Let's talk about Network/Systems Administration....

T

That Linux Guy

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 24, 2008
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I've been wanting to become, or at least get on the path leading to the position of a Network or Systems Administrator for almost 3 years now. I've google searched everything I can about it, I've talked with a few admins and others in similar IT fields, I've read books... I've even got a small Debian server going for my home network. I've already got a plan for certs and school, and I'm keen on what types of jobs are out there for getting into the field. I know what I want, and how to get there, so I'm not exactly asking for advice (though I'm all ears should you have any).

However, I can't seem to satisfy my craving for learning more about the job, and the people that do it every day. I've found a few terribly low-traffic and outdated forums on the topic, I've found a few other forums with a sub topic, but it's mostly just their problems. Maybe I haven't found what I'm looking for because I'm not looking for any specific info. I know the general tasks that most admins do every day, I know about working with hardware, both servers and desktops, I have fundamental understanding of networking... I don't know, I just want to hear what admins have to say about their job. Do you like it? Do you hate it? What tasks do you have to do? I know every company has a different name, and different responsibilities to go along with it, so I'm sure that there's a variety of daily items on your to-do list.

I just want to talk about being a SysAdmin and what it's like.

Anybody?
 
k1pp3r said:
Your the most underfunded, yelled at individual at a company, everyone wipes their crack with you.

but i enjoy it, no day is EVER the same.
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I think one of the most overlooked aspects of the job and is definitely part of the job is people skills.
Certainly the job environment is different for a lot of admins. But some of that can be managed by how good your communication and people skills are.

In order to get your foot in the door you're probably going to have to start with some entry level position in the computer field and work your way up.
 
Reeally it depends on the enviroment. A good one where nothing bad ever happens means you won't be noticed by anyone and you may be bored most of the time. A bad enviroment can leave you stressed out and you'll go through your day with more work than you can handle and every will be pissed off at you much of the time. In either case you will serve an uncarring master for pay that does not befit a person of your importance. IT work of any kind is about as thankless as it gets. For everyone 1 person that appreciates you, there are 40 that hate you and think you are worthless and lazy.
 
All I gotta say is learn the buddy buddy promotion system, the politics in IT is deep and runs far.

And IMO the single most important thing is passion, you have to have it. If you go in it for the money, you will burn out, I see this quite often. Take what you can get and work your way up the tree.
 
All good stuff guys.

I really think I have the passion part down. It's as if the more I read and think about servers, networking, and administration, the more I want to just do it!

I'm currently piecing an old rig from spare parts with plans to use it as a light duty server running everything I can get out of it. It's a PII and loud as hell though. I'm looking into a CPU/mainboard upgrade though. 2x 20Gb drives in mdadm RAID 1, running Debian Lenny.
 
Yup.

no budget, no respect, it's all part of the job. No one wants to talk to you unless there is a problem and then it's usually your fault for not foreseeing the fact that the boss' kid surfed porn all night and got the AntiVirus360 malware on his laptop... blah blah blah.

seriously though, education and certifications will go only so far.... what will really help you.... contacts... lots and lots of contacts in the IT field. If you generally start a job somewhere at an entry level position you'll get to know a few people, as you do work related stuff.... that will help you get to know other people, etc etc. I know a fair share of people in the Austin area and most of them have their jobs from a few higher up CTO's that they met a while back.

as you work on your contacts, you'll refine your people skillz and that will be your best attribute!
 
That Linux Guy said:
All good stuff guys.

I really think I have the passion part down. It's as if the more I read and think about servers, networking, and administration, the more I want to just do it!

I'm currently piecing an old rig from spare parts with plans to use it as a light duty server running everything I can get out of it. It's a PII and loud as hell though. I'm looking into a CPU/mainboard upgrade though. 2x 20Gb drives in mdadm RAID 1, running Debian Lenny.
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If you are the kind of guy that really enjoys spending free time to build a personal server just for the fun of it, I think you will fit in nicely. You have the passion.

As other posters have said you do need people skills in IT. I have seen some guys come in that really didn't try to be personable and preferred to be locked in the server room by themselves. They never have lasted long where I have worked. These guys were really smart and knew their stuff but there is more to IT then just being smart.

I really do like my job and I look forward to getting to work in the morning. After several years working in construction, foundries, restaurants, and etc. it really makes you appreciate a good job when you land it.

Where I work IT is appreciated but that may be because I work in the local gov sector. Or at least they seem to appreciate us :eek:
 
Private Citizen said:
If you are the kind of guy that really enjoys spending free time to build a personal server just for the fun of it, I think you will fit in nicely. You have the passion.

