December 2, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Energizer Bunny
December 3, 2008 at 12:55 am
Hi Steve,
that is a good point well made.
IT has always been about automating work that a human has had to do in the past. Once this has been achieved it leaves us with more time to do the "real" (exciting/interesting) work.
This sort of automation/outsourcing still needs alot of preparation and trust, as some of this boring stuff are actually the key factors for a company. Imagine what you'd feel like if the outsourced DBA-Work had been silently going awry for weeks and the consequences turn around and bite you in the a$$. No matter what sort of SLA is in place, people above you in the chain of command will be kicking off big time.
That would be the time when your job would be in danger as an indirect result of the outsourcing/automation!!
Regards
GermanDBA
Regards,
WilliamD
December 3, 2008 at 5:53 am
Energizer Bunny? Oh, you mean like Virginia Tech's wins against UVA? They just keep going and going and going. (9 of the last 10, baby!) 😀 😛 😀
December 3, 2008 at 6:07 am
Would this be like what EDS and HP currently do? If so, it'd just mean one more competitor in the remote desktop/server management arena. At least Microsoft has the advantage of having (hopefully) the best experts on their products available. Could be interesting.
December 3, 2008 at 7:03 am
"I think you lose something from your IT department in outsourcing jobs to other companies, mainly security, but many of us don't work in areas that have high security requirements (think of banking or medical fields here). As a result there can be value to having basic functions handled by someone else if the price is low enough."
All organizations should have security as a high priority. Why would an organization trust a third party, even if it is MS (especially if it's MS?), to maintain critical systems? To save a few bucks? That is short sighted at best and dangerous at worst.
In house expertise is a competitive advantage. It is up to us to make sure that management understands that.
I agree that simply showing up to work and monitoring servers provides nothing more than an intern could provide at a much lower cost. And, with the U.S. recession now "official", organizations are going to be looking to cut. Make sure that you offer your organization something more than showing up on time and monitoring servers. What competitive advantage do you offer?
December 3, 2008 at 7:03 am
In the article, the Energizer CIO mentions that outsourcing this stuff usually costs the amount that you save in salaries/overhead. He is imagining that Microsoft will be able to make it worth your while because of their size. Like buying outsourcing in bulk.
Also, at first Microsoft will only be offering Exchange and Sharepoint servers.
How many system administrators do you have working for your company that only deal with Exchange and Sharepoint servers? How much overhead do you think that your company will save? Will you be able to make your server room into an office?
Outsourcing these 2 items to Microsoft wouldn't even make a small dent into the IT expenses of the company that I work for - even if Microsoft was hosting these for free. I have never worked for a company large enough to make this type of outsourcing worth their while.
And even though the CIO of Energizer is all excited about outsourcing server administration to Microsoft, they have way more than just Exchange and Sharepoint involved in their private contract.
Mia
I have come to the conclusion that the top man has one principle responsibility: to provide an atmosphere in which creative mavericks can do useful work.
-- David M. Ogilvy
December 3, 2008 at 7:35 am
I think you also lose a sense of ownership when jobs are outsourced. Even for basic functions, you lose that sense of someone constantly asking "are we doing this the best way possible?". The result may be that things become stagnant and even inflexible.
December 3, 2008 at 7:38 am
Good points. As my career has progressed, I have tried to take a longer view of the value I can bring to an employer. While I am still called a DBA, my company has outsourced the production aspects of the job. I have moved into data warehouse design and ETL development. In 2009, I have proposed a data mining pilot project. The goal being to give me more knowledge about my company's core business.
December 3, 2008 at 7:39 am
cy (12/3/2008)
you lose that sense of someone constantly asking "are we doing this the best way possible?". The result may be that things become stagnant and even inflexible.
I don't agree. If Microsoft is forced to eat their own dog food, you may see more and better changes to their products. You may find that they have more of an idea of how thier products can be bettered for use.
Mia
I have come to the conclusion that the top man has one principle responsibility: to provide an atmosphere in which creative mavericks can do useful work.
-- David M. Ogilvy
December 3, 2008 at 7:46 am
It's an interesting to see if this helps anyone. I've worked in places where we had up to 4 Exchange people and 2 Sharepoint, but that was early on in the Sharepoint world. Is that much of our IT budget? No.
