Cloud

Daniel333

Take it more seriously. Please guys.

I just had the unhappy experience of seeing a few people laid off today, so maybe this is written in an emotional state. I don’t take it well.

I have to say I feel uneasy about the chip on the shoulder of IT people right now when it comes to the cloud. In their world it’s often a buzz word. Some sort of marketing scam. But to C-level decision makers who will never ask your point of view, it’s an option.

This smug feels like those people buying houses with 10% down on adjustable loans just a few years ago.

I believe this chip is only happening because of this second tech-boom we’re in. Sure in many areas we’re looking at less than 2% unemployment in IT. But don’t kid yourself. This is a bubble.

The cloud isn’t a joke, it’s a challenge to you to adapt.

In my previous life we moved into small companies and worked on dismantling their IT departments. Turning 5-10 man teams to 0 man teams using Cloud and outsourced technology. People who at some point where every bit as smug but didn’t realize they were not satisfying their C-level staff’s expectation.

Exchange, IM, Sharepoint, backup, desktop apps and voip all outsourced and in the cloud. Support moved to India and Florida. Standard image laptops using hosted XenApp servers along with App-V. Complicated networks were replaced with boiler plate switches and Cisco ASAs which were all managed overseas and monitored by Cisco.

Fact of the matter? It worked better than what we walked in and saw. Sure, blame your manager that you don’t have the budget for XYZ, and it’s not your fault etc etc. Won’t matter when these sorts of companies come in at 80% of your cost with better SLAs.

If you have had a chance to work with things like azure, amazon, vCloud Director and Intermedia services you would see how impressive it’s really gotten. You’ll also see how heavy they are marketing how secure you’re your data will be straight to the C-level decision makers.

Installing fear of data loss to management, and hiding behind PCI compliance is not a strategy for a career. Automation efforts for even those sorts of things are getting better.

Be willing to start making the career changes now.

So, “the cloud” isn’t the evil bad guy that will steal your jobs. I firmly believe it’s a strategy that will change your jobs, and it will pick up the most steam just as the IT tech boom begins to reflect the rest of the economy.

ptilsen

I take it seriously, but it's hard to take it to the level media treats it. X as a service is a legitimate business and service model, and in many cases is really the only reasonable way to do things -- especially in the smaller shops. But cloud this, cloud that, the end of desktops, the end of sysadmins, everything will be on tablets, served from the cloud and supported by India, is just a little much to take seriously. I've been involved in a few "cloud" implementations, and I actually pushed my organization (a small MSP serving SMBs) into offering more SAAS and less software resale.

Sometimes it's great. We might spend a little bit less time implementing (and as such billing less), but we get a margin on a service provided by someone else (read: something for basically nothing) and we get to focus on the things that should requite an IT professionals direct attention.

In other cases, the cloud is very much like the cake: a lie. Sure, you can put the services on those servers in the cloud. First let's upgrade your Internet. Oh, you need all 800GB of data available and backed up? Oh, you need high-speed access to large files shared within departments and teams? You want to keep all emails, indefinitely, backed up and accessible from at least one computer?

The questions above really happened to a client after the expectations were not communicated well. A project that turned into moving server services to the cloud went from $50K implementation with monthly of $2,000 to $100K and $4,000/month. Instead of everything in the cloud, they have a local file server. If the Internet goes down, pretty much everything else does. For $100K and $4,000 month, we could have gotten them an ESX cluster with replicated SAN storage, offsite backups, redundant Internet, and a better infrastructure.

There's a lot more detail to that, but the point is that the X as a service isn't ready to replace all infrastructure, and in my opinion it's a ways away. That's coming from an MSP systems engineer -- in SMB world you have to do as much in the cloud/SAAS as you can if you want a system that's stable and affordable. In bigger organizations, you can provide a lot of those services in-house with similar up-time to a SAAS provider at lower cost. With a few exceptions, the technology in use at a SAAS provider is not different than that within a large organization. Once the organization is large enough, the scale is not different and the economy of scale provided by the SAAS is no longer there. Again, there are exceptions to this, but I don't see a company such as, say, a fortune 100 bank outsourcing its entire infrastructure. It's cheaper to provide most of the services and security in-house at that scale.

I do think we need to take this topic seriously, both as a direction of the industry and for those working in smaller shops, a serious potential job threat (and opportunity, simultaneously). But, as I've said, the cloud is not going to change the game for everyone, everywhere. I feel that it's doing what it should: bringing efficiency and reasonably cost where they're sorely lacking by removing the need for underutilized infrastructure and personnel.

it_consultant

I use vCloud director and I have been using cloud tools for years. In my experience, people laid off ostensibly because of the "the cloud" had jobs that were unnecessary with or without the cloud.

