freeversing

Prelude, if you will, my course of study at the University of Portland drifted (in true system administrative style), from Economics to Business Finance, to the eventual Computer Science, right back to Economics at Portland State University.

Network Redux creates system administrators. And to adequately define the system administrator:

Paramount — Jack of all trades

Network Administration – Layer 2/3/4 administration on whatever platform or IOS thrown our way. This doesn’t mean dictionary style memorizing of syntax, mind you, the ability to navigate a networked device, manage its purpose and instruct it via command line accordingly is what we are referencing.

Hardware Administration – Build, rack, cable, replace parts — know thy chassis. This starts somewhere at the age of 10-12 when you are building your first PC from newegg/mwave parts. Hardware administration goes well beyond a 1/2/3/4U chassis, it delves into any component capable of fitting into a Rack (and currently this would include a Mac Mini or Mac Pro per discussions with Adium )

Cabling – Crimp some cables, and physically route them, intelligently. A sign of great cable management is the ability to introduce a component to the network without having to undo all work which has been previously done. Ladders are helpful but not your best friend. Getting up close and personal with the doors off is a true testament to solid cabling infrastructure.

Storage — DAS (NFS Host), iSCSI, FC, dabble in them all, professionalize in one or two. Storage + Virtualization is going to be the name of the game as time progresses, start by learning your RAID and disk recovery fundamentals and go from there.

Virtualization — Just pick one. Mine has been Xen. I prefer para-virtualized environments, more specifically the Xen implementation — there are pros and cons to every solution out there.

Operating System — Personally, I’ve worked in both Windows and Unix environments. A system administrator doesn’t have the benefit of picking or choosing his game. Interchangeable parts ARE the name of the game. Your unisex translation is Samba, your unfortunate must know is Active Directory and Unified Messaging, your fortunate savior is any system ending in NUX. Do not rely on a GUI unless you are linux administrator forced to work within the confines of an AD environment. Even then, 2007 features such as those from Exchange are breeding command line atmospheres which will look second nature to your avid Unix administrator (aside from the other nuisances associated).

Programming — You made it to 300 level computer science, pat yourself on the back. You aren’t a programmer and you never will be. Your tools are bash, Perl, Python, PHP (if you’ve had too much wine that evening) and Ruby. Your skills should allow you to write 10-15 lines of code in either language to accomplish a task such as cleaning up the mess the Windows Administrator left when he discovered a shell.

Power — Understanding that 80% rule is imperative, defining your own 65% rule is even better. This is an area which has kept me up late at night, let the system administrator determine his path of pursuit in this arena whether that be DC/AC or all worlds. Be safe, and read the documentation and always ask for help from an electrician (you are not an electrician!).

Community — Your knowledge is power, you share this knowledge with others. You are an expert in 1-2 fields. You are not an expert in all fields which you work, though you would have some convinced otherwise. Your community is your base for learning, sharing and generally having a good time.

Apple — At this point in your career you’ve likely had (haven’t we all) a “primary” linux desktop soon to be replaced by OSX. Fear not, OSX is the system administration OS if there ever was one. Gorgeous UI allowing you to interface with those web applications necessary to complete day to day tasks, with an underlying BSD sandbox where Unix tools are abundant and plentiful.

What is wonderful about the system administrative role is that there are dozens of sub categories per topic described. Every sysadmin picks his own category for expertise and runs with it.

The most important point I would stress to the system admins reading this article, do not stress about what you do not know. Strengthen what you do know, and spend time on those areas you find weakest. Your strength as a sysadmin sits in a few areas of administration where you know the application better than the developer’s themselves — you know the infrastructure down to every individual cable.

System Administration is a fine pursuit for any talented technician or software engineer. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is where the very best stand out.