Security should be a high priority everywhere, but it has different levels. Calling it a critical function everywhere diminishes the importance in places it really, really matters. When I imported wood, the security of our inventory and mail systems wasn't nearly as critical as the banking records we kept when I worked in wealth management. Differentiate where needed.
In house knowledge is always an advantage, so use it to an advantage. If someone can outsource low-level monitoring, backups, checking logs, etc., perhaps you are freed up to spend more time on applying knowledge.
December 3, 2008 at 7:57 am
I've seen a ton of outsourcing in medical and banking. Whether that affects security, I can't say, but it certainly affects their profitability (negatively, in my experience).
On the other hand, we ran an offshore operation for ourselves in India very profitably.
When outsourcing, the profit of the outsourcing company is money your company is leaving on the table. Perhaps you can't afford whole people to staff around the clock, perhaps you can't find people, and perhaps the people you have aren't experienced enough, but when outsourcing, you trade business knowledge and loyalty to the success of your business for specialized expertise and fungibility. Every dollar you spend outsourcing is a dollar you aren't investing in your company because you are paying rent to another company.
There's always place in the market for both renters and homeowners.
The problem is knowing which one you should be, and which things really are your company's competitive advantages and which ones you will accept unprofitable performance because it's not where you want to concentrate your investment.
I personally see that a lot of companies don't get IT, and they fail to distinguish the different types of IT systems, the exponential power when they are all working well together, and the problems of support and integration when outsourcing is not well managed.
December 3, 2008 at 8:00 am
Hi Steve,
Thanks for your work. SQLServerCentral and you spark my curiosity at times which almost always results in me learning something.
It seems that you often make comments about DBAs losing their job. For instance, in this editorial you mention "I wouldn't worry about all of us DBAs out there losing jobs because of this..."
I honestly "very strongly dislike" [aka hate] this mentality. I intentionally try to work myself out of my tasks. It causes personal and corporate growth. The thought process of trying to posit oneself as instrumental but worrying about losing your job because of new opportunities or new products seems narrow. Maybe I'm misguided and just haven't been subjected to layoffs or "hard times". Then again, maybe there's a reason for that.
I don't intend for this to sound negative at all. I love your editorials and this forum. I just thought I would express a "mentality hurdle" I seem to have to help people overcome every place I go!
Keep up the great work and happy holidays.
December 3, 2008 at 8:05 am
mzak (12/3/2008)
I intentionally try to work myself out of my tasks. It causes personal and corporate growth.
From what I recall seeing, anyone sharp enough to be able to work their way out of tasks (automation) is much more valuable than someone who tends to write themselves into tasks (ie "don't run invoicing until so-and-so runs their magic script or the process will fail")
Such a person takes on more valuable tasks and becomes even more indispensible than the other type of person.
December 3, 2008 at 8:25 am
mzak (12/3/2008)
I honestly "very strongly dislike" [aka hate] this mentality. I intentionally try to work myself out of my tasks. It causes personal and corporate growth. The thought process of trying to posit oneself as instrumental but worrying about losing your job because of new opportunities or new products seems narrow. Maybe I'm misguided and just haven't been subjected to layoffs or "hard times". Then again, maybe there's a reason for that.
I am totally with you on this. The best IT people are always looking to take themselves out of processes. When we get bogged down in supporting projects or products which are unreliable and require a lot of manual labor, we are making ourselves less valuable, since we are limiting ourselves to having less leverage over smaller or fewer systems.
Building systems which are reliable and easy to manage and being able to hand off that management with confidence with a little mentoring down the road has never seemed to put me out of work.
December 3, 2008 at 9:17 am
A lot of the folks that I talked to @ PASS this year are happy about where they sit in the current job market. One in particular that I remember said that there are four actual bodies for every 10 data-related positions in the town he calls home (OKC, if memory serves). He said it's fun to get calls from headhunters trying to woo him for jobs that he's the hiring manager for.
😛
This distrubing trend may be why: http://www.builderau.com.au/news/print.htm?TYPE=story&AT=339293625-339028227t-320000982c
If you're not moving upward in skill set and delivered value, you're due to be outsourced or replaced by a better robot.
:hehe:
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