Survey: Outsource UNIX System Administration Offshore

[Tim Sanko]

According to my resources, at my congressman's office There are certain types of jobs that it is illegal for foreigners in many countries to hold. The U.S. allows more freedom in job practice than just about anyone else, darn it.

I couldn't get the same type job in India, Ukraine, Germany or quite a few other countries. I could go back to medical practice there, HMMM?

Computer skills in many countries fall under national defense and security. Funny how we are not on a level playing field.

Tim

[Pete Randall]

Rita,

Me??? Serious???
Hardly!


Pete

[Rita C Workman]

Hey Pete...

..who knows maybe after Chicago, the next HPWorld will be ....HPWorld2005...in New Dehli


....if we still have our jobs then, think the boss will spring for the trip.....tee hee..

Rita

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Rita,

Nah...New Dehli's so yesterday.
It would have to be Bangalore.
They could even come up with a snazzy title like HPgalore 2005 - Be There - Your jobs already are!

And Yep - I can see 'em authorizing that expense report alright.

Cheers,
Jeff

[Pete Randall]

Actually Rita, I've been forced to come up with my own ticket this year. The training and travel budgets were eliminated. But I'll still see you in Chicago!! "Ve haf ways", you might say.

I don't know about New Delhi `05, though. That might be a little more than I could handle.


Pete

[Alzhy]

Friends, this is all because of the "Great Levelling" that will come and that we will need to adjust to. And this is also along the lines of "IT Does Not Matter" and "Globalization".

Economists in the G7 nations will have to contend with this situation that certain "sectors" of industries will have to be displaced because of cost levelling.

9/11 put a temporary hold on entire data centers and IT infrastructures to be off-shored or outsourced. Now that security in virtually any IT undertaking is available and on the cheap as do comunications bandwidth as a result of overbuilding - it is now possible to easily do outsourcing and off-shoring.

So if you're 100K/yr. UnixAdmin - expect that "sacrificing" your job will mean cost savings to the US shop while providing employment to probably 5 SysAdmins in KumarLand at half the cost $50K @ $10K each. Result is - You have 5 Kumaris who will now be part of the new "middle-class" in that place. The US Shop adds $50K savings which can be used to expand business and probably re-hire UnixAdmin and a couple more people - but not as IT workers and obviously at lower salaries.. So UnixAdmin wil now have to "adjust" with the new reality. Since more and more UnixAdmin's will be in the same boat -- with diminished purchasing power, then prices of Goods and Services will bow spiral down in the USA and before we know it.. costs of everything in the states will now be at par with the rest of the world... but that's not that simple .. is IT?

Meanwhile, enjoy.. earn and the most important thing "save"!

[doug mielke]

So it appears that even if I head overseas, I won't be able to practice my chosen profession, and boy, do I need the practice.

IT has meant to me years of:
home study in a futile attempt stay current, or fall behind more slowly.
Undertaking totally new disciplines to pursue the 'hot lick' in IT, be it WAN, SAN, Wintel, Novell, Dbases, wireless, etc.
Working 9 to 5 daily, then expected that all system maint. be done 'off hours'
NEVER being more than a few minutes away from a telephone.
Vacations are by definition, short, unless able to monitor systems while away.( An IT definition of 'vacation')
.
Now having to struggle to prevent my job from going remote?

IT is starting to loose it's lusture.

So I think I'll retrain, my dream job has always been.... Rodeo Clown,
there's likely little call for that profession in India..

[Mark Grant]

We are just starting on the "offshore" road and so far is is a shambles. This is probably mostly the fault of our own management but I don't think they are significantly worse that most.

However, guys and gals, the writing is on the wall. It is time to get out of IT, at least working for someone else.

Sadly, as will inevitably happen, when they try and bring it all back ,the skills will no longer be available.

[Dave Hutton]

Funny enough, I think quite a few people see the writing on the wall. At least the people I know in IT.
Its hard to answer this question when your in your review and your manager asks you.
"Where do you see yourself in 5 years?"

[Rita C Workman]

Pete... I'll be lookin for you & the Mrs. in the Windy City.

Dave....so true !

Maybe it was a good idea that got into working with the SAN environment. Yup, that might hold me till retirement....or at least till I get a couple bills paid off.

Rgrds,
Rita

[Ian Kidd_1]

In the company I work for, the ENTIRE helpdesk staff has been outsourced to India. As an SA, I can feel the big bullseye on my back.

The good ole US of A may have done this to itself. I keep thinking of all the tech work visas that were opened in the late 80s through the 90s ... and then the dotcom bust. I wonder how many of the startup companies in India have founders with work experience here in the United States.

Technically, the job of SA can be done remotely. All that's needed is a semi-intelligent individual who (1) has on-site access (2) can be the liason between the vendor and the remote SA (3) read what's on the console if there's a problem.

Part of the job of an SA is to maintain a relationship with the user (DBA etc). Distance is not an obstacle. I myself have had great working relationships with DBAs I've never met (I admined servers located in another state). And just because someone has an Indian accent doesn't mean he can't establish a great rapport with the DBA.

Some companies will not do this for various reasons (citizenship requirements etc) - the US government for example. India reportedly has a high incidence of hacking, so this might scare away others.

