Thoughts on System Administration

I thought I’d write an introductory post to tell you a little about myself. I’ve been working professionally in the world of systems administration for seven years. My focus is on Unix variants such as BSD and Linux, but I am a generalist as opposed to a specialist; I have administered Windows systems, Macs, and even a few oddballs like NeXT and BeOS. If you’d like to see more about my experience, take a look at my resume (http://plathrop.tertiusfamily.net).

I have a growing passion for automation and a people-centered view of systems administration. To me, a systems administrator’s primary goal should be to act as a mediator between people and the technological systems which exist to support them. That’s right, I feel our profession is about people, not about computers! Although this is a somewhat radical view in our “community”, I apparently share it with a few others such as Luke Kanies (developer of the extremely awesome configuration management tool Puppet).

I think that our profession is entering a period of transition which has much in common with the recent changes in the world of software development; much as “coders” became “software engineers”, “sysadmins” are becoming “systems engineers” - or at least we should be if we wish to remain relevant. That change will be accompanied by a growing body of tools, standards, and best practices - and it is time for professional administrators to start thinking hard about what we want these to look like. Part of the reason I started this blog is to put my thoughts out there and hopefully start this conversation.