Thread regarding Wells Fargo & Co. layoffs

Glad to see they are going with the cloud and exposing customer data to more risk of being exposed. Great customer service that is.

About as good as exposing data to overseas folks who would sell it in a minute to make a buck because how will the US prosecute them?

Amazing the bad decisions coming out of Chase…er, WF management.

If anyone was questioning the Dallas/Ashburn locations, I just saw a new job posting today for an data center electrical engineer and the locations are Dallas and Ashburn.. I think that solidifies where the new data centers will be. Look for yourself...

That's about cloud. And since many of us don't have the experience with the cloud, it makes sense to hire people who do or outsource.

@2gec+1bgLf2c3 - There are certain cities that are known as "cloud onramps" around the country where the infrastructure has been put in place specifically as pipelines to the major cloud providers (goog, msft, aws).

Dallas is one of the major cloud onramps in the US. It just validates the cloud strategy that much more that Dallas was selected.

Post ID: @1dmb+1bgLf2c3

"I have no idea why they chose Dallas over Tempe, but wonky decisions are way above my pay grade."

Cheaper electricity and there are plenty of other companies that have data centers there (Oracle just to name one) so the network infrastructure is in place. It's not an unreasonable decision I guess.

@1ydu+1bgLf2c3 One part of Tempe has already started to shut down over the next 18 months and the CIC data center is closing in 18 months, this was on one of PMac's AMA's. Shoreview will be one of the last to go probably in the 8 year range but work is already underway to start moving things away from Shoreview and into the new data centers when built.

Somewhere I saw a video might me Sauls ask me anything or all hands .. but Paul McEwen the new Infrastructure guy explained the cloud strategy and the data Center strategy that touches on this topic .. but yes fewer owned by WF - so major shift from current model..

I still have a hard time believing Shoreview and Tempe will be going away for many years. The ancient Hogan systems are a long way from being decommissioned.

@1ufc+1bgLf2c3, come on ding do-g, they are AWS copy cats, get lost loser!

@1dmb they're probably privately invested in the companies running/constructing the DC's in Dallas.

@1dmb+1bgLf2c3

Thank you very much for posting. You referenced info on a time frame but weren't very specific. Can you elaborate?

Was in that call, we are reducing from nine DC's down to 4 (2 in Dallas, 2 in Northern VA), and at a fairly quick pace based on the schedule in the link shared. It's all to support apps being in the cloud. I have no idea why they chose Dallas over Tempe, but wonky decisions are way above my pay grade.

I thought though that the DC's would still be ours, built from the ground up, and not outsourced, but maybe I misunderstood. Sucks for everyone supporting our current DC's.

Amazing they would go with another third party considering the cr---y service they have provided so far.

We are indeed managed by the incompetent or at least people with a financial agenda to do this. Kickbacks are a powerful incentive to do stupid sh!t. I saw it in the 2000s at another company and yes, they regretted it too.

Post ID: @1ley+1bgLf2c3

And therein lies the answer. Azure plus outsourcing will be the solution

@ixu "All existing ones will be empty in 8 -10 years."

Cassie Hill only took us 15 years to get rid of once everyone said it was being shut down "next year".

@OP is claiming that this bank is going to move from Tempe DC, which has been pretty darn reliable, to Texas which had a massive blackout due to a cold snap this year?

If that's the truth we are truly being managed by the incompetent.

Cloud baby! Scharf is on the board at Microsoft. He's drinking the kool-aid.

It's going to happen. Love or hate the new upper mgmt, change is under way and will continue to be. I wouldn't count on the past as any barometer of what's coming.

It will be managed by Google and Microsoft

they have no choice but to get rid of all the datacenters; those days are over; Federal govt warnings all over the country right now for cyber attacks

@ixu+1bgLf2c3

Thanks for posting. 8-10 is an eternity at this place right now, so that's good news for the employees that work at these DCs.

I'll just say when Wells Fargo talks about data centers being empty.. look at WEC. That was supposed to be going away 15+ years ago when it was Wachovia.

It never happened and we keep refreshing/adding infrastructure to WEC. Those making the decisions now are short timers and will not be around in a couple years. So the wind will blow in different directions over the next decade.

The only closest to sure thing at this moment is increased use of the cloud. One major security event and that could all change too.

I doubt the IT infrastructure staff will just be outsourced like that.

I think it's best to look at what Chase does, since the WFC leadership just wants to copy them.

Chase currently has a mix of data centers they own and collocation. They are moving heavily into the cloud including highly sensitive confidence information.

This is allowing them to reduce headcount and has been underway for 2 years now.

They had previously outsourced data information processing to IBM, but had problems with that so they scaled it back.

