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Network Management Outsourced to India 310

Posted by Zonk from the not-my-favorite-trend dept.
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "The latest wrinkle for outsourcing companies in India is long-distance monitoring of corporate computer networks in U.S. and Europe -- services that could be worth tens of billions of dollars, the Wall Street Journal reports. From the article: 'Growth is expected as factories become more computerized and remote services expand to include controlling plant temperatures from afar and even monitoring who enters and exits the premises. 'Theoretically,' says Azim Premji, chairman and founder of India outsourcing company Wipro Ltd., 'anything on a network can be managed remotely from India.'"
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Network Management Outsourced to India

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  • Outsourced (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tsunamiiii ( 975673 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @04:07PM (#15360902)
    Great idea until you have one of them patch a server and it doesn't come backup. If you can't get feet on the ground within an hour then you are useless.

    • Re:Outsourced (Score:4, Insightful)

      by JamesTRexx ( 675890 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @04:11PM (#15360941) Journal
      It's not just the hardware. What if you also outsource the security side of things? Imagine someone from the other side of the globe trying to get a hold of your local cops.
      • From TFA:

        Last year, Indian police arrested employees of outsourcing company MphasiS BFL Ltd. for allegedly stealing $350,000 from the accounts of four Citibank customers in the U.S. Though security lapses also occur in the U.S., the incident fanned fears that data theft could stem from inside Indian software firms. In a recent report, researchers at Gartner Inc. predicted these security concerns would have a detrimental effect on providers' ability to capture new business.

        It's bad enough when someone in t

    • Isn't that why there's a NOC team at the data center that you can call?
      • NOC monkeys are worthless. They don't know shit about shit. We cut our calls to the noc to zero when we installed power strips that could be managed over the net. All they ever did for us was reboot. I'd drive to the data center in the middle of the night just on principal to not pay one of those floor monkeys $150 to reboot a server.

    • Re:Outsourced (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      That's why you install network hardware that allows remote console and unattended remote reboot. Many hosting companies such as ev1severs.net already provide these service included in the price of their dedicated servers.

      Really, it isn't that hard.

    • Re:Outsourced (Score:3, Informative)

      by truthsearch ( 249536 )
      I work with a NY company that outsources some of its sysadmin tasks to a company in Canada. When a reboot is required they can ask someone in NY to go to the datacenter and push a button. Or they can call the datacenter directly and ask the staff to push the button. Every datacenter, corporate or shared, has hardware staff nearby. Meanwhile the software administration can be handled remotely.
      • Why bother calling someone? Just telnet into this, a telnet reboot device [dataprobe.com]. I know I see advertisements for these kinds of devices all the time in Sysadmin Magazine.
        • That's cool, but usually when you have racks and racks of serious hardware you need to rewire or replace things every once in a while. A cold reboot just won't always cut it.

    • Re:Outsourced (Score:2, Insightful)

      by dhruvx ( 942514 )
      why is this such a big deal? So what? One more service outsourced to India? If they can't handle it, they will go out of business... Finally, if the customers keep nagging about Indian support, they will cut jobs there too.
    • true, but i can't get to my office within an hour either because they don't pay me enough to be able to afford manhattan rent. you can never fully outsource something like this. the best you can do is some blend where you have remote guys doing monitoring and general mgt and local guys for hardware, patching and maint. of course you still have the problem of confidentialiality and security. we're going to give root access to a the very same people we claim will ruin our country if we let them in? of course
      • Almost all small financial security checking companies use India and China to clear and cash checks via a fax machine.

        Your companies security is the last thing to worry about. When your hmo processes credit card numbers and doctor/patient priveldges its likely outsourced to Africa or India. Anyone can then pull your identity and the phb's only care about costs and where to exploit for the cheapest possible price so he can get his raise
    • Alot of companies just have their whole IT operations in INdia including all their mission critical servers. That way the consulting companies know that their customers are held hostage and wont leave since they would know own all their data. Very clever.

