A little over a year ago, I blogged about the skills you need to be at the top of the systems administration job market. I realized that I left out one enormous factor that should have been glaringly obvious: virtualization.
Manufacturing went overseas, then software development, then call centers, then tax preparation. (The privacy issues alone are mind-blowing!) But I thought that desktop and server technicians would always be required where the hardware is physically located. I was wrong. You might need someone to show up in person to swap out parts or to flip an occasional switch, but that’s relatively rare and simpler than a McJob. Even a republocrat could do it. With today’s emerging virtualization and remote administration technologies, even desktop support will soon be packing up and moving to Pakistan.
If you want to still be employed as a systems administrator in five or ten years, then best bet seems to be in virtualization. Learn how to load a dvd image over an ip administration port, how to build and deploy virtual machine images, and how to remote control anything from anywhere. Maybe you can get a job managing the VDI servers at Homeland Security’s outsourced call center in Tblisi. You can even do it in your underwear from your apartment in Mom’s basement.
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