered fundamentals that I needed in my daily work and which built my confidence as a new hire in IT.

Describe your current position/role. What most interests you about your work?

I’m currently working as senior technical support in customer service department. The thing that interests me most about my work is that I can help and talk with the IT professionals all over the world, every day. Also, we are provided with plenty of opportunities to learn all sorts of cutting edge technologies.

What big project are you working on now?

Writing an article for 2015 EMC Knowledge Sharing competition is the project that I’m working on now.

What projects/technology are you planning on for the future? Are you planning on more training, or learning a new skill?

Yes, I’m planning on more training. That is one of the benefits you can get out of the IT industry: there are always new things coming out and you will never get bored. I want to gain a deeper understanding of big data, such as how to set up the analytics model and learning the underlying infrastructure that supports fast computing and ever expanding data volume. I'm also  interested in software-defined “anything” that can streamline management. With ever expanding quantities of data but the same amount of IT personnel, ease of management is very important.

Name a major achievement in your career or any awards that you have won. What accomplishments are you most proud of?

Apart from the annual Knowledge Sharing competition, EMC also holds the annual Innovation Roadmap competition, in which Business Units publish their challenges to seek innovative and actionable resolutions from employees. I submitted 25 ideas last year, with 3 going into the finalist phase and one standing out as winner and “best in show”. I won an “Innovation Hero” award, and I'm very proud that I can propose technical solutions to help solve some knotty problems.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Where do you ultimately want to be in your professional career?

Instead of focusing on specific technologies like virtual provisioning, I hope I can get a broader picture of what is happening in the IT industry, where it’s heading, and the impetus for certain technologies that may have been impossible 10 years ago to become popular and mainstream. I want to keep my mind focused on the essential role of IT, which I believe works as an enabler for better business results, instead of merely on fancy technologies which might not last long, or fail to bring a high return on investment or support business strategies. With a broader understanding, I can come up with better solutions to help solve challenges for my organization. I think being a solution architect is where I’m heading.

Is there anything else you’d like to share about yourself? Name some hobbies or interests you have.

I like photography and film editing. I taught myself on both. I also love adventure and exploration, and I’ve traveled all over the world. Making creative cocktails is a new hobby that I have acquired lately.

Briefly, how has the EMC Proven Professional Program benefited you personally or professionally?

With the EMC Proven Professional Program, I know whenever I need to advance in technology, I’m always equipped with top notch instructors and learning courses. Not only have the trainings helped me become more proficient in my job, but the framework of the program itself also helped me gain a broader understanding of the industry.

What advice would you give to someone entering the Proven Professional Program?

For the online courses, in order to make the learning more efficient, I suggest making a study plan and breaking the course down into several small segments. That way, you can learn it whenever you have a small fraction of time, instead of allocating big chunk of time for it, which is not that easy in today’s fast-paced lifestyle.

Read other EMC Proven Professional Spotlight articles in the Proven Professional Spotlight Archive

*The EMC Proven Professional Private Community is only open to certified EMC Proven Professionals. If you are certified and don’t have access, you can request it here: Request Access for the EMC Proven Professionals Private Community