      The only IT people in the states would be those servers were quick access is required or local routers. The rest can go to India where the cost is many times cheaper.

  • Not everything. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Metasquares ( 555685 ) <slashdot AT metasquared DOT com> on Thursday May 18, 2006 @04:07PM (#15360905) Homepage
    ...Until hardware starts to fail.

    • If you want job security.... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by EmbeddedJanitor ( 597831 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @04:12PM (#15360952)
      Become a plumber, house painter, doctor, whatever. It's probably going to be a long while before teleporting works well enough to take house repair and similar work overseas.
      • Doctor? Think again - radiology is already in India and Mexico, and medical tourism is the up and coming thing.
      • I have to concede your point. I think we all should.

        There will ALWAYS be some "IT" in the U.S. But more and more I see cars and SUVs traveling the freeway bearing magnetic signs indicating "computer guy service" of one sort or another. These are largely people who can't let go of the fact that they wanted that "computer career" and are taking enormous personal risk (read: lawsuits and accusations) to make house calls and such... trying to enter a market that they haven't researched, thinking that putting

      • Re:If you want job security.... (Score:5, Informative)

        by agslashdot ( 574098 ) <sundararaman.krishnan@nospAm.gmail.com> on Thursday May 18, 2006 @05:18PM (#15361449)
        I don't know about plumbing & the construction business, but Doctors are out.

        Medical tourism is booming in India. You can buy a return ticket to Delhi from NYC, get your artificial hips, knees, bypass surgery or whatever else done in a day, no hassles over any insurance, and be back in a week after checking out the Taj Mahal. It'll still cost you less than what you'd end up paying here in the US, after you factor in the time & money chasing your insurance company.

        They have state of the art equipment in cosmetic surgery, hair replacement, laser hair removal in Bombay, all available at a fraction of what you'd pay out here in the US.

        I was actually treated by one of the doctors who work in these facilities - he was an orthopaedic who got his postgrad training at the Harvard Medical School and then returned to India after his J1 visa waiver expired. Fixed my broken ankle and gave me shots, all for a grand total of 400 rupees. That's like nine dollars! I wouldn't dream of getting access to a Harvard trained medic in the US for $9. But that's India for you.

        • Re:If you want job security.... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18, 2006 @05:53PM (#15361647)
          returned to India after his J1 visa waiver expired.

          Therein lies another problem. These highly skilled folks have to jump through all sorts of hoops and pay mounds of cash to get the same residence/citizenship rights as some loser living off the government. What the fuck?
        • If you want that level of service in a US doctor, then ask your congress critter for Tort reform.

          Have congress draft a universal medical contract. That contract would specify what the patient was responsible for and what the doctor was responsible for.

          Any patient problems would have to be addressed by a board of doctors in the field that the accused doctor specialized in. They'd look at the case and decide if the doctor screwed up. If he screwed up, then he'd lose his license and the patient would get a

          • If you want job security....Absolutes. (Score:2, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward
            "The reason you pay $9 for an asprin at a US hospital is because once every few years, the asprin fails to fix someone's headache. Then the person sues for $20 million."

            That's only part of the problem. You can play wack-a-mole trying to find all the symptoms. Or you can get to the core problem. Our "save me at all costs" mentality. A lot of our problems stem from that attitude.
      • Exactly. I worked as an ASIC developer for several networking companies and a medical imaging company. Then the industry in the U.S. went tits up. I'm now getting my electrical and plumbing licenses (my boss is a master plumber and master electrician). I'll make more as a tradesman than I ever did as an engineer. My job can't be outsourced. It's damn tough to get a license in Massachusetts so imports will be difficult.

        It's tough work but in the long run will be worth more than my BSEE from BU. Well,
    • Why not have the hardware based in India as well? Infact if I were CEO of this Indian consulting firm I would heavily sell this idea.