Our jobs are going to India because, to be blunt, they are better tech workers than we are. I was sitting at dinner and a non-IT friend said something like "I heard on the radio that in 10 years all programming will be in India" and I said "Sweetheart, we are already there".

The reality is that we all have to be better, as ptilsen points out, even with cloud services there is still work to be done. Instead of maintaining a lot of internal systems, you maintain a few internal systems and highly available internet pipes.

RobertKaucher

it_consultant wrote: »

I use vCloud director and I have been using cloud tools for years. In my experience, people laid off ostensibly because of the "the cloud" had jobs that were unnecessary with or without the cloud.

Our jobs are going to India because, to be blunt, they are better tech workers than we are. I was sitting at dinner and a non-IT friend said something like "I heard on the radio that in 10 years all programming will be in India" and I said "Sweetheart, we are already there".

The reality is that we all have to be better, as ptilsen points out, even with cloud services there is still work to be done. Instead of maintaining a lot of internal systems, you maintain a few internal systems and highly available internet pipes.

There are a few points I repeatedly make here on TE.

1. Fewer systems to manage mean fewer bodies required to manage them. A combination of automation and process simplification tools make jobs easier and require less skill. This means fewer and lower paying jobs. The category of a "unnecessary job" is a moving target as technology increases and in our field it does so exponentially.

2. It is not a law of nature that new technologies will create as many jobs as they replace. This is a fallacious extrapolation of future events based on the past that do not apply to technologies that we deal with. Did jobs in the automotive industry replace the jobs of coach builders? Yes, and created an entire industry that did not exist before. But that is not IT and it cannot be ignored that one of the major benefits of the technology in our field is simplification and automation which means putting people out of work by making jobs easier and unnecessary.

networker050184

Not another one of these threads....

Keep on your toes and stay ahead of the curve and you have nothing to worry about. Become stagnant with your knowledge and you will be out of a job regardless of this whole cloud deal.

RobertKaucher

networker050184 wrote: »

Not another one of these threads....

Keep on your toes and stay ahead of the curve and you have nothing to worry about. Become stagnant with your knowledge and you will be out of a job regardless of this whole cloud deal.

I looove these long-winded-what-the-future-may-hold threads!

erpadmin

Time and time again...government (be it state or federal) will not be jumping on "cloud" with sensitive data; regardless of whether the cloud is hybrid, public, private, cumulus, nimbostratus, or cumulonimbus.

Those companies that can put their data in a cloud based in India are usually startups that are looking to cut corners on price. However, larger companies are not going to put everything on the cloud. Email, perhaps, but not highly sensitive data.

This isn't instilling fear into the heart of management...it's just reality.

RobertKaucher

erpadmin wrote: »

This isn't instilling fear into the heart of management...it's just reality.

Now that just sounds like fun!

cknapp78

RobertKaucher wrote: »

I looove these long-winded-what-the-future-may-hold threads!

My magic 8-ball says...Outlook not certain.

My manager says...Get back to work!!!

My wife says...Take out the trash!!!

My kids say...We want to go to the park!!!!

I say...How the hell am I getting all these things done? My 8 Ball again says...Outlook not certain.

And just for giggles while I am sitting here typing this at work, my MS Outlook decides to barf on me.

tpatt100

Only thing I fear are Cylons.

cknapp78

tpatt100 wrote: »

Only thing I fear are Cylons.

Depends on which Cylon you are talking about Holy off topic Batman.

veritas_libertas

networker050184 wrote: »

Not another one of these threads....

Keep on your toes and stay ahead of the curve and you have nothing to worry about. Become stagnant with your knowledge and you will be out of a job regardless of this whole cloud deal.

My thoughts exactly...

tpatt100

cknapp78 wrote: »

Depends on which Cylon you are talking about Holy off topic Batman.

Google is making a self driving car, next thing you know the car gets artificial intelligence, then next thing you know the car develops the ability to change into robots!

Forsaken_GA

tpatt100 wrote: »

Google is making a self driving car, next thing you know the car gets artificial intelligence, then next thing you know the car develops the ability to change into robots!

Pfft, everyone knows Google is developing Skynet, not Optimus Prime.

tpatt100

In all seriousness though, the market is changing and how fast or slow depends on so many things. I think the lack of self regulation will end up with public embarassment that might slow down adoption.

