[knieveltech]

It's interesting to see all these cloud-based services being used in the real world but I hardly think this is the death knell of systems administration as a profession.

It would take a pretty major shift in attitudes for medium and large companies to start trusting vendors with the kind of data we're talking about here.

[jacques_chester]

I don't see why it's totally impossible. Outsourcing of archive management has been going on for decades at this point.

[knieveltech]

Depends on your archive. There is literally zero chance a clinical research organization (for example) would outsource any aspect of data collection, storage or retrieval. Regardless of what systems where used there's simply no way you could walk into a boardroom of client pharama execs and say with a straight face you had the level of control over the process required to meet their needs.

[danenania]

"literally zero chance"? Come on now...

I've only worked on ~10 paid development gigs and one of the first ones was a pharma research company who hired my team to create an interface for a truckload of sensitive data after nothing more than a phone call and a quick NDA. This pattern has continued in a few subsequent projects, often with no NDA or contract whatsoever.

A great many companies stop caring about privacy the second they can make or save a few bucks, questionable legality or ethics notwithstanding one bit. Businesses in general are fortunate that MOST software engineers seem to be honest and good people, because they regularly hand over the keys to the castle, often without even realizing it or considering the potential implications at all, and to be honest I'm actually quite glad it works this way. For whatever reason, we as a profession have apparently been deemed highly trustworthy, and I much prefer this situation with all its risks to a world of bulletproof firewalls and bureaucratic red tape.

[knieveltech]

I'm serious. Between government data retention regulations and hyper-paranoid client pharmaco company execs the odds of a CRO putting their data out on the cloud are functionally nil. This may change one day but that's the reality today. We're talking the kinds of shops that are still signing million dollar deals with IBM reps to provide in-house server infrastructure.

There's a world of difference between hiring contractors to come in and develop in-house systems and betting the farm on a 3rd party vendor.

[danenania]

Point taken, but you shouldn't be so quick with the 'never gonna happen' proclamations. Technology moves fast. There are many undisputed benefits to the cloud model. Yes, there are serious drawbacks too, especially for certain industries, but where you see insurmountable obstacles, others will see business opportunities.

[thyrsus]

A quick Google news search of "health data outsource india" shows that the outsourcers think they have something more than a zero chance.