      Not only would it be less of a headache but it would force my customers to be hostage. Think about it? If they leave they lose their servers and data and can't function. From there I can charge whatever I want and I wont have to worry about insourcing since I own their data and computers which are essential to function.

      Many corporations are stupid and do not see this. But man

  • OMG (Score:2, Interesting)

    by esobofh ( 138133 )
    Your saying that things can be managed remotely.. on a network. WE NEED TO ALL FEAR FOR OUR JOBS! FIRST ROBOTS NOW THIS!

    oh wait.... wasn't this story first posted on CHIPS & DIPS like a thousand years ago?

  • Hahaha, that is priceless! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gasmonso ( 929871 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @04:09PM (#15360927) Homepage

    Look at the picture in the article. I've seen happier faces behind the counter at McDonalds. You can have those jobs India.

    http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]
  • > 'Sunnyvale, You Have a Problem'
    >
    >'Growth is expected as factories become more computerized and remote services expand to include controlling plant temperatures from afar and even monitoring who enters and exits the premises. Theoretically,' says Azim Premji, chairman and founder of India outsourcing company Wipro Ltd., 'anything on a network can be managed remotely from India.'"

    "Practically", say several million skript kiddies, crackers, and Slashdotters, "anything on a network that can be ma

    • Well, it's true that a lot of places I've seen use SNMP v1 or v2, which aren't particularly secure, but avoid using SNMP v3, which is. No company I've worked for has the skillbase to install IPSec, never mind direct their system health and maintenance traffic over it. You're right that a few thousand miles is a bit of a distance to run to reboot a server - although they do have a five-year-old who would probably be willing to give it a try. (There's a very young kid there who can apparently sprint double ma

      • Re:You reckon? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by univgeek ( 442857 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @08:58PM (#15362560)
        As an Indian, trying to work out some remote management stuff, I'd say you're mostly right on the IPSec part - which is why we're using OpenVPN site-to-site tunnels. Much easier to setup and ensure security.

        And even though we're in India, we've heard of ssh, and OpenSSH. We've even heard of OpenBSD, cue *shock*, *horror*.

        Managing things over the VPN --> no DMZ accessible login services (other than ssh, openVPN).

        RRD and SNMP would be stored locally on-site. The only time it would get to us would be when we actually need to check something. So no, the bandwidth usage is not going to be that high.

        And we don't send passwords via plain-text email, we either call the passwords in through the phone or since we're in through the VPN anyway, setup local secure communication and use that.

        Seriously, we're not idiots, we read /., we know what technologies are available, and we're not afraid of using those technologies.

        Next step is Xen and virtualisation for some of what we do. Oh, I'm in an Indian startup, and we're trying to mainly target the Indian market. Any spill-over into the American/European market will be additional revenue. Also, given the cost structures we are targetting here, there will be no company in the US which can compete with us - on cost. And whatever is done technologically, it will take us but 6 months to catch up. Assuming of course we haven't done it already.

        Have fun!
  • The megacorp where I work recently outsourced netadmin to a location in Asia. The results are _horrible_! Incredibly bureaucractic and slow. Two weeks for a simple DNS change. Internal firewalls that go up and down with the sun.

    In one word: DON'T! Users don't much like Asian tech support. And it isn't that much worse. Higher level stuff truly _is_ worse.

  • What a quote (Score:2, Insightful)

    by _PimpDaddy7_ ( 415866 )
    "Theoretically," says Azim Premji, chairman and founder of India outsourcing company Wipro Ltd., "anything on a network can be managed remotely from India."

    Oh really? I learned a LOT of theory based ideas in school, but once I entered the working world, the REAL world, things were vastly different.

  • Ouch (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Tuna_Shooter ( 591794 )
    Who in their right mind would do this other than a bean counter ???? I work in this shit every day and am sick and tired of dealing with offshore data-admin-development centers. I call and speak with "Bob" and tell him i need a restore of a local GMP server .... and yet as always its a big friggin hassle...and never gets done properly .... ack.... i need to grow crops or paint houses for a living....this ain't working..... but it never ceases to amaze me the idiots that think this is a "good" idea

    • Re:Ouch (Score:4, Informative)

      by LunaticTippy ( 872397 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @04:26PM (#15361062)
      I don't think anyone thinks it's beneficial for the company.