However, it all comes down to the BOTTOM LINE - why pay an admin from $65K to $100K+ when a company can do it in the range of $40K/admin?

Manufacturing went to 3rd world country sweat-shops. I don't see how tech jobs will be an exception to this migration.

Maybe I should think about going back to school. Nursing/health care is in big demand ...

[Alzhy]

Right on the money Ian.. healthcare is IT.!

Most of my nurse/healthcare friends seem to have been unaffected by this economy. Most have all the goodies in life - plasma tv's, lexi (plural for lexus?), comfortable houses, etc....

But not for long.. Sure healthcare workforce cannot be outsourced/off-shored but already US hospitals are now bringing less expensive nurses from countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Uganda and shunning away more expensive local nurses and more expensive nurses from the Philippines, the UK and Ireland...

So what will be left that has no potential to be in a sunset industry or income lowering potential?

[Anand_20]

Let me share some views- I am working as Sr. System Admin for HP-UX platform- with Hewlett Packard. There were many questions which may not be clear in answering but exactly an year ago HP- Asiapacific outsourced the MSDD -System administration operations for both HP-UX and Win-NT along with DBA and WEB operations to India from Singapore. The questions rised were kept operational from India (bangalore) like Operation (trouble shooting), Incidents, Technical Changes, Security Management, Patching, Backup, Remote Console. Almost 100% of the operations which are implemented were successful. And the very reason for these activities being performed keeping in view of cost.
Yes, the operations are performed as 24/7 and it is very true that getting manpower to the operations is very difficult and especially for Unix Admin.

[Stefan Farrelly]

So thats 2 examples we have now of HP-UX Admin being outsourced overseas;

1. HP Asia (Singapore to India)
2. DHL (UK) to Prague (Czech Republic)

I recall that over 5 years ago I was working for a UK company and we were doing remote SysAdmin support to Unix servers all over the country without major problems.

With lights out (remote console) connections and high speed networks you can admin Unix servers from almost anywhere now. The writing is indeed on the wall. IT salaries have been falling year on year now in the UK mainly due to outsourcing and an influx of cheap IT workers from India and Eastern Europe (given free work visas).

[Umapathy S]

Well, it is more due to the big companies management towards reducing costs. Remember, even in India, you have to pay far more for a good sysadmin. In my opinion Sysadmin outsourcing not only will increase the cost but also the downtime and losses associated with it.

Jeff,
Work permits/Employment visa can be obtained irrespective of the nationality.
http://indianpassport.nic.in/visrules.htm

Umapathy

[steven Burgess_2]

Hmmm

I was reading about all this around 6 months ago and worried myself to death. I have only been a unix admin for a couple of years now after changing careers. I too thought that I would be able to continue, grow and develop for the next 20, who knows maybe I still can.....

I'm certainly not going to worry about it. Just do my best with whatever I am faced with, thats what we should all do.

At the end of the day, as times change, you change. If you have enough about you, you will face whatever comes your way

Whilst one thing goes, the next comes in

I have noted though that not many (and the numbers are increasing) of our asian forumers have contributed to this thread.

They are enjoying the wealth that so many of you have enjoyed since the birth of computers and the IT industry. Let them enjoy it and let them grow and develop. As you are worried about your jobs going, they will also be worried about there NEW jobs becoming under pressure from those opposing whats coming into their country.

You could sit and debate this from all angles and avenues, whilst your doing that your wasting your own time.

Let the government run the country. Some things are out of our control

Time will decide

Steve

[steven Burgess_2]

Ever thought about answering a reply to someones question who may be about to take your job ???

[steven Burgess_2]

you don't, you just get on with it.

[Geoff Wild]

I guess technically I am "outsourced" - as I work for a company that provides IT to other companies...

Depends on how you sell IT - by having us onsite at the client, we provide more then just SysAdmin work - we provide that extra level of service.

Though, I do know that even our company has outsourced it's internal helpdesk to India - because of costs...

Rgds...Geoff

[John Collier]

We can go even one better on this issue if you are willing to believe this one.

I personally know of a worldwide organization that currently has two HP 9000 servers and 5 Itanium boxes all feeding a NNM platform that has NO official admin for any of them.

When the system was first brought in it was on two little 'C' class boxes (1 live and the other backup) for evaluation and they didn't put a Sys Admin in place for it since there was a person in the group that unofficially took care of them both and only monitored about 50 â 100 routers.

Now the system monitors 76,000+ interfaces and they STILL don't have a Sys Admin. Why? They never needed one before, why would they need one now? Needless to say, even the person that was working on it is long gone at this time.

They have paid someone from the vendor to come in each year and do a little work on it to put all of the major stuff in place and make it 'work' and then piled the emergency stuff on one other person. Of course, they have a ton of other stuff to do as well so the system just sits until a failure occurs (which is happening more and more often lately. Surprise!). The person in question has never been a HP-UX or NNM Sys Admin, just in case you are wondering.

Outsourcing isn't the only threat to the IT job market. Managerial ignorance and shady sales practices are just as real and may ultimately be even worse threats.

Just my $.02 (which is probably worthless with the current inflation rates)

Jo