Also while some things will consolidate, some will adapt and progress while others will end up working the service support end at the lower end.

it_consultant

I think OP, like he said, was talking with some emotion. It is hard to see people get laid off. However, I doubt that the "cloud" as it were, was really the factor in their terminations.

tpatt100

it_consultant wrote: »

I think OP, like he said, was talking with some emotion. It is hard to see people get laid off. However, I doubt that the "cloud" as it were, was really the factor in their terminations.

It might be, when I was working for the City they were pushing Citrix to reduce desktop calls for all the remote sites. When I rolled that out we never did hire that extra desktop support tech. Then I heard a couple of years ago they were looking at a hosted application solution to further consolidate everything else.

phoeneous

f@#k the cloud. Figuratively, not literally.

Forsaken_GA

tpatt100 wrote: »

It might be, when I was working for the City they were pushing Citrix to reduce desktop calls for all the remote sites. When I rolled that out we never did hire that extra desktop support tech. Then I heard a couple of years ago they were looking at a hosted application solution to further consolidate everything else.

The thing is, it doesn't necessarily mean that the cloud is going to reduce the number of necessary jobs. New advancement in technology that leads to more efficient processes is always going to reduce headcount requirements, that's the nature of the world. As the cloud grows, there will be scalability issues, and that will require headcount to maintain. So the jobs will just migrate to cloud providers instead of staying within the enterprise, and as more companies enter the market, that will also create jobs.

Folks may have to look at working for different companies than they currently do, and they may have to adapt their skillsets to account for changing market conditions. This is absolutely no different than how things have always worked.

Keep your skills updated, stay relevant. Don't rest on your laurels. You can sleep when you're dead.

Sponx

Will "The Cloud" take some jobs, yes... But it will also make several million jobs:

Cloud computing will potentially generate at least 14 million new jobs across the globe within the next three years. Moreover, these new jobs may likely be in many areas outside of IT.

Those findings come from new research conducted by IDC and sponsored by Microsoft Corp., looking at the economic benefits of cloud computing in the years ahead. A couple of months back, a Microsoft-underwritten study by the London School of Economics projected substantial job growth in two industries, smartphones and aerospace.

Cloud Will Generate 14 Million Jobs By 2015: That's A Good Start - Forbes

"

Cloud is clearly a positive force, creating more opportunities than it takes away."

tpatt100

And only 1.17 million of these jobs will be seen in North America. A majority of these jobs will be found in emerging markets — 10 million will arise in China, India and the Asia-Pacific region. This is mainly due to the immense size of these country’s workforces — 1.2 billion workers in China and India alone, the study report observes.

I see the expanding markets part but the US needs to find ways to provide incentives for US companies to keep some of them here in the US. If China and such expand US companies might see big advantages hosting over there as well.

Sponx

I think that has been a problem prelude to "The Cloud".

ram1101

hello people the "could" AKA the "Internet" AKA "Untrusted Network" the place that we are trying to prectect from!!
outsourcing i think is just a way of blamming someone else in case something happens and this someone else would say
we are working on it and we have no ETA.
is just another business that is trying to reduce cost yea is going to make jobs but is going to take more away.
they are going to hire an administrator that is going to be managing a bunch of systems from different companies and not really know what the company and the users want.
is just another sales scam from sales people and i dont really trust sales.
for example cars sales hello!!! they always screwing some one so what makes you think this is any different. is just giving IT bad rep

Asif Dasl

tpatt100 wrote: »

I see the expanding markets part but the US needs to find ways to provide incentives for US companies to keep some of them here in the US. If China and such expand US companies might see big advantages hosting over there as well.

This is next to impossible without implementing protectionism. And history has thought us that protectionism creates poverty, embracing globalisation actually creates wealth for both sides. I would use Ireland as an example - in the 80's Ireland was the poor man of Europe (and kinda still is! but those growing pains will sort itself out), today, after removing most of those backward tariffs - Ireland is richer per capita than the UK & US. Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea & Taiwan are other examples - it's a slow process of change but globalisation does work, the Internet was a huge spark.

Sure people don't like losing their job but maybe that gives them the kick up the ass to doing something else more relevant to today's marketplace. There are several estimates of how many jobs people have in a lifetime and some people's careers can differ quite dramatically. Others stay in one sector and evolve through different positions & new skills.

I don't think the "cloud" will reduce IT jobs, there is still population growth all over the world. And if anything there will be more jobs when those now unknown Indian & Chinese corporations start expanding abroad. Remember India & China each have more people than the whole of North America & Europe COMBINED!