      It's beneficial for the exec doing the offshoring: lower costs this financial quarter = nice bonus and a better offer from another company.

      I've seen this kind of thing over and over, and it usually benefits one person.

      • I am tired of this race to the bottom. IT is not suffering like manufacturing, but its all the relentless drive to cut costs a little more to drive up quarterly numbers. Long term planning? Too expensive. R&D? Too expensive. Local network admins? Too expensive.

        Four million dollar bonus for Hector Ruiz...? hmmm...

        This is all going to bite them in the ass in the end because the jobs being cut are salaries that go into the us consumer economy, which pays for AMD servers in the end.

    • Re:Ouch (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Amouth ( 879122 )
      every time i call some tech line and they say their name is bob or chris or dave it tell them to stop lieing to me .. and ask them what their real name is.. Usually they tell me or they hang up

  • Who next? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18, 2006 @04:12PM (#15360958)
    I was talking with a middle manager for a European cell phone company the other month. She was telling me that production was in China, most of support was in China, and they were moving R&D to China as well because by that point the Chinese engineer knew where that particular technology was going. So I said, "Basically you're a subsidiary of a Chinese company then". She told me that it was the other way around, and we argued about it for a while. What I found interesting is that the company had basically no product-line positions left, all they were hiring was sales and marketing.

    • As the "lower" positions move (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Colin Smith ( 2679 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @05:12PM (#15361403)
      The middle and upper levels of management will follow because frankly, distance does matter, despite what Wipro think. Eventually they will be wholly Chinese companies owned by foreign shareholders. I don't really have a problem with this, it pushes the chinese economy up, makes them more expensive.

      It'll level out, the important thing is to allow the currencies to float freely, which isn't happening at the moment. That's what you should be complaining about to your MP/representative.

       

  • Oh this should go well.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Nijika ( 525558 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @04:13PM (#15360971) Homepage Journal
    You can hardly get good managed services when the dude is beside the boxes, good luck with that remote hooha. Also, as others have pointed out if the network is truly down down down, they're powerless.
    • Also, as others have pointed out if the network is truly down down down, they're powerless.

      nah, not really true on REAL networks.

      all networks I've managed or designed had console connections (ttys) and a term server to connect to them. yes, you NEED that. what are you going to do when you do an 'ifconfig down' on the line you just came in on? that's one clear reason why you need 2 connections; and one is usually a CLI ascii line, for emergency use.

    • >>You can hardly get good managed services when the dude is beside the boxes

      When you have to pay an entry-level tech $30k per year, service will suck. You could hire a CCIE/whatever uber MS cert for less than that in India.

      >>Also, as others have pointed out if the network is truly down down down, they're powerless.

      Just not true. You get good network diagrams and flowcharts. When something breaks, you call some network monitoring tech at the datacenter and tell him to reboot server 2835-1. Or

  • Outsourcing to China (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AchilleTalon ( 540925 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @04:21PM (#15361020) Homepage
    Infosys, a Indian outsourcing company is itself outsourcing in China since they are having some problems to find enough skills in India at the right price to maintain lowest price deals.

    China Threatens Inda Eminence [wired.com]

    • Infosys, a Indian outsourcing company is itself outsourcing in China since they are having some problems to find enough skills in India at the right price to maintain lowest price deals.

      So if they outsource to China, whom does China outsource to? Wisconsin?

      And then they outsource to Taiwan...

      If it keeps up, any company using the service would have a beastly time determining exactly where their employees are.
    • Got a source newer than 2001?
  • 1. Local service is better for reason X,Y,Z

    2. Remote service is better...

    It all depends how much you value local service.

