The traditional way to begin a book like this is to provide a list of system administration tasks I've done it several times myself at this point. Nevertheless, it's important to remember that you have to take such lists with a grain of salt. Inevitably, they leave out many intangibles, the sorts of things that require lots of time, energy, or knowledge, but never make it into job descriptions. Such lists also tend to suggest that system management has some kind of coherence across the vastly different environments in which people find themselves responsible for computers. There are similarities, of course, but what is important on one system won't necessarily be important on another system at another site or on the same system at a different time. Similarly, systems that are very different may have similar system management needs, while nearly identical systems in different environments might have very different needs. But now to the list. In lieu of an idealized list, I offer the following table showing how I spent most of my time in my first job as full-time system administrator (I managed several central systems driving numerous CAD/CAM workstations at a Fortune 500 company) and how these activities have morphed in the intervening two decades.
As this list indicates, system management is truly a hodgepodge of activities and involves at least as many people skills as computer skills. While I'll offer some advice about the latter in a moment, interacting with people is best learned by watching others, emulating their successes, and avoiding their mistakes. Currently, I look after a potpourri of workstations from many different vendors, as well as a couple of larger systems (in terms of physical size but not necessarily CPU power), with some PCs and Macs thrown in to keep things interesting. Despite these significant hardware changes, it's surprising how many of the activities from the early 1980s I still have to do. Adding toner now means changing a toner cartridge in a laser printer or the ink tanks in an inkjet printer; backups go to 4 mm tape and CDs rather than 9-track tape; user problems and questions are in different areas but are still very much on the list. And while there are (thankfully) no more meetings, there's probably even more furniture-moving and cable-pulling. Some of these topics moving furniture and going to or avoiding meetings, most obviously are beyond the scope of this book. Space won't allow other topics to be treated exhaustively; in these cases, I'll point you in the direction of another book that takes up where I leave off. This book will cover most of the ordinary tasks that fall under the category of "system administration." The discussion will be relevant whether you've got a single PC (running Unix), a room full of mainframes, a building full of networked workstations, or a combination of several types of computers. Not all topics will apply to everyone, but I've learned not to rule out any of them a priori for a given class of user. For example, it's often thought that only big systems need process-accounting facilities, but it's now very common for small businesses to address their computing needs with a moderately-sized Unix system. Because they need to be able to bill their customers individually, they have to keep track of the CPU and other resources expended on behalf of each customer. The moral is this: take what you need and leave the rest; you're the best judge of what's relevant and what isn't. |