As other posters have said you do need people skills in IT. I have seen some guys come in that really didn't try to be personable and preferred to be locked in the server room by themselves. They never have lasted long where I have worked. These guys were really smart and knew their stuff but there is more to IT then just being smart.

I really do like my job and I look forward to getting to work in the morning. After several years working in construction, foundries, restaurants, and etc. it really makes you appreciate a good job when you land it.

Where I work IT is appreciated but that may be because I work in the local gov sector. Or at least they seem to appreciate us :eek:
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I was just thinking along the same lines earlier when someone was asking if a degree from ITT was good enough for IT. I know that with any IT job, you have to deal with people. I know that as an admin, whether it's discussing present and future policies with upper management, working with a DST to resolve an issue, or talking to a user about their poor password choice (mypassword and 1234 are very popular), SysAdmins need people skills. I couldn't have said it better myself. There IS more to IT, or any job, than just knowing technical stuff.

I'm already under-appreciated and have been in all my jobs. That's the tune we're all singin' in retail at least. I think I could cope with it much better if the pay wasn't half of poverty line, and I actually enjoyed what I'm doing instead of trying to literally switch off my brain while on the clock.
 
I am a network administrator but I have experience on the system administration side of the house. Your experience will largely depend on the size of the company you work at. For instance, if your company is large enough to have a seperate help desk to provide a buffer between the idiots behind the keyboards and you then your experience will be much better than if you are the front line guy in the trench having to answer to the customer as well as perform server installs and maintenance then you are going to burn out quickly.

Now, having said that, you are going to need some time in a help desk capacity to develop some of those people skills as well as get some experience under your belt with Active Directory, trouble ticket systems, etc.

Personally I prefer to work with networks. There is something about building a properly configured LAN and having all the pieces fall into place that I really enjoy.

Unfortunately, many companies are no longer willing to pay for both a system administrator and a network administrator. They want one tech that can do both at half the pay. It's ridiculous.
 
I've worked for both large and small companies and I've experienced both extremes on that. Both types of companies have advantages and disadvantages.
 
Dan_D said:
I've worked for both large and small companies and I've experienced both extremes on that. Both types of companies have advantages and disadvantages.
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Your work ethic and your personality really play a part here, if you hate office politics like i do, then small business is for you. If you like the "assumed" job security of a large company then that is for you.

**Note, there is no such thing as job security in the IT field, you can litterly go from top dog to fired in a day.**
 
The things you gotta have though more so as an admin is integrity and discipline. You are entrusted to babysit and care for what probably are the most important assests to the company. Unfortunately alot of people don't know theis even top level execs and the IT department themselves.
 
One thing to consider, and probably the most important that a lot of people overlook. If you are looking for a regular 8 - 5, 40 hour work week........don't become a Network/System Administrator
 
vage said:
One thing to consider, and probably the most important that a lot of people overlook. If you are looking for a regular 8 - 5, 40 hour work week........don't become a Network/System Administrator
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I like 10-3 or so, 3.5 day weeks myself! :D
 
I started in IT 22 years ago and mostly switched between Network and System Admin jobs the first 7 years or so, than I moved on to more challenging roles like Design, Architecture, and now I'm a System Auditor (Ethical Hacker). I've done security for the last 10 years and really enjoy this aspect of IT.

Certs and education are a good start, On the job training is key, no cert will prepare you for the 95% boredom, and 5% pure hell, which is norm for a network admin. People skills are key if you want to be usefull and have career progress. I do not have a degree and make an excellent living, mostly because I learned how to talk to people who are not technical and who can care less how I do my job, they just care it gets done, and their complaints are heard.

Grab MCSE and CCNA certs, and that should land you an entry job, than make friends, learn everything, and assume nothing.
 
vage said:
One thing to consider, and probably the most important that a lot of people overlook. If you are looking for a regular 8 - 5, 40 hour work week........don't become a Network/System Administrator
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It depends on where you work. Most of the time (barring any serious emergencies) I've been able to get away with a 40 hour work week for most of the 12+ years I've been in IT. Since I started working on this contract I've got now I've put in 60+ hour weeks (with some topping 90 hours) since September of last year. Before that it was 46-50 hours.
 
Dan_D said:
It depends on where you work. Most of the time (barring any serious emergencies) I've been able to get away with a 40 hour work week for most of the 12+ years I've been in IT. Since I started working on this contract I've got now I've put in 60+ hour weeks (with some topping 90 hours) since September of last year. Before that it was 46-50 hours.
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My first 1/2 of my career was 50-60 hours week on average, once I left service work and focused on project work my hours stabilized at 40, I can count on one hand how many weeks I worked more the 40 hours in the last 5 years.

