[spam score 2/10 -pobox] [TriLUG] Linux Support Position (OT)

[John Turner]

I have worked many years as a SA and I happen to have a M.S. in C.S. I 
can't say that I ever took a course that taught SA directly, but I know 
that some schools have such today. Some of the best SAs I know have 
advanced degrees. I think that schools give students (or at least they 
did) the chance to learn skills by doing. One thing most companies don't 
seem to follow, for good reason.

What I find more of a concern than companies wanting SAs with more 
skills, are the companies that are willing to get by with a SA who has 
no real background and just played with his/her machine at home. There 
is a big difference between running a home Linux machine and managing 10 
production servers or 50 development workstations.

As for degrees and SAs, I would say there are always exceptions, but for 
the most part having a degree that requires some analytical skills would 
show a company that you can solve problems that are new to you. And that 
is the sign of a great SA. Most people can follow that install/setup/xxx 
instructions that are provided with systems/software today. But what 
happens when things don't go right? How do you start to figure out what 
is causing the problem?

As a SA you have to be involved in many areas. You have to understand 
the applications that are running, what requirements they have, how to 
monitor their performance. I wouldn't expect for a SA to develop the DB 
schema, but I would require him/her to be able to manage the DB 
installation (including install, manage, and to some level tune).  If 
you are running a departments mail/file/print server than I would expect 
most experienced users could manage to look good in that role. However, 
if you are ask to manage a production cluster of servers running a 
distributed application, I would expect some background in operating 
systems, computer networking, etc. would be helpful, and that is the 
kind of stuff I learn at school.

John


On Saturday, July 6, 2002, at 09:44 AM, Mike Mueller wrote:

> I was wondering about the
> requirements I've seen in employment ads.  The combinations of skills 
> and
> proficiencies required are rather escalated.  The current environment is
> particularly useful for developing a database of people with technical
> skills.  The cost per resume collected must be very attractive right 
> now.
>
> The ideal skill set seems to be 5-10 years in a non-telecom business, 
> SA for
> *nix and MS, Cisco certified, and expert ability to program in Perl, 
> C++, VB,
> and Java.  Candidates with brain surgery and rocket science experience 
> are
> preferred.
>
> Now is a good time to hone those marketing (over-promising) skills.  
> Ugh.  It
> conjures up thoughts of infomercials where the announcer extolls the 
> viewer
> to call now to get a FREE set of Linux SA's with the purchase.
>
> Mike
>
> On Friday 05 July 2002 22:44, Andrew C. Oliver reputedly wrote:
>> Yes.... I've experienced Sysadmin-type slash DBAs first hand.  Its 
>> not a
>> nice trend.  Its may be actually
>> worse than the previous Programmer slash DBAs....
>>
>> -Andy
>>
>> Thunder Bear wrote:
>>> On Fri, 2002-06-28 at 19:20, Jon Carnes wrote:
>>>> BTW: the days of a System Admin doing only Systems work is fading 
>>>> rapidly
>>>> (if not already gone).  SA's need extended skills in one or more of 
>>>> the
>>>> follow:  Programming, Database/Web Applications design, or even a 
>>>> degree
>>>> in Business.  In this respect, the traditional Universities are a 
>>>> great
>>>> help.
>>>
>>> Oh yes it's crazy.  Look at most of the sysadmin job listings today.
>>> You need to be both a sysadmin and what would traditionally be 
>>> called a
>>> DBA.  The DBA jobs are being absorbed into sysadmin jobs.  And Jon is
>>> right, those other skills at least need to be part of your utility 
>>> belt.
>>>
>>> IMHO many businesses are starting to put impossible expectations on 
>>> what
>>> they will get out of their sysadmins.  There aren't many of us, for
>>> example, that can show proficiency in both Windows and UNIX networks,
>>> but yet that isn't enough anymore.  And they will pay for these
>>> unreasonable expectations in the end when they get one guy who can do
>>> everything a little bit but nothing particularly well.
>>
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