In the mid term, WF will probably start ramping up collocation to shed data centers. Cloud will obviously be a point of emphasis. But I'd also suspect they will be looking at solutions like what Zscaler offers to extend the internet boundaries into their perimeter security infrastructure. They have a pretty slick setup where corporations just have data pipelines to them, they bridge the security perimeter with the cloud providers. Remote users connect to ZScaler who manages the systems that handle authentication.

Saul has talked repeatedly about the data center strategy. there will be 2 new ones by 2024 in Dallas and Virginia. All existing ones will be empty in 8 -10 years. Eventually there will be 2 more in Dallas and Virginia.

All high level infrastructure tech mgrs had to complete a survey this week regarding what jobs could be outsourced and what needed to remain internal.

IBM or similar company. All internal employees will become IBM staff and continue supporting their infrastructure. It's a disaster and only done by companies who are desperate it always go wrong.

Well sure, but Dallas would have the same cost... probably more, unless other posters are saying that we're outsourcing it to someone that's in Dallas / DC. I suppose because specific cities were mentioned they meant things were going to be in-house. Frankly, if it's all outsourced, it doesn't matter what cities they are in.

@ymi+1bgLf2c3

San Antonio requires the capital expenditures to build out a data center. That would include all the fiber runs, power, cooling needed just to support the equipment. Might as well keep Tempe in that case.

What this move would do is allow Wells Fargo to ditch the building management, physical security, etc and hand that responsibility over to a data center collocation provider.

San Antonio makes much more sense than Dallas, and we already have a campus there that is ready made for one.

Ashburn, VA and Dallas are two of the top 3 data center collocation sites in the world. Dallas would be chosen over #2 Sillicon Valley due to greater costs.

This would be on the more midterm or longterm plans post 2023. Probably also spurred by the Shoreview disaster which looked horrible for IT. Though the blame really should be on the app teams as they set the requirements for infrastructure.

Infrastructure is seen as a big sinkhole for revenue. But the execs making these decisions never interacted with Rackspace or other datacenter providers. They suck and slow down projects immensely. It is all about perceived cost savings at this point that will become unrealized when some third party is managing the infrastructure.

Dallas / VA aren't currently DC locations, not one of the big ones anyway. This is interesting news. I'd heard rumors that things were happening in that part of the company but had not heard any details. Anyone else know more about this? And how far along are they in making this change? Any rumors on timing?

I got a call from some recruiter asking me to do an infra job here for like 12 months; im like that is obsolete, why do i want to go backwards; told him to get lost

This happened at Pacific Life feel free to search the layoff board.

It was introduced as something that may “impact” a few members per team and it was to eliminate the “busy work” so we could focus on more important business driving efforts.

Fast forward 18 months, EVERYONE was laid off unless you were transitioned to another group that was working on whatever shiny new object they were chasing VERY quickly your days were numbered.

The people who even delivered those canned speeches were laid off also. If you stop everything and got three AWS certifications and and a degree in artificial intelligence IT DOES NOT MATTER. They are doing this to eliminate your salary. Three other teams wanted to hire me but..... again they are doing this to eliminate your salary.

Please don’t do what we did and try to flex and show how talented you are it does not matter. It will take 6 months off your life for no benefit. We found out later on they secretly met with Accenture 2 years prior to the announcement who convinced them they should outsource the whole show and spent those savings on them instead.

yea it will go to Ashburn VA and in Dallas; they are both data center hubs; on east in VA, they have bo-b protection as near DC if some country tries to nuke the datacenters or some type of attack.
dallas, not really safer, but what id--t would put a data center in Minn?? hope they got fired.

Infra will be no more, it will be devops, eventually no datacenters only Cloud, that is endgame esp after that company let all those gas lines get put in jeoparady. Government put out an exec order, basically stating private company is not capable to handle these things alone, they lack skillsets and knowledge.

Start watching the news and you will know the agenda by the Federal Govenment.
Not to mention the internet will change to a blockchain infrastructure based interenet.

Years to come no more need for infrastructure or support resources. All will be in a devops + Security ci/cd pipelines.

They can get rid of CR people, Tech secretaries, and support personnel now.

So you're saying WF senior management is going head first into a half-baked, ill conceived, designed to fail strategy with little to no regard to how the impacts to operational needs are considered? So...more of the same ole same ole BAU? Very good.

Interesting. In a previous life we were called into a meeting and told that we now worked for IBM Global services. It was a bigger company than WF but they did it anyhow. Gets a lot of staff off the books and gives them someone else to blame contractually when things go south. Didn't pan out in the long run but it happens. I hope that's not the case here.

Some of those IT functions have been already. That’s why it takes two days or longer to fix a problem in the lower environments, you are involving a third party with no ambition to solve our problems that is affecting getting work done. They could care less.

To management I say, smooth move, ex lax!