Than again I no longer contract, and there are rarely Auditing emergencies :)
 
it really depends on where you work. Prior to my present position I was more of a field engineer, kinda sucked, on the road alot, also did systems administration "consulting", basically filling the sysadmin role for SMB clients.

I am now a systems administrator for a small company with a pretty large it infrastructure. We only have 8 sysadmins, so I end up doing a variety of tasks. I manage products from cisco, sun, F5, Dell, NetApp and IBM. Lately have had a fairly heavy focus on virtualization, so using a lot of sun server (x4600's) and netapp storage (FAS3020) to virtualize a lot of our application and API servers (along with building a customized linux vm provisioning system)

As far as everyone talking about not getting sleep etc. it's really not that bad. I do an on-call rotation right now, so I"m on call 24/7 generally one week out of the month. all it really means is answering one or two phone calls after hours a day (generally restart such and such a service, or solve some database blocking). A cell phone and an ultaportable laptop with an evdo modem make simple work of that. That being said, we have a technical service analyst team which will soon be first on call, and i"ll only have high priority issues brought to my attention after hours :)

As far as the work environment and being treated like dirt goes, none of that where I work. Sysadmins are pretty near the top of the food chain, and my workplace is pretty sweet (we've got pool tables, foos, xbox on a projector, free onsite gym, underground parking, free food and drinks everyday etc.)

fortunately I can completely stay away from hepdesk stuff (desktop issues and backups etc) as we have a team dedicated to that, I think that's where a lot fo the frustration part comes from, dealing with users. I only really deal with development team leads, as we're an agile software development company. issues in, issues out, pretty easy stuff.
 
vage said:
One thing to consider, and probably the most important that a lot of people overlook. If you are looking for a regular 8 - 5, 40 hour work week........don't become a Network/System Administrator
Click to expand...

I've heard this from more and more IT people I talk to. Actually, that is one of the things I was looking for in a job, but I'm not afraid of extra hours. I know that some of the tasks of an admin can't be done while everyone's there trying to use the network, or their client machines. I figured that it would be every few evenings, the occasional over-night and weekend work, with the emergency phone call at 3am every now and again. Am I wrong in my assumption here?
 
With the correct setup and redundancy you eliminate a lot of the after hours work. As with most things in life doing it right the first time can save you time and headaches in the future.

Virtualization is increasing the ease of creating redundant systems even in small businesses.
 
That Linux Guy said:
I've heard this from more and more IT people I talk to. Actually, that is one of the things I was looking for in a job, but I'm not afraid of extra hours. I know that some of the tasks of an admin can't be done while everyone's there trying to use the network, or their client machines. I figured that it would be every few evenings, the occasional over-night and weekend work, with the emergency phone call at 3am every now and again. Am I wrong in my assumption here?
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No, just vague ;P
It depends on what company you work for, what kind of work they do, and when they do it. If you work for someplace that only does business 5 days a week from 8a-5p, then sure, you'll have most evenings free, work the occasional weekend, and never have the phone wake you up. You might realize very quickly that there are not a lot of those places around, and most of them already have an admin or two.

If you work for someplace that does business 24x7 and you're not by yourself, then the load might be split into shifts and you may not be bothered outside of your normal shift. You might also work someplace that has enough resources to have all the backups and redundancies that you would need to avoid needing to work outside of your normal hours. If your employer does business 24x7 and you are by yourself, you'll learn very very very quickly what you need to do and what you need to have in order to keep the work week down to a sane amount of hours ;)
 
That Linux Guy said:
I've heard this from more and more IT people I talk to. Actually, that is one of the things I was looking for in a job, but I'm not afraid of extra hours. I know that some of the tasks of an admin can't be done while everyone's there trying to use the network, or their client machines. I figured that it would be every few evenings, the occasional over-night and weekend work, with the emergency phone call at 3am every now and again. Am I wrong in my assumption here?
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That's where Dan's earlier comment about the environment comes in.

My last job I was the systems admin, the network admin, and I maintained the VoIP system. It was a small business that was always in constant crisis mode. 60-80 hour weeks on average. My longest week was 91 hours one week. Don't remember much about that week honestly speaking other then it sucking. There were weeks at a time where I may get a weekend with just a few phone calls but having 2 days off without visiting the office was rare for a good 18 months.