    While I believe going to offshore-whatever the vast majority of the time negatively impacts a company's bottom line, the PHB who dreamed up the scheme to go offshore dodges blame because:

    1. Good service? Bad service? Who cares! Offshore is cheaper.
    2. Most consumers happily trade today's low price for tomorrow's customer service nightmare.

    A good sysadmin has to stay out of firing range
    • I would think a *nix sysadmin would be first on the chopping block since everything can be remotely managed pretty easily. Windows is getting there with Monad and all that jazz but a lot of infrastructure already exists for it.

      It is quite odd how corporate world of today doesn't understand the difference between soft and hard dollars. Screwing up quality of service costs real money, its just harder to quantify so they can hide their performance better.

      Personally I think your infrastructure you want to ke

  • I work for a very large international company that does network monitoring for large enterprise clients. We monitor from Toronto, Boulder, Rochester and Bangalore. The support we get from the group in India is no worse that the support that is delivered from North America.

    As long as we're not using Tivoli, everything is fine.

    • Re:Bangalore or Rochester. What's the difference? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kpharmer ( 452893 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @05:14PM (#15361420)
      > I work for a very large international company that does network monitoring for large enterprise clients.
      > We monitor from Toronto, Boulder, Rochester and Bangalore. The support we get from the group in India
      > is no worse that the support that is delivered from North America.

      I've seen the same - when the company in the US insists on hiring only low-dollar employees. Then the work out of the US is pretty much the same as what you'd get from India. Simply because highly experienced (> 5-10 years) Indian technologies are so rare.

      Of course, a company *could* just follow the wisdom from the Mythical Man Month (published when? 1966?) in which the author (project manager for OS development on first mainframe) stated that there was a 7:1 difference in productivity between best & mediocre developers. Since then Gates stated he thought more sophisticated technology has increased the ratio to 100:1.

      But lets assume the more conservative number of 7:1:
          - so for about 50% additional cost (higher salary), you can get 600% additional productivity
          - so the work being done by a team of 100 mediocre system & network admins could probably be perform by 15 really sharp engineers (~80% savings)
          - so the cost savings of just moving to available sharp engineers in the US would exceed the cost savings of shipping work to India (which is now often calculated at merely 25-50% savings best case)

      But that would require insightful management - capable of learning from well established lessons of 40 years ago. Kind of a hopeless proposition at some companies. And apparently the 7:1 difference in productivity doesn't apply to managment. Aha, that's the ticket - outsource the low-skilled management!
      • But that would require insightful management - capable of learning from well established lessons of 40 years ago. Kind of a hopeless proposition at some companies. And apparently the 7:1 difference in productivity doesn't apply to managment. Aha, that's the ticket - outsource the low-skilled management!

        The 7:1 ratio does apply to management, but as usual only about 5% of management is actually skilled at managing just as most software developers aren't so good at, or even care about, developing software. So

  • Is this really the most cost effective management? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @04:24PM (#15361047)
    'Theoretically,' says Azim Premji, chairman and founder of India outsourcing company Wipro Ltd., 'anything on a network can be managed remotely from India.'

    Theoretically, anything on a network that can be managed remotely from India can also be managed by an expert system running on a CPU on that network... without the added expense of long distance communication and employees, and without the added failure modes of having your international links go down. Plus, the programming for the expert system should be around the same magnitude of difficulty as writing the scripts for the Indians to follow, and anything either one of them doesn't recognize is going to get escalated to a higher-up anyway. So why is outsourcing network management to a person in another country a big win over outsourcing to a machine? Neither one of them is capable of pushing the damn reset button!

