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Half of U.S. I.T. Operations Jobs to Vanish

Posted by samzenpus on from the learn-a-trade dept.

Ant writes "A MacCentral article says Gartner, Inc. researchers believe that as many as 50 percent of the IT operational jobs in the U.S. could disappear over the next two decades because of improvements in data center technologies. Donna Scott, a Gartner analyst, said IT workers face a situation similar to that in the manufacturing field, which has lost jobs over the past several decades as automation has improved. Similarly, standardization of IT infrastructure, applications and processes will lead to productivity improvements and a major shift in skill needs, she said."

2 of 625 comments (clear)

  1. missing the point... by nxs212 · · Score: 3, Informative

    A lot of you are missing the point - by operations they mean people who don't know anything about the business side of things. They only know how to build a server and install vendor's or in-house software. Thanks to automation (scripted and imaged installed), companies don't need to have droves of installers, troubleshooters, tape swappers and hardware builders)
    Need a server built? Pop a card into a blade system (HP) that can hold more than a dozen of them, plug into the network, image it and you are done. One of them is not behaving right because of corrupt software? Re-image it in 20 mins. HW problems? Send card back to manufacturer or throw it out.
    Majority of IT people 20 years from now will need to understand company's processes, business logic and dataflow. Knowing what will be affected by the latest software upgrade will be more important than knowing how to install it. Does the new patch modify the database? Was its schema or stored procedured and functions affected? What's the bottom line? Are calculations now incorrect and will it impact your company's billing or payment cycle? Will you lose clients', patients' or customer's history records by changing the system? Future admins, (today's architects) will need to know all of this.
    The best and most recent catastrophic example of failure that resulted (or helped) in a sale of the company is the Local Number Portability upgrade at AT&T Wireless. If you have time, look it up.

  2. Of course. It's like "stationary engineering" by Animats · · Score: 4, Informative
    Once upon a time, around 1900 or so, "stationary engineering" was a hot high-tech field. Somebody had to run the big steam engines running. Or you could become a millwright, and help set up machinery in factories.

    There are still stationary engineers. There are still millwrights. Not a lot of them, though. It's an skilled blue-collar job, often unionized, with a formal apprenticeship. There are exams and certificates.

    Being a system administrator is, fundamentally, the same kind of thing, with technology a century newer.