Skilled jobs, like taking care of mission critical systems get well paid and it's next to impossible to put an unskilled worker in to a skilled job without effecting downtime - so it doesn't happen, in almost all sectors. IT is one of the highest paid sectors for skilled workers, always has been. The "ladder" will still exist the same way it has for the last 10,000 years... if you want to climb then it's up to you - to steal a line from a movie "get busy living or get busy dying"

Shift Happens!

Just as an aside for you that think we are all going to live in the cloud... Netflix's max transfer speed is 3800 kbit/s according to wikipedia - Bluray is 54Mb/s - don't know what 4K or 8K is going to be (I heard maybe as high as 600Mb/sec - I could be wrong). The quality doesn't compare to a physical disc, and for me probably never will. Now I know places like Hong Kong & South Korea has 1000Mb Internet already but it's very rare and unless the government lays fiber optic down in the sticks (cause I can't see private sector doing that), only people in urban areas will ever benefit. And the majority of people in the US & Ireland live outside urban areas.

I'm working hard on updating my skills and don't fear the "cloud" in the slightest.

It's great to predict the future cause nobody will remember what you predicted!

zenhound

Hate to tell you, but the population of the US is majority urban and has been since pretty early in the 20th century. The only way you can claim otherwise is if you somehow count suburbs as rural, which they're not. And given how bad many suburbs were hit with the real estate bubble, they may actually be losing out to cities as well. I doubt we'll have a clear picture for a few years.

As f

zenhound

Whoops, iPhone screwed me up.

I was just going to say that as far as globalization vs protectionism, I think the data is all over the place. Some of the most prosperous times in American history have been under protected tariff policies. And Ireland is even a really mixed example with much of its boom being illusory after the real estate bubble. I think Krugman has written some stuff about how its GDP is deceptive as well since a lot of the profitable businesses (his example was pharmaceuticals) are foreign owned and just end up moving their profits out of country.

Economics is one of those "sciences" where you can really find data to justify whatever your pre-existing beliefs are so nothing is ever really clear. Or at least there are enough interested parties with enough invested in clouding the issue so as to support their preferred policies.

Novalith478

zenhound wrote: »

Whoops, iPhone screwed me up.

I was just going to say that as far as globalization vs protectionism, I think the data is all over the place. Some of the most prosperous times in American history have been under protected tariff policies. And Ireland is even a really mixed example with much of its boom being illusory after the real estate bubble. I think Krugman has written some stuff about how its GDP is deceptive as well since a lot of the profitable businesses (his example was pharmaceuticals) are foreign owned and just end up moving their profits out of country.

Economics is one of those "sciences" where you can really find data to justify whatever your pre-existing beliefs are so nothing is ever really clear. Or at least there are enough interested parties with enough invested in clouding the issue so as to support their preferred policies.

When people go and bash protectionism, they usually look at the Depression to prove their point. People forget that the depression was largely created because of rapid economic boom and the development of debt for the everyday person. The depression largely consisted of a lack of understanding in terms of people not understanding what economic concepts mean. It happened in 2000 with the dotcom crisis, and it happened in 2008 when the housing market collapsed.

What people also forget is that we're not really "creating wealth". I've talked to people in India, and Taiwan, who work in this industry over there. Wealth is by far a relative term. Over in India, people get paid barely what minimum wage is here, and that's a good salary for them. Meanwhile here, people lose their jobs, which creates poverty here. It's not always a question of people doing something relevant in their life. If their entire life has been spent training in a certain industry, and then that industry dies in a little under 5 years, that's not that person's fault. It's not like the technology is radically changing, companies are just taking advantage of poorer people elsewhere, to outsource their business.

For example, let's say half of the US clothing companies brought their manufacturing back to the US. The amount of jobs available would sky rocket, and the economy would probably not be in such bad shape as is now. But everyone hopped on the globalisation bandwagon in the 90's, and corporations saw it as a major money maker. The relative wealth of poorer nations (Mexico, China, Taiwan, India, etc) is marginally improving, but at the same the US economy is tanking, and so is the job market.

Asif Dasl

zenhound wrote: »

Whoops, iPhone screwed me up.

I was just going to say that as far as globalization vs protectionism, I think the data is all over the place. Some of the most prosperous times in American history have been under protected tariff policies. And Ireland is even a really mixed example with much of its boom being illusory after the real estate bubble. I think Krugman has written some stuff about how its GDP is deceptive as well since a lot of the profitable businesses (his example was pharmaceuticals) are foreign owned and just end up moving their profits out of country.