My cell phone bill was always high due to constant phone calls from the CTO for piddily shit like "what's the password to server A?" After I tell him for the millionth time he complains that my passwords are too long. :rolleyes:

I don't regret for a minute my work at that hellhole because I learned so much. Where else could you be 24 years old and learn how to do stuff you had zero business doing at that age like build a complete SAN with clustered Oracle 9i databases connecting to 6 different Apache application servers on Red Hat Enterprise going through 2 different load balancers? But that doesn't mean I loved my job every day I was there. ;)

Like many have said before it's a thankless job but what matters is if you enjoy it. If knew then what I know now I probably wouldn't have done what I did but it made me the admin I am today.
 
That Linux Guy said:
I've heard this from more and more IT people I talk to. Actually, that is one of the things I was looking for in a job, but I'm not afraid of extra hours. I know that some of the tasks of an admin can't be done while everyone's there trying to use the network, or their client machines. I figured that it would be every few evenings, the occasional over-night and weekend work, with the emergency phone call at 3am every now and again. Am I wrong in my assumption here?
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Depends on the place. I work for an outsourcing company. The account I'm on currently is for an oil comapny. Our team of 13 SAs supports about 1500 servers worldwide.

When you are on the on call rotation, for 123 hours of time, you cover all the high severity issues for all 1500 servers, depending on the severity of the issue you have from 15 minutes to 60 minutes to be actively engaged in the resolution of the problem. We fairly typically have a high severity issue every 3.5 hours on average after hours.

Also, I'm one of three techs who typically gets handed an issue when one of the other techs has run out of time to get it solved, so every couple of months, I end up working an issue 15 hours straight to resolution. Last week was a from scratch rebuild of an Exchange server on the other end of a 128kbps satellite link after a boot from SAN server on an oil platform off the coast of Africa went into a reboot loop.

Its a meat grinder, and about half the techs on the account would be team leads on any other account. I've always been the "GO TO GUY" on my previous accounts. There are three other techs on the account I know are at least as talented than me, and one who shames the three of us. I'm learning like crazy so I put up with the madness (doesn't hurt that the client contract specifically bars use of "Right shore" support) in this economy, although our entire company just took an across the board pay cut.

Most of the teams around us are a 55% offshore, 45% on-shore mix. More are getting off-shored all the time.

The last account I was on, I was the lead of a 2 person dedicated team (we did servers and central workstation configuration managment) with a leveraged team backing us up on 70 servers. I was on call 24x7 365 with 2 hours to respond to any issues the leveraged team couldn't handle. I worked maybe one issue a month, except for about once a year the clients data center would have some major issue (street power lost due to ice storm, electrical fire in the basement of the building, etc) where I'd have to work a 20 hour day. That job was a cake walk.
 
I can't comment on the IT tech stuff, but I can give some advice based on personal experience/observation:

Assuming you have the technical skills, the one thing I would try and develop are your people skills. This may be one of the most important things you can improve to better your chances for advancement (if that's what your end goal is). Developing effective communication/organization/leadership skills will make you more valuable to a given company than your IT skills alone. I think that because IT folks spend so much time dealing with equipment as opposed to people (and most people have very little knowledge about your job), they automatically get a bad rap in the people skills department. If you can start the job from day one with good communication skills, you can set the stage for what folks can expect from you rather than allowing them to revert to the IT guy stereotype.

We have a great group of IT folks at my company. They are very helpful and inhumanly patient when dumb questions are asked.
 
FUBAR said:
I can't comment on the IT tech stuff, but I can give some advice based on personal experience/observation:

Assuming you have the technical skills, the one thing I would try and develop are your people skills. This may be one of the most important things you can improve to better your chances for advancement (if that's what your end goal is). Developing effective communication/organization/leadership skills will make you more valuable to a given company than your IT skills alone. I think that because IT folks spend so much time dealing with equipment as opposed to people (and most people have very little knowledge about your job), they automatically get a bad rap in the people skills department. If you can start the job from day one with good communication skills, you can set the stage for what folks can expect from you rather than allowing them to revert to the IT guy stereotype.

We have a great group of IT folks at my company. They are very helpful and inhumanly patient when dumb questions are asked.
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This is solid advice. I know that in the tech industry, I've always gotten high marks for my technical skills and sometimes low marks for my people skills. Now that's something I've improved dramatically over the 13 years I've been in the business but I still have a ways to go on that. I've seen people who are virtually inept in terms of technical ability but so long as they are well liked they do fine and people love them. The people with great technical skills often get passed over for advancement while the inept individuals with solid people skills climb the ladder more quickly. I've also seen these people screw up horribly on technical matters and they get an "Oh well, you'll do better next time and itss ok, don't worry about it." while the technically adept get hammered on for trivial mistakes or oversights.
 
Re: Dan_D's previous post...

Imagine what you could accomplish with good technical skills AND people skills to go along with it.

By the way...I'm diggin the sig ...
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

Right on.
 
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