  • Accountability (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Ponga ( 934481 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @04:25PM (#15361053)
    Have you ever noticed that you get a WORSE level of service over the phone (or otherwise remotely) than in person? Sure you have! Here is the reason: There exists LESS accountability.
    For exmaple, when I have the ability to drive down the street and GET IN TO SOMEONES FACE if I am not satisfied with a product or service, you know what? I tend to get better service!
    Thats what network management is, a service.
    Any manager with half a brain would not do this. They would realize that (as other /. posters have pointed out), HARDWARE fails too.
    Lesson; you need good local people!! Always have, always will.
    • Personally, I thing not having face time might be a good thing. I managed a small network (only 400ish workstations and a handfull of servers) that was distributed over a large area. We had a Cisco 7500 in the datacenter and Cisco 2500s at the customer locations. It was mostly linked via T-1s and some Frame Relay. The customer locations had a Cisco 1900 or 2900 switch and CAT-V distributed to the desktops. All the Cisco kit and the WinNT workstations had SNMP installed and enabled. All the desktops ha
  • Please have the tireless generosity to note that all my future meta-moderation and precocious-buttock repartee will henceforth be conveyed to your worthy consideration by "Smitty" and "Pete" in Bangalore.

  • Theoretically... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anne Thwacks ( 531696 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @04:27PM (#15361078)
    Theoretically...

    All your corporate secrets can be sold on the internet to the highest bidder.

    Of course, some businesses don't need security, and don't give a stuff about the security of their employees records. So they needn't worry about their corporate data being accessible to anyone with a packet sniffer and some open source decryption software. And anyway, the American government has probably already collected and leaked their secrets, and the UK government is probably passing a law at this very moment requiring all secrets everywhere to be held on a database in Novosibirsk (sp?) on a computer owned by hackers.ru (but with Tony Blair having your GPG key for safety).

    Thinks... Maybe I should not mix the coffee with brandy)

  • For some, not for everyone (Score:3, Insightful)

    by saifrc ( 967681 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @04:30PM (#15361099)
    This is a good idea for some companies, and a bad idea for some companies. Don't be so quick to assume that every company that implements such a program is instantly going to have all their systems go down in flames. Some companies will have good experiences, and some may have bad experiences. We're seeing comments in both directions in this very discussion thread.

    I'm sure that companies that outsource their network administration have an emergency lifeline in case of severe problems. It would probably be most cost-effective to have your main network administration in India, but have a local company (which contracts its services to multiple companies) only for problems that require a physical presence.

    However, if your company's system experiences truly earth-shattering complications on a regular basis, maybe you ought to be outsourcing your network administration to Indian professionals who offer a tenfold talent-per-dollar increase over your existing resources. If nothing else, it's a better value for the 300 days out of the year when all the servers need is some remote babysitting.
    • I have a friend who had such a contract.

      They had nice service penalties for bad service.

      Then came the day that all technicians were busy fixing things at other companies and so the service company just paid them the penalty and said they would send out a tech when one became available. It was a couple days later. It cost them a couple hundred grand in those two days and they were lucky at that.

      If the failure had been around tax time, the service agreement fines they had with their own customers for failur

  • Brilliant! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HangingChad ( 677530 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @04:33PM (#15361115) Homepage
    It's not bad enough to ship data on millions of Americans to places with vastly different privacy regulations, now we're going to open up our networks and let them manage desktops and net ops. Match up your surfing habits, personnel data, credit card purchases and medical history. Just think of the coorelation fun they could have with all that data.

    This is freaking IN-SANE! These people are not all our friends and assumes we will always be allies. Imagine the opening shot in a future conflict being data networks and phones at thousands of businesses shutting down at once. All your web searches being re-routed because the corporate fucktards at Bellsouth decided to save a few pennies letting Indian support centers handle large chunks of their network maintenance.

    I'm not saying Indian admins are reckless or incompetent. I'm saying that it's a bad idea to turn over too much control of our information resources over to a foreign country, just like it's a bad idea to depend on a fragile line of oil tankers connecting us to a bunch of wild-eyed goat herders for our transportation fuel and trusting the Chinese and Koreans with all our manufacturing capability. If push comes to shove they'll do what their government tells them to do. This is all going to come around to bite us in the ass one of these days.

