Nothing can't be off-shored

SAN FRANCISCO (Business 2.0 Magazine) -- Nearly half of U.S. IT jobs involve the upkeep and maintenance of computers - a sector previously thought to be safe from offshoring. But technological change is sweeping the industry, and soon the servers that host your favorite websites or run your online banking could be run from halfway around the world.

Next Big Thing: The incredible disappearing sysadmin - Aug. 1, 2006

When we are thinking there must be something which can't be off-shored, we are pretty safe staying in these areas and could enjoy our life without doubt, we might be wrong. Actually, we are losing ground. As technologies are emerging rapidly, seems like everything can be off-shored.

Well... have a look at the article above. System and database administration, I thought it needs a lot of expertise as well as experience and can't be off-shored, currently is being off-shored gradually. As both computer hardware and software technology is emerging, plus the fast growing high-speed internet, remote monitoring and administration won't be a problem any more. Companies in high-cost regions can cut their operation expense dramatically by off-shoring system and database administration to the lost-cost regions. Does this mean they don't need on-site engineer any longer? Of course they still need. After all, some hardware maintenance must be done on-site rather than remotely. But they may not need those experienced administrators with a high pay. Instead, they may only need operators. On the other hand, previously they may need 5 admin. people to manage 100 servers, now they only need 1 operator to manage the same number of servers, that's enough. Information collection, routine administration, remote installation, problem analysis, problem identification, all of these can be done remotely halfway around the world.

What an IT world! I need to re-think my career path. Especially I am a system and database administrator myself!