Careers in
System Administration
Fran Fabrizio
UAB Computer and Information Sciences
Talk Outline
 A Day in the Life…
 What is a Sysadmin?
 What does a sysadmin do on a daily basis?
 Other kinds of sysadmins
 Does This Sound Interesting?
 Benefits of Being a Sysadmin
 Compatibility
 Traits of Successful Sysadmins
 Preparing to Be a Sysadmin
 Required Skills
 Ideas for College
A Day in the Life…
 What is a sysadmin?
 What types of things do they do?
 The different types of sysadmins
What is a Sysadmin?
 Google’s answer to define:sysadmin
 This is the person or people that takes care of a UNIX system
This person has full access to all system resources.
 Employee responsible for a company's computer network, also
sometimes called a network administrator. A sysadmin's duties
may include configuring the company's firewall, acquiring and
installing hardware, setting up email addresses and keeping the
printers working.
 A job position of engineers involved in computer systems.
They are the people responsible for running the system, or
running some aspect of it.
What is a Sysadmin?
 My informal definition…
 “A person who is responsible for creating and
maintaining an IT environment (or some aspect
of it) to support users’ needs.”
 How it relates to other areas of IT / CS?
 Draw picture
How I Became a Sysadmin
(An extremely concise history of my past 14 years)
 Left TJ and went to Wash U. wanting to be a
doctor
 Organic Chemistry happened. I didn’t want to be
a doctor any more. I was good with computers, so
I tried computer science
 I was a programmer for 6 years, first at a local St.
Louis company, then at WebMD
 I had to find a job in Birmingham. This one was
mistakenly listed as a programmer job. I learned
otherwise at the interview. They still hired me!
 (More practical advice coming later…)
What I Do
 Higher Education Sysadmin
 Department of Computer and Information
Sciences
 University of Alabama at Birmingham
 IT staff consists of myself and 3-4 student
workers
Scope
 20 faculty and staff
 250 students
 My organization is responsible for
something like 400-500 systems
 ~ $1.5 - 2 million in IT
A Brief Tour
 Slide Show
The Mythical Typical Day
 Each day is completely different from the last
 Everchanging activities
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reactive, “helpdesk response”
proactive, strategic project development
physical labor
Teaching
Working with vendors
doing the “soft” stuff - administrative, PR, recruitment,
professional development (like this talk)
Job Responsibilities
 The entire IT cycle
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Research
Vendor negotiations
Procurement
Receiving
Installation
Configuration
Maintenance
Decommission
Job Responsibilities
 End User Support
 Answering helpdesk requests
 Setting up laptops and desktops
 Handling department guests
 Academic Support
 Setting up servers and software for academic activities
 Research Support
 Maintaining specialized research equipment and services
 Infrastructure Support
 Core production servers - email, web, etc…
 Centralized storage and account management
 Network infrastructure
Job Responsibilities
 Other activities
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Managing the student staff
Maintaining vendor relationships
Coordinating with other areas of campus IT
Public relations - giving tours, attending events,
creating department advertising
 Grant writing
 User training
Job Responsibilities
 Even more activities
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Producing documentation
Teaching classes, seminars and workshops
Annual budget
Strategic planning
Training and development
Recent Tasks
 Provide IT support to Alabama High School
Programming Contest including development of
program to automate submissions
 Install security cameras
 Upgrade cluster software
 Troubleshoot error conditions on server hardware
 Create system for automating subversion access
and wikis for new accounts
 Wrote a grant proposal for student technology fees
Recent Tasks
 Develop system to automate lab machine installs
based on location and role
 Troubleshoot lost DHCP packets
 Prepare workstations for summer research
students
 Migrate users to new email system
 Install interactive monitors and remote lab PC
control software and create training docs
Other Types of Sysadmins
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Corporate
Network
Database
Security
Domain-Specific
Domain-Specific Admins
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Bioinformatics
Computer Forensics
Computational Chemists
High Performance Computing
Most physical sciences have become
extremely computation-oriented. They need
people who understand IT -and- their world.
Does This Sound Interesting?
 Debunking some Myths
 Benefits of the job
 Compatibility
Myths of Sysadmins
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They’re in front of a computer all day.
They don’t interact with people much.
They never get to program.
It’s not a very creative job.
Why I Like My Job
 Challenging
 Hard problems
 Never the same day twice
 Great if you are easily bored
 Always learning something new
 IT reinvents itself every few years
 Freedom
 Autonomy, independence
Why I Like My Job
 Academic Environment
 Relaxed / casual, respectful, supportive
 Feeling of Enabling People
 Pay and Benefits
 High salaries
 Get to travel a lot
 Public sector advantages
A Quick Look at the Industry
(this slide is for the parents!)
