The Tasks of the System Manager

As demonstrated, the system manager must be a versatile person who assumes a variety of roles. Now that the basic characteristics of the job have been defined, the next sections cover the tasks that are associated with it, along with the many skills that must be employed in the execution of his duties .

Management of Resources

The system manager carries responsibility for three main resources: the systems themselves , manpower resources, and financial resources. These all must be managed effectively. Financial resources are discussed in Chapter 2 in more detail.

The management of the computer systems, and maybe the network, require the system manager to often make decisions on the proper course of action. The decision could have a significant impact on the business, so he always considers this. This requires knowledge of the business, how it works, and how certain types of change can affect its operation. Not many other positions in the company will have such a comprehensive customer base, ranging from junior office assistant to senior board director.

An example of the type of decision that the system manager might have to make is the provision of application software across the network to the users ”say, StarOffice . The system manager can make use of the automounting features of Solaris to make the application available from several different servers; the advantage is that if one of the servers providing the application fails, another will still continue to provide the service to the user. All the user has to do is exit the application and start it again; the connection will be made to another available server. When the failed server is recovered, it simply rejoins the pool of available servers.

As a manager of manpower resources, the system manager has a responsibility for a number of staff members and must make time for them. Staff members are the greatest asset ”they can't be put to one side and dealt with when there's some spare time. They need to know that their manager will support them when required. There's nothing worse than a boss who stays locked away in an ivory tower and comes out only when something is needed. He must find time to just have a chat, to see how they're doing, and to let them know that he's around if needed. This makes such a difference.

Learn to Delegate

A good manager learns to delegate tasks to his staff. A busy system manager easily can take on too much and become overloaded. A senior system administrator looking for greater responsibility can lighten the load on a busy system manager and, at the same time, gain valuable management experience.

The Helicopter View

There is a requirement for the system manager, to stand back and take a more global view of things, much the same as a project manager would. A project manager must consider all the implications of a project, not just on the current task or the boundaries of the project, but also on the business as a whole. The same principles apply here as well. The system manager must consider the impact on the business of each change made to the existing infrastructure, especially if implementing a new system.

Taking the "helicopter" view allows him to see much further and, consequently, to see potential problems. These may not be purely technical problems; they could also be political ones.

The system manager must be able to remove himself from the focused day-to-day activity, which can be extremely narrow, and concentrate on the wider implications. A simple example of doing this could be that one department is intending to implement a new system or application to carry out a specific function. The system manager may already be aware that a similar application exists in the company elsewhere. Maybe it could be adapted for this purpose as well, possibly using the existing version across the network, which would amount to significant savings in both effort and money. The importance of the higher-level global view in this example is that neither of the two departments would be aware of the other's intentions. The system manager could pull it all together and would be in a position to make the best use of the resources available. The solution, in this case, could merely be to export the application software from the existing server using Network File System (NFS).

Advocate for the Business and the Customers

The system manager is likely to be required to sit on project boards as the technical authority. He will ensure that a project is in line with the IT strategy and that the necessary standards are being implemented. An excellent example of this aspect of the job is when a larger enterprise is considering consolidation of computer systems onto fewer, larger servers. This is something that Sun Microsystems is encouraging with its recent purchasing initiatives (these are discussed in detail in Chapter 5, "Solaris Installations and Upgrades"). The system manager is the one person who can identify common factors between existing systems and provide the best option for the business.

An important aspect of this job is that there is a link between the IT department and the business as a whole. The link is provided via the system manager. He will have to be able to relate to senior management, other managers, members of staff, and, of course, the technical community. Negotiation and persuasion skills are needed to resolve conflicts; the system manager can very often get caught in the crossfire.

A significant part of the job is concerned with how well the IT department performs , not just from a technical viewpoint, but also from a business perspective. Monitoring the performance is carried out through the use of service level agreements (see Chapter 3 for a detailed discussion of service level management).

The system manager will be central to the creation and implementation of service level management procedures. He needs to be realistic when specifying the level of service that can reasonably be achieved, while at the same time understanding the needs and requirements of the customers to whom he is providing the service. Service level management and service level agreements are discussed more fully in Chapter 3.

The Company's Data Custodian

In a large company, this can be an awesome responsibility. Everybody's data is in the hands of the system manager. This could include confidential corporate documents, financial data, personnel data (which is subject to legal requirements under data protection), data about a new secret product that is under development, and so on.

All the backups that are run on the computer systems are the system manager's responsibility. He must make sure that they are working. The fact that a backup of a system has been performed lures everyone into a false sense of security ”it is false because a backup is of use only if it can subsequently be read. The system manager must ensure that regular tests of backups are carried out, which raises confidence in the integrity of the data.

These days, with large corporations relying heavily on computer systems, it is entirely feasible that a company could be ruined if data were to be lost (as a result of data corruption, for example). In addition to the backups themselves, the system manager must consider strategic options, such as contingency planning and disaster recovery. A well-planned contingency and recovery strategy could mean the difference between a company surviving disaster or collapsing completely. Contingency planning, disaster recovery, and backup options are discussed in Chapter 7, "Disaster Recovery and Contingency Management."

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