Companies looking to cut expenses should be careful that the cost saving programs will actually save money. While some operations can be effectively offshored, IT services such as Oracle DBA support are best outsourced to US based providers. Offshore IT operations carry a number of problems.
Hours of Operation
When your Oracle DBA support is located on the other side of the world, there is a significant problem coordinating operations with your business hours. Some companies provide negligible service during American business hours, responding to problem tickets only after a matter of days rather than immediately. Even those that claim to provide 24/7 service are in fact available only limited hours.
Admittedly, some offshore Oracle DBA support companies have learned the necessity of offering support during normal US business hours. However the problem is even if they have staff available, these people are working graveyard shift from their point of view. Can you really afford to trust your critical database operation to a bleary-eyed insomniac on his twelfth cup of coffee? You need people at the peak of their performance when your database needs attention.
Communication
Your contacts in an offshore Oracle DBA support company may speak fluent English, but you can't assume every technician with access to your database does. A misunderstood instruction could lead to a catastrophe for your database. However language barriers are not the most common source of miscommunication with offshore companies. Cultural misunderstandings are a more frequent source of problems.
Something as simple as the manner in which a request is phrased can lead to conflict. Differences in management philosophies, conflict resolution methods or task completion can turn minor problems into major crises. Language barriers can be overcome more easily than cultural differences. Language is more concrete and easier for most people to understand, but cross-cultural communication problems have their root in the fundamental way we view the world and are much more difficult to resolve.
Information Security
Security services offered by Oracle DBA support should include more than hacker or virus protection. Confidentiality of information is something American companies take for granted because we have an array of laws designed to protect business interests. Other countries have different laws, and many countries that offer a great deal of remote database service have extremely lax regulations governing information protection.
If your offshore DBA administrator sells your confidential company information to a competitor, do you have any legal recourse? Do laws prevent an administrator from simply publishing critical data on the internet? Are you prepared to review another country's laws to ensure your information is protected?
Many organisations decide that offshore Oracle DBA support offers far too many risks. The potential costs far outweigh the savings, which is why there is a growing movement to using US-based remote database administration.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment