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If you've ever spun up a VM rather than unboxing and configuring a physical server, you have the visible proof that you seek. If you've ever used Chef/Puppet/An

If you've ever spun up a VM rather than unboxing and configuring a physical server, you have the visible proof that you seek. If you've ever used Chef/Puppet/Ansible to configure X number of machines rather than configuring each one by hand, you have the visible proof you seek. And that's before getting in to the recommendations and optimizations that AI/ML can offer... it's just the old fashioned AI/ML, MBA's with a spreadsheet, deciding they don't need all those unboxers/configurers anymore.

thewhitetulip 9y ago
This thread is not about web hosting companies. Chef did not replace jobs in the Indian IT sector, it just made it easier to deploy things. We need to separate our discussion points. I know that tooling is improving considerably, and rightly so, but that doesn't mean that IT companies will now be downsizing to 10 because of chef or puppet.
- pjmorris 9y ago
  You're saying that it isn't reasonable to imagine that companies might decide to do their own virtual infrastructure rather than hiring Indian IT firms to build infrastructure for them? I will keep my own counsel on that.
  - thewhitetulip 9y ago
    I am not saying anything of that sort, all I am saying is that layoffs are not happening because of "automation and AI". If a company wants an inhouse dev team they'd do so without "automation and AI", the thing is, they don't and that's why enterprise software companies are formed. Sure, I can bake my own bread, grow my own vegetables, mine coal for electricity myself, but I don't. I do what I do best and leave the other stuff to others. It is upto companies to decide if they want to build infra for them.
- giobox 9y ago
  Agreed. I'm not going to pretend or claim I understand the market forces leading to these firms downsizing, but I too find the idea of tooling like Chef and Puppet causing a measurable downturn in staff numbers at the big Indian IT firms hard to believe. Whilst DevOps automation tools like Chef/Puppet/Ansible/Whatever have undoubtedly increased in popularity, very often they are just used as nicer ways to achieve the same thing IT professionals have been doing forever in shell scripts or similar. This is purely speculation, but I wouldn't at all be surprised if US companies are simply less interested in hiring Indian outsource firms given the current climate and uncertainty around the future of work visas in the US. It's not hard to imagine such companies indicating they will spend less with these firms for the foreseeable future. I don't think anyone believes eventual reform of the H1B visa, the lifeblood of Indian IT firms in their biggest market, is going to be good for the Wipros of the world.
  - thewhitetulip 9y ago
    > Whilst DevOps automation tools like Chef/Puppet/Ansible/Whatever have undoubtedly increased in popularity, very often they are just used as nicer ways to achieve the same thing IT professionals have been doing forever in shell scripts or similar. Exactly! The mgmt of the above stated firms sucks, they had no vision or a sense of direction, they make bad decisions and when they are asked questions like Sikka (infosys CEO was asked) Why do you earn millions per year and why do you take 50+% hike and still are unable to deliver then the hide behind "automation and AI" :) it is mediocre CEOs and C*Os and a lot of other folks which are causing this downturn plus investors too, Google "eliott management letter" to get an indepth real reason behind this wave of "layoffs due to automation and AI".
  - flukus 9y ago
    > Whilst DevOps automation tools like Chef/Puppet/Ansible/Whatever have undoubtedly increased in popularity, very often they are just used as nicer ways to achieve the same thing IT professionals have been doing forever in shell scripts or similar. You'd be surprised how many sys admins and especially developers have never written a shell script. One of our code tests is to write a simple grep clone, the results seem to indicate that none have ever used a command line. Nearly every submission seemed to think that you could only pass one "-x" (x the placeholder) switch to a command.

thewhitetulip 9y ago

This thread is not about web hosting companies. Chef did not replace jobs in the Indian IT sector, it just made it easier to deploy things. We need to separate our discussion points. I know that tooling is improving considerably, and rightly so, but that doesn't mean that IT companies will now be downsizing to 10 because of chef or puppet.

pjmorris 9y ago
You're saying that it isn't reasonable to imagine that companies might decide to do their own virtual infrastructure rather than hiring Indian IT firms to build infrastructure for them? I will keep my own counsel on that.
- thewhitetulip 9y ago
  I am not saying anything of that sort, all I am saying is that layoffs are not happening because of "automation and AI". If a company wants an inhouse dev team they'd do so without "automation and AI", the thing is, they don't and that's why enterprise software companies are formed. Sure, I can bake my own bread, grow my own vegetables, mine coal for electricity myself, but I don't. I do what I do best and leave the other stuff to others. It is upto companies to decide if they want to build infra for them.
giobox 9y ago
Agreed. I'm not going to pretend or claim I understand the market forces leading to these firms downsizing, but I too find the idea of tooling like Chef and Puppet causing a measurable downturn in staff numbers at the big Indian IT firms hard to believe. Whilst DevOps automation tools like Chef/Puppet/Ansible/Whatever have undoubtedly increased in popularity, very often they are just used as nicer ways to achieve the same thing IT professionals have been doing forever in shell scripts or similar. This is purely speculation, but I wouldn't at all be surprised if US companies are simply less interested in hiring Indian outsource firms given the current climate and uncertainty around the future of work visas in the US. It's not hard to imagine such companies indicating they will spend less with these firms for the foreseeable future. I don't think anyone believes eventual reform of the H1B visa, the lifeblood of Indian IT firms in their biggest market, is going to be good for the Wipros of the world.
- thewhitetulip 9y ago
  > Whilst DevOps automation tools like Chef/Puppet/Ansible/Whatever have undoubtedly increased in popularity, very often they are just used as nicer ways to achieve the same thing IT professionals have been doing forever in shell scripts or similar. Exactly! The mgmt of the above stated firms sucks, they had no vision or a sense of direction, they make bad decisions and when they are asked questions like Sikka (infosys CEO was asked) Why do you earn millions per year and why do you take 50+% hike and still are unable to deliver then the hide behind "automation and AI" :) it is mediocre CEOs and C*Os and a lot of other folks which are causing this downturn plus investors too, Google "eliott management letter" to get an indepth real reason behind this wave of "layoffs due to automation and AI".
- flukus 9y ago
  > Whilst DevOps automation tools like Chef/Puppet/Ansible/Whatever have undoubtedly increased in popularity, very often they are just used as nicer ways to achieve the same thing IT professionals have been doing forever in shell scripts or similar. You'd be surprised how many sys admins and especially developers have never written a shell script. One of our code tests is to write a simple grep clone, the results seem to indicate that none have ever used a command line. Nearly every submission seemed to think that you could only pass one "-x" (x the placeholder) switch to a command.