Economics is one of those "sciences" where you can really find data to justify whatever your pre-existing beliefs are so nothing is ever really clear. Or at least there are enough interested parties with enough invested in clouding the issue so as to support their preferred policies.

Absolutely GDP can be deceptive, it's hard to compare like with like with all of the different variables in each country. But it is basic economic indicator. Sorry I should have put my earlier statement about people living in urban areas a different way - I meant based on Internet speeds. Unless a new technology appears which can get big speeds to the 'last mile' for everybody (not a small minority) then I can't see us living in the cloud and certainly not streaming 8K movies over the internet. There are many people who live in urban areas but get "rural" internet speeds.

An interesting geeky read - The State Of The Internet Report

higherho

Asif Dasl wrote: »

Absolutely GDP can be deceptive, it's hard to compare like with like with all of the different variables in each country. But it is basic economic indicator. Sorry I should have put my earlier statement about people living in urban areas a different way - I meant based on Internet speeds. Unless a new technology appears which can get big speeds to the 'last mile' for everybody (not a small minority) then I can't see us living in the cloud and certainly not streaming 8K movies over the internet. There are many people who live in urban areas but get "rural" internet speeds.

An interesting geeky read - The State Of The Internet Report

This reminds me of "on live" the video game service. trying to stream 720p at 60 fps a second is really difficult not to mention 1080p and this is just video, what about HD audio. The cloud is going to be here and its very helpful but I think its going to cost individuals more in the long run to run everything in the cloud (because services will charge and arm and a leg).

Novalith478

higherho wrote: »

This reminds me of "on live" the video game service. trying to stream 720p at 60 fps a second is really difficult not to mention 1080p and this is just video, what about HD audio. The cloud is going to be here and its very helpful but I think its going to cost individuals more in the long run to run everything in the cloud (because services will charge and arm and a leg).

Not to mention infrastructure costs on behalf of the ISP's.

Asif Dasl

Novalith478 wrote: »

When people go and bash protectionism, they usually look at the Depression to prove their point. People forget that the depression was largely created because of rapid economic boom and the development of debt for the everyday person. The depression largely consisted of a lack of understanding in terms of people not understanding what economic concepts mean. It happened in 2000 with the dotcom crisis, and it happened in 2008 when the housing market collapsed.

What people also forget is that we're not really "creating wealth". I've talked to people in India, and Taiwan, who work in this industry over there. Wealth is by far a relative term. Over in India, people get paid barely what minimum wage is here, and that's a good salary for them. Meanwhile here, people lose their jobs, which creates poverty here. It's not always a question of people doing something relevant in their life. If their entire life has been spent training in a certain industry, and then that industry dies in a little under 5 years, that's not that person's fault. It's not like the technology is radically changing, companies are just taking advantage of poorer people elsewhere, to outsource their business.

For example, let's say half of the US clothing companies brought their manufacturing back to the US. The amount of jobs available would sky rocket, and the economy would probably not be in such bad shape as is now. But everyone hopped on the globalisation bandwagon in the 90's, and corporations saw it as a major money maker. The relative wealth of poorer nations (Mexico, China, Taiwan, India, etc) is marginally improving, but at the same the US economy is tanking, and so is the job market.

I don't want to go off topic too much and I'm going out... those people in other countries don't feel like they are being taken advantage off. Most of them get much more than the average national wage and can provide better for their families.

US companies regularly praise the high level of higher education levels in Ireland, high productivity levels relative to the number of hours worked, our infrastructure is much better than it used to be and a low corporate tax helps - a lot of these things are areas which governments can control the free market in a good way and as a result we do a lot of outsourcing for US & European companies, and hopefully more Indian & Chinese companies. There has been 1 or 2 announced recently too.

If someone is employing a foreign worker to make a Tshirt then someone is skimming the cream off the top and that profit is being made for the outsourcing company like Nike or somebody - then that trickles down to the shareholders etc. Nobody want to pay for $200 Tshirt cause it was made in America or wherever.

It's a very complex thing and the whole topic is far above my intellectual ability but if certain sectors are going this way then there must be significant savings and you can be sure the foreign side is making a profit too. The nature of jobs is changing and where companies make a profit - it's no different than the 1900s and the British Empire, they outsourced jobs way back then too.

And as far as I know the US economy is not tanking, it is growing more than Europe is and has a lower unemployment rate.

PS - Check out "Margin Call" a great movie... it kind of touches on the same arguements