

Ask HN: System administrator (to be or not to be) - mshenoy4573

well I dont mean to sound sad or disoriented but this is what the situation is.
I have been doing my masters in computer science but never interested in programming or rather never taken it seriously. Recently though I have been playing around with unix(solaris file system, veritas file system and veritas volume manager) that is mostly system administration stuff. and the materials I have gathered or learned when i say stuff like veritas (which is a licensed product) hence I cannot use it. So how do i prove my worth when i look for a job and are there any entry level system admin jobs with these. Any fellow Hackers who started off this way ?
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nailer
Started as a sysadmin 12 years ago. Money is great, better than a corporate
programming job, and if you look at the role as a automation programmer role
for infrastructure software you'll have a better time of it. Don't just fix
it, make sure it never happens preemptively/again then prove that to whoever's
paying your bonus.

The downside is working with other people's shitty software, particular in the
enterprise space where ticking boxes is more important than security or other
features. There are 'SOX compliant' banking environments where the unchanged
root password is stored in plain text on a file accessable by any client as a
Windows drive. But they have a security policy exemption so it's OK.

Personally I can't stand the legacy stuff - working on something that's being
retired gives me the shits and the ancient userspace of the proprietary Unix
sucks when compared to the modern ones - but if you want to learn Solaris
(especially Solaris 8, the most widely deployed release - yes, there are more
people talking about ZFS and dtrace than using either), you can make some
extra pain money for dealing with it till it's gone.

Re: proving your worth, I started as a knowledgable nerd helping the senior
sysadmins, at somewhere where there was good comraderie - some of the people I
met there became friends for life and by helping others rise up later in my
career I did the same.

Major growth areas: virtualization (you can make great bank very quickly in
vmware, then transfer that into cloud skills learning xen or kvm & cloud
deploy concepts in your own time), storage (but it's boring). Anyone with web
reporting skills will will points with management, as will anyone who can
produce and consume microsoft file formats (eg, reporting, someone sends me a
spreadsheet with 390 static routes, you turn that into a routes file). Your
manager wants something they can show their manager to prove they (ie you) are
doing a good job.

~~~
nailer
PS. If you want to work on current stuff (which is where the interesting
projects are at now), learn RHEL. Know kickstart, how to build RPMs, write
initscripts, understand what every field in top means, know /proc and /sys and
sysctl tuning, understand DM multipath, and maybe Satellite server and
SystemTap (people tend to be impressed with SystemTap, but it's not that
hard). You can pick up CentOS for free to learn on too.

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hga
Here's another career possibility, given that you can program, but don't want
to do that.

( _Note: DO NOT BECOME A SOFTWARE TESTER_ : No respect, no upwards career path
to speak of, _deadly_ boring. Only do this if starvation is the alternative.)

Anyway, there's the specialty of software building. Someone needs to set
things up so that developers can "push one button" and get the current system
built (see the Joel Test). Many need help with version control/SCM and so on
(and that has to be set up). And all these have to be maintained.

This can also extend into system administration, someone has to set up their
systems, in some cases they'll have a test machine with the latest version of
foundational software that they're trying to work with or on top of, and
someone else should maintain that and keep it up to date.

(One of the disasters of Vista was how little time the programmers could spend
on actually programming. Besides the usual, according to a Mini-Microsoft
commentator, they'd have to spend about one day a week keeping their Vista
test machine up to date.)

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hga
Yes. I got unceremoniously dumped out of my college path by finances after my
freshman year and started out with a sysadmin job that eventually had some
serious programming.

Can't advise on the "how do i prove my worth", I found the job by networking
and by virtue of being one of the very few at the time (1980) who knew UNIX
well (at least at the user level) and was mentored/apprenticed for what I was
lacking.

~~~
mshenoy4573
hga, well networking I am sure would play a very important role. I would
certainly do my part in that. The thing is like most of the people or jobs I
come across in my search is all programming oriented. Even my friends who are
working suggest something like ...take c++ up ull get a job...dude do .NET its
microsoft technology ...so u knw wat i mean....but the thing is when one isnt
much of a programmer or rather isnt build for that but still wants to stick to
IT is pursuing a career in system administration as an entry level too much to
ask....and whenever I ask this question all i get is a response like...you
could only make a technical support kind of job so that is kind of
disheartening ....but if push comes to shove and thats what it takes to get
into it I'll do that too

~~~
hga
Sysadmin jobs are certainly out there, and I'd really try to avoid settling
for something so much less like technical support, it might be _very_ hard to
exit that. Perhaps look elsewhere for leads?

Here's another suggestion: learn how to do this in the cloud. For example, put
some money in an AWS account and play around in that environment. If you have
access to a suitable spare machine, get Linux + Xen running on it and go from
there. Get x86-64 experience. Etc.

The cloud is hot for a variety of reasons, including most especially the lower
barriers to entry (no capital costs besides maybe a Ezio Time Token). Those
same lower barriers apply to sysadmins, e.g. getting up a cluster of 10 EC2
instances is something you can probably do for the price of a good meal,
whereas it's unlikely you'd be able to borrow 10 physical machines and their
system disks.

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mshenoy4573
@nailer, @hga thanks guys I will take both of ya'll suggestions into
consideration.... I am actually a little hands on ith solaris 8 and 10 and
even zfs I will look into the cloud setup as you mentioned @hga tat sounds
tempting to me .... thanks again guys. My concern isnt as much as my skills
but as to if there are any jobs as entry level system admin

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dnsworks
As someone who has spent more than half of his life as a sysadmin, I'd suggest
only going into it if you're a masochist. It's really a lousy lifestyle. The
pay is decent, but even in the best of environments, you're viewed as a cost
center, disrespected by developers, and at the end of the day you're only
doing a good job if you're automating yourself out of one.

~~~
mshenoy4573
@dnsworks.... well I am trying to relate to what you said but I believe pros
and cons exist with all sorts of responsibilities but again I will ponder over
it :P