    • Could'nt have said it better !!!! I was pissed when i first posted my earlier comment after spending all of today on the phone with our overseas support group. But you post is a little more to the point than mine. !! Kudos !!!!!
  • It all seemed so simple. The CIA needed to know the extent of outsourcing to India so they began psying on them. They got to much information which they outsourced to a 3rd party contractor to deal with. The contractor wasn't quite up to the task so they in turn shipped it off to India. Which meant that all the data coming inw as then collected and sent out only to come back in. And thus was a crippling blow dealt to both the outsourcing movement and the CIA in the same day!

    Hey, it could happen!

  • You can certainly manage a network remotely... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by biggles2k ( 559598 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @04:40PM (#15361179) Homepage
    But it's much tougher--if not downright impossible--to remotely improve that network.

    Organizations who are interested in outsourcing are also generally interested in growing their business; and when they grow, so does their infrastructure, including their networks, both in size and complexity. Expanding a network involves a tremendous number of physical resources and processes, including obtaining and installing cable, routers, servers, software, etc. Trust me, you want to have a knowledgeable network staff *on-site* to coordinate such a movement. I suppose that someone across the ocean could simply call up contractors to install all of this stuff, but the cost in time and efficiency, especially during the troubleshooting phase, would be enormous.

    If your company wishes to maintain a stagnant network--one that can't adapt to the growth of their company; then by all means, outsource all your network management. Just hope your hardware never breaks.

  • I've worked with WIPRO folks before (Score:5, Insightful)

    by djh101010 ( 656795 ) * on Thursday May 18, 2006 @04:42PM (#15361199) Homepage Journal
    It's been about 5 years so my experience isn't current, but unless they've suddenly become highly trained, clueful, and motivated, I can't see this being any more successful than the other failed outsourcing to India attempts. The software developers over there working on our projects ignored requirements, standards, and schedules. They were hard to communicate with (culturally _and_ linguistically), and timing was of course always delayed because they're not working when you need to talk to them.

    So, of course, they're cheaper, and people will go with them. Eventually they'll either fail, or get smart, and need someone local. By then they'll hire whoever India is outsourcing _their_ stuff to. There's whole continents we haven't started to do this with, yet.

  • Hmm... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by dwalsh ( 87765 )
    Question: What do you do when the network goes down?

  • Great idea (Score:4, Funny)

    by DrSkwid ( 118965 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @04:49PM (#15361260) Journal
    I like to put my vital infrastructure in the place most likely to be involved in a nuclear war this decade.

    Got a toll free number ?

  • Globalisation is allmost once around by now (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Thursday May 18, 2006 @04:53PM (#15361284)
    I wouldn't panic to much. Globalisation is allmost once around the globe by now. It only takes so long for countries to arrive at a simular level as others. Especially when both are racing for the true bottom line. The ones from the top and the others from the bottom. Ten years ago Taiwan was the lowest bidder in the bicyce business. Now their luxury and the bikes are built in vietnam. Not before long Gary Fisher will have a team welding somewhere in the US again.

    Do what's fun. Do it good. Tell people about it. The rest just happens. Meanwhile you can offer writing procedures for network admining for outsourced admin services. At a more specialized rate that is.

  • Hmm (Score:2)

    by GmAz ( 916505 )
    From the comments I read, most everyone is pointing to the security point or the hardware failure point. Those are very very good points, but what about the fact that they are TAKING AMERICAN JOBS AND GIVING THEM TO OTHER COUNTRIES!!!
  • ... this story is sooooo 2003! ... or was that 2002?

  • What about... (Score:3, Funny)

    by gentlemen_loser ( 817960 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @05:02PM (#15361348) Homepage
    HR and accounting? I mean seriously, what is so "special" about IT that makes it the most frequently outsourced field. There is no technical reason that the bean counters and HR monkeys could not be outsourced just as easily.

  • I hear a lot of people talk about local vs remote (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @05:05PM (#15361370) Journal
    The problem being that how do you get good system management when the admin is india and the machine is here.

