Lots of sloppy thinking in this piece... for one, how many retiring Boomers are even working in a data center? When was the last time you met a technical person at a data center who was over 50?
Second, once the physical infrastructure is connected and powered up, you can manage it from anywhere.
Honda built a big DC in Longmont, Colorado (http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2008/09/16/honda... ) - it has IIRC 8 full time employees, all the other administrative tasks are located elsewhere. If they wanted they could manage it from Japan.
One could also look at employee dissatisfaction as an advantage as well - if you're a company looking to hire lots of people and you can appear to keep people more satisfied than their old employers. High dissatisfaction should make finding interested candidates easier :)
Kind of a fluff piece that doesn't mention the reason nearly 40% are dissatisfied and looking. Because they feel they are being treated as human automation, and their workplace is setup so that their only option for change is a complete change.
This is a completely different than both the startup model and also agile workplaces where employees contribute significantly to the direction their company takes.
It is also reflective of the difference between a static business model found in the data center and the dynamic business models of companies actively involved in web development.
In former is predicated on providing a guaranteed stable environment, the latter an interactive collaborative model where you are building new things (using the crucial resources provided by the former.)
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 19.3 ms ] threadSecond, once the physical infrastructure is connected and powered up, you can manage it from anywhere.
Honda built a big DC in Longmont, Colorado (http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2008/09/16/honda... ) - it has IIRC 8 full time employees, all the other administrative tasks are located elsewhere. If they wanted they could manage it from Japan.
This is a completely different than both the startup model and also agile workplaces where employees contribute significantly to the direction their company takes.
It is also reflective of the difference between a static business model found in the data center and the dynamic business models of companies actively involved in web development.
In former is predicated on providing a guaranteed stable environment, the latter an interactive collaborative model where you are building new things (using the crucial resources provided by the former.)
edit: looks like the link got killed, which is understandable since my first thought was it was one of the more vapid articles I've seen on HN: http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2011/01/is-a-data-cen...