August 28, 2007 at 3:56 am
Has anyone noticed whether DBAs get outsourced? I've heard of programming, help desks and other call centers getting outsourced, but I've never heard one instance of DBA outsourcing.
I can't imagine how anyone could manage with their DBAs halfway around the world...
August 28, 2007 at 8:30 am
Well - there's outsourced, and there's OUTSOURCED. Our current DBA is a consultant (so it's outsourced), but he's on site most of the time.
My previous employer wanted to use DBA's overseas, and we kind of laughed. We couldn't get our off-shore data operators to run unscheduled/custom jobs on the weekends (they're apparently VERY serious about their weekends, and didn't much believe in working them), so we were envisioning the phone calls: "Server's down? I'll look at it on Monday..." Let's just say we ended up getting our way (that was a hospital system, so uptime's not an option).
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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?
August 28, 2007 at 8:36 am
Good point on the definition, Matt.
I actually meant outsourced in the sense that the DBA A) a contractor (not employed directly by the company and B) doesn't come into the company's offices at all and C) generally works from a physical location that is nowhere near where the company is located. DBAs in India or another country were what I was thinking of when I asked the question.
Wow, the idea of a hospital's database down for a weekend actually gives me the shivers. That could get people killed...
August 28, 2007 at 2:02 pm
That was the gist of the conversation we had with the CIO when he cooked that scheme up... We had to educate him on our support woes with our off-site folks....
The sad part was that he had several folks at his disposal that were qualified to be DBA's - they just weren't willing to acknowledge that fact and PAY one of us as a DBA... ('nother pet peeve of mine, but that's another rant for another day).
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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?
August 28, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Unfortunately the CIO and the upper management only looked at the General Ledger to make sure the company making money. My old company outsourced to India. In the beginning, they made a BIG promise that they would not layoff anyone, they just let the Indian counterpart to do the programming job and the US programmers would do the design, analysis and more important works. A year later, half the developers got layoff, not just programming, but also included PC support, networking and data base administration. The one who left behind said the company was a mess. If anything went wrong, they blamed the US people, they never blamed the Indian company. That's the most unfair part. Also the turnover rate of the Indian counter was up to the top because there were so many companies in India looking for programmers, people just jumping from job to job to get the high salary. I wish I can do that especially now I am looking for a job.
Another big problem, nowadays less and less students are interested in majoring in computer science. Most of my friends at work discourage their kids to major in computer science.
August 28, 2007 at 8:49 pm
It does happen (outsourcing DBAs), but I doubt it would be only DBAs. There are a number of remote DBA service firms out there and they seem to be successful.
September 26, 2007 at 3:48 pm
kind of late reply but coming from the other part of the world its hard to outsouce DBA. Most (almost 95%) of the data centers are here in US. India does not yet have the bandwith to support high scale OLTP applications (my info is about 8 yrs old.. not sure how much of it has changed).
You can do development remotely but you cannot administer a dabatase remotely. Moreover my parents still complain of power outages every summer for extended hours. So if your db is down and your dba is offshore with a power-outage.. nothing much can be done 😉
worth the xtra bucks and hire an onsite DBA.
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Dinakar Nethi
Life is short. Enjoy it.
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September 27, 2007 at 9:51 am
That's an interesting perspective, but I'm sure it gets better everyday.
And there is lots of development work that could be outsourced. If there are good development DBAs, then there's probably some outsourcing with the outsourced developers 🙂
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