    This is an intelligence test people. If you do not get the next step that is the obvious solution to managers who came up with the idea of outsourcing then congrats. You are an idiot.

    The solution to the problems that arise when you outsource the management of your non-outsourced systems? Outsource the systems.

    TADA!

    Why not? They are outsourcing everything else aren't they?

    And don't think outsourcing is anything new either. How many of you work in companies that have their own cantina's. Used to be a member of the company meaning they had heart for the business and were for instance willing to work overtime along with the other workers.

    Been outsourced to special companies meaning nowadays it is all the same generic crap with zero attention to the specific needs of the company. Like for instance making the cooking equipment available to people having to work the nightshift.

    Offcourse now everyone is crying because it is their job that is going away. If you didn't protest when the thee lady was outsourced then don't expect anyone to protest because your job is going away.

  • ..move everything overseas and quit having me subsidize your business via the security the United States provides (via it's legal system, police, military, etc infrastructure). I'm getting tired of paying taxes to subsidize businesses that won't provide I or my countrymen jobs. There's a reason it costs less to outsource, and it's not because we're all a bunch of lazy gluttons in the U.S. Good riddance.

  • Title just off by one word! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Maxo-Texas ( 864189 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @05:12PM (#15361405)
    When we see a headline titled "Management outsourced to India" then we will finally see some kind of pressure put to stop this.

    But seriously, why wouldn't a 30k per year, indian masters in business administration manager be able to manage just as effectively as a 4 million dollar per year manager (and hey- he'd have better contacts with the new movers and shakers).

  • Being the buzzword that it is (and the role I work in) pretty much nixes having the network administered in India.
    Having someone on the inside can get a fair grasp of what's fallen over. Your main gate goes down, and if you're on the outside, it could be a gateway falling over, or the whole place has gone up in smoke.
    Which plan do you put in action the second things happen? Who knows where all the latest places the switches, routers, servers, power lines, gas lines and so on are?
    Who knows the users and te
  • Funnily enough, this last week I had a server that was causing problems shipped to my house so I could do setup and testing effectively. Once I've finished soak testing in a day or so, it'll be shipped back to its home for the local network guy to plug it in.

    Sometimes there's just no substitute for locality.

  • Idia's too expensive, use Russians. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by twitter ( 104583 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @10:34PM (#15363035) Homepage Journal
    While many executives at GE, NBC and Microsoft have been moving in this direction, I think there are some serious flaws with continued Indian outsourcing. Russians are cheaper and better suited for the work proposed.

    After many decades of English subjug^H^H^H^H partnership with India, Indians are far to expensive and skilled for operations work. It's much better to use such an well known and educated work force for research and development [gecareers.com]. What a crime it would be to make PhDs push buttons and monitor mind numbing panels for a living. It would be better for them to stay home like their US counterparts, and they will have to if they keep get much more expensive.

    For operations work, we need the educated and inexpensive discipline that can be found in all the former Soviet territories. The people who built and named the Kurks [wikipedia.org] obviously have the discipline and razor sharp focus demanded for the job. Moreover there's great economic need for such a thing. I hear there are still many people displaced and unemployed by the Chernobyl dissaster [wikipedia.org]. Remote operations of Nuclear power plants is just the break they need. Due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, they are cheaper than the happily employed people who live next to you. Just think of the savings and how much more money people like Neutron Jack deserve [wikipedia.org]. Their compensation [thesmokinggun.com] is hardly enough [bcheights.com] for all the hard exercise they get. Expect the paper value of such forward looking companies as GE, NBC and Microsoft to skyrocket.

    Ten years ago, I read a joke but some people must have taken it litterally. The joke was, a clever executive noticed the value of their company increased 10% every time they fired five percent of their workforce. The bold executive soon got into a boasting contest with others. Everyone was fired and the Dow hit 10,000. Oh yeah, well just own all the ideas other people come up with and implement that will work.

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