Re: How long does it take to become a good sysadmin?

From: jpd (read_the_sig_at_do.not.spam.it.invalid)
Date: 01/26/05 

Date: 26 Jan 2005 18:13:15 GMT

Begin <ct6epr$8ks$1@reader1.panix.com>
On 2005-01-25, Jeremiah DeWitt Weiner <jdw@panix.com> wrote:
> H?vard Axelsson <me@privacy.net> wrote:
>> I am not a Sysadmin, but I like it a lot.
>
> Seek professional help, now.

Seconded. Going here is really bad for you sanity, your outlook on life,
your life in general, your sleep, and... Have I mentioned sanity yet?

[snip]
> One element in the development of a sysadmin which I think is
> not mentioned often enough is exposure to a wide variety of different
> environments, software, hardware, etc. I have seen admins who were
> reasonably smart people and good at what they did in a limited sense,
> but who were professionally stunted by the fact that they'd only ever
> seen one environment and one way of doing things; they thought there
> was only one way to do things, and they were very fixed in their ways.

Same goes for programmers and such. Gee. ;-)

> Of course, being exposed to different environments can be frustrating
> and make you feel stupid, too - I've been at my current job about four
> months, and they run a large, complex, fragile, and idiosyncratic
> software environment that I still don't understand very well.

Then it helps to be able to just pull old stuff out from the racks and
say you can't support it. It is a scary thing to do for someone who
loves to make stuff work. Sometimes the big axe is the cheapest, not to
mention sanest, and most honest, way of ru^Wweeding out a shop.

> Remember, too, that the real strength of a sysadmin is not in his
> purely technical skills, but in design, planning, documentation...a
> whole bunch of more nebulous, harder-to-teach, but no less important
> skills. [...]

With the added problem of needing much more than most other departments
to know not what is going on, but what _will_ be going on in a year or
so. (I think this part is the difference between an _admin_ and what
I'll call an _operator_, if I wanted to be rude I'd say a glorified tape
monkey. There are admins who really are just operators.)

[snip]
> I shouldn't focus on the negatives, though - working with a good
> team is a great experience,

Been there, done that. And I did it in an environment where there were
lotsa free beers after work. And no computers. At least not initially.
Too bad it didn't last, but anyway. It wasn't full-time, which if it
would be, would hurt the amounts of beer our team+chef were consuming.

> and I'm glad that early in my career I was
> lucky enough to fall in with some excellent teams and some excellent
> technical managers, and I got my hands on a lot of different systems.

Lucky, lucky you. I kinda fell into it, and learning the hard way
that playing with unices is cool and Stuff, but really different from
being the admin who's responsible to keep it all running. I'd gotten
lucky (not) with having to run^Wkeep alive a mixed environment full of
kid^Wdevelopers (staff of 30..50) just after two or three months all on
my own. The upside was that most developers already had root on their own
teh linex boxen, at which point I flatly refuse to touch them any longer,
and replacing 5..8 (nobody seems to know exactly) admins means that
everyone will pity you if you claim to be overpowered (*again*), but
the downside is that you _never_ sleep, nor will you ever get something
stubstantial structural done. Now there's somebody to push off all
the redmondware infectations off to. Took some down-putting of feet,
through. Anyway, a new cycle is coming up. Let's see what the future
brings. If not this gig, it might be a different field. Mowing lawns,
sleep-testing beds, who knows.

> I've been at this game about seven years now, and when it's good it's a
> lot of fun, it's good money, and it's satisfying work.

But if it isn't, it isn't. Glad you could pull it off. I'm still working
out the details. And will be, for quite some time to come. 

-- 
  j p d (at) d s b (dot) t u d e l f t (dot) n l .

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