 The IT job outlook is phenomenally good
right now
 The outsourcing myth - debunked!
 Explosion in need - 43% job growth
 Job happiness - IT dominates these rankings
 Competitive salaries - Top 5 of all degrees.
Start > $50k.
Is Sysadmin Right for Me?
 I like to always be doing something
different.
 I am spontaneous and adapt well to sudden
changes and new situations.
 I multitask well and don’t mind
interruptions.
 I don’t fear the unknown.
Is Sysadmin Right for Me?
 I welcome challenging problems.
 I enjoy installing and debugging computer
hardware and software.
 I get along with all sorts of personalities
easily.
 I work well under pressure.
 I like puzzles.
Is Sysadmin Right for Me?
 I’d rather know a little about a lot than a lot
about a little
 I don’t mind unpredictable work schedules
and being on call
 I like to take things apart and figure out how
they work
Preparing to be a Sysadmin
 Required Skills
 Traits of Successful Sysadmins
 Maximizing College
Required Skills
 “Hard” skills
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Must be an expert hardware and software tinkerer
Comfortable in multiple Oses
Install and configure server and client software
Know how networks work and how computers
communicate
 Script programming
 Leveraging the Internet for information
 One of the biggest mistakes I see young admins make!
Required Skills
 Hard Skills
 Linux, Windows, OS X, Solaris, Perl, PHP, JavaScript, HTML,
XML, CSS, AJAX, Active Directory, SQL, Amanda, TCP/IP,
HTTP, SMTP, IMAP, POP, SVN, CVS, LDAP, DNS, DHCP,
SSH, SFTP, FTP, SSL, Java, Apache, Tomcat, MySQL,
PostgreSQL, RRT, Cricket, Nagios, Samba, SMB, BOOTP,
IPMI, PXE, Python, sh, bash, csh, MPI, SGE, Globus, Grid,
Cluster, CUPS, LPR, DFS, EXT3, Reiser, XFS, JFS, Squid,
iptables, IBRIX, Infiniband, Ethernet, DVI, USB, PCI, PCI-X,
PCIe, DIMM, CMOS, BIOS, ISO, IIS, Postfix, sendmail,
dovecot, courier-imap, scp, df, du, top, uptime, find, tar, tail, less,
grep, ls, vi, emacs, ps, man, which, crontab, cp, dump, more,
ruby, c, c++, sed, awk, proc, postscript, pdf, latex, drupal, plone,
modprobe, regedit, group policy, ping, route……….
 The point is, you obviously can’t learn all of these, so
focus on getting a good foundation and being able to
learn new things quickly.
Required Skills
 Soft Skills
 Be an excellent communicator
 Written
 Verbal
 Communicating technical information clearly and concisely is
extremely hard!
 Adaptability
 The landscape is constantly changing. Stay ahead of the curve
by keeping track of current development, maintaining current
training, and trying new things.
Required Skills
 Soft Skills
 Tolerance, Patience and Compassion
 End users can be difficult and unreasonable
 Put yourself in their shoes
 Self-Motivating
 Often, the only time you hear from users is when there’s
something wrong. The best ones remember to praise you when
things go right, but don’t rely on it for motivation
 Creativity
 Ability to think outside the box and come up with creative
solutions to problems
Successful Sysadmins…
 Generalize.
 They become a Jack-of-all-Trades. They don’t get
trapped in a specific technology or product.
 Are expert problem solvers.
 They understand how to attack the unknown in
manageable, measured steps.
 Are very good at time management.
 They manage information and workflow effectively.
Successful Sysadmins…
 Think ahead.
 Put monitoring systems in place before the
problem exists. Identify bottlenecks and
weaknesses and address them.
 Solve a problem once.
 Build a permanent solution, not a one-time hack
job. “Higher Order Administration”
 Are often outgoing, social people
How To Prepare
 Most college programs don’t do a good job
of preparing people to be sysadmins
 Which department? Computer Science?
Computer Engineering? MIS?
 My choice, and why
Maximizing College
Opportunities
 While at college, try to work at student labs and
helpdesk jobs and get IT internships and co-ops.
 Good classes to take:
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Technical writing
Networking
computer architecture
operating system theory
scripting languages
web applications/services
distributed computing
computer security
The End
 Thank you!
 Questions?
 Contact me at fran@cis.uab.edu