Re: Can DBA Jobs be Outsourced ???

From: Dave Hau <davehau_nospam_123_at_nospam_netscape.net>
Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2003 00:56:47 GMT
Message-ID: <3F31A3CD.1000604@nospam_netscape.net>

Karsten Farrell wrote:
> Hi Ronnie, thanks for writing this:
>

>>Hi,
>>
>>With all the hoopla going on about outsourcing and developing jobs
>>being outsourced overseas I was wondering how will that effect DBA
>>jobs in US.
>>
>>Unlike programming where the developer can do the coding anywhere in
>>the world the DBA has to be present at the location to do the
>>maintenance work.
>>
>>Will the DBA jobs ever be outsourced overseas and if yes then what are
>>the options do we DBA's have to save our jobs.
>>
>>Thanks
>>Ron
>>

>
>
> When I worked for the US federal government, we outsourced almost ALL
> jobs, including DBA and SysAdmin, keeping only enough civil service
> employees to monitor the contractors. I left the government because they
> were in the process of having us compete with contractors for our civil
> service jobs (and were penalizing us financially by inflating our salary
> costs ... the contractor's salaries were aggregated over a year, but ours
> were over the average years of civil service employment ... another
> story). Don't look now, but the US government (and maybe others) are being
> run by corporations with various profit motives.
>
> Oracle tools make it quite easy to manage most database (DBA) things
> remotely. Also, in many cases the database servers are located off-site.
> Where I work now, our database servers are at a colocation site for
> security and manageability reasons. So technically, I'm not where my
> database is ... though I work for the company instead of being an outside
> contractor. If I want to mount a CD to install Oracle software, for
> example, I have to drive over to the colo site (not as far as India, mind
> you).

If you have a fast enough connection, you can also upload the CD via the network onto the hard disk of the server. :)

• Dave

> In the government, the contractors received the Oracle CDs at their
> site, where the database servers also resided.
>
> For good or ill, outsourcing is a way of life ... and not just in the IT
> field.
>
Received on Wed Aug 06 2003 - 19:56:47 CDT