JOB TITLE: Systems Administrators
DEPARTMENT: Information Technology
JOB DESCRIPTION:
Introduction
Organizations that rely on computing resources to carry out their mission
have always depended on systems administration and systems administrators. The
dramatic increase in the number and size of distributed networks of workstations
in recent years has created a tremendous demand for more, and better trained,
systems administrators. Understanding of the profession of systems
administration on the part of employers, however, has not kept pace with the
growth in the number of systems administrators or with the growth in complexity
of system administration tasks. Both at sites with a long history of using
computing resources and at sites into which computers have only recently been
introduced, systems administrators face perception problems that present serious
obstacles to their successfully carrying out their duties.
Systems administration is a widely varied task. The best systems
administrators are generalists: they can wire and repair cables, install new
software, repair bugs, train users, offer tips for increased productivity across
areas from word processing to CAD tools, evaluate new hardware and software,
automate a myriad of mundane tasks, and increase work flow at their site. In
general, systems administrators enable people to exploit computers at a level
which gains leverage for the entire organization.
Employers frequently fail to understand the background that systems
administrators bring to their task. Because systems administration draws on
knowledge from many fields, and because it has only recently begun to be taught
at a few institutions of higher learning, systems administrators may come from a
wide range of academic backgrounds. Most get their skills through on-the-job
training by apprenticing themselves to a more experienced mentor. Although the
system of informal education by apprenticeship has been extremely effective in
producing skilled systems administrators, it is poorly understood by employers
and hiring managers, who tend to focus on credentials to the exclusion of other
factors when making personnel decisions.
Understanding system administrators' background, training, and the kind of
job performance to be expected is challenging; too often, employers fall back
into (mis)using the job classifications with which they are familiar. These job
classification problems are exacerbated by the scarcity of job descriptions for
systems administrators. One frequently used misclassification is that of
programmer or software engineer. Although the primary responsibility of the
systems administrator is not to produce code, that is the metric by which
programmers are evaluated, and systems administrators thus classified often
receive poor evaluations for not being "productive" enough. Another
common misclassification is the confusion of systems administrators with
operators. Especially at smaller sites, where systems administrators themselves
have to perform many of the functions normally assigned (at larger sites) to
operators, systems administrators are forced to contend with the false
assumption they are non-professional technicians. This, in turn, makes it very
difficult for systems administrators to be compensated commensurate with their
skill and experience.
SAGE, as the professional organization for systems administrators, formed the
`sage-jobs' working group to address these problems. Its goals include the
creation of a set of appropriate job descriptions for systems administrators and
promotion of their adoption by organizations that employ systems administrators.
Below are the current job description templates that the working group has
produced. We have created an additional list of check-off items. The templates
are intended to describe the core attributes of systems administrators at
various levels of job performance, while the check-off list is intended to
augment the core descriptions. In particular the check-off list is intended to
address site-specific needs, or special areas of expertise that a systems
administrator may have. Job descriptions for more experienced systems
administrators or more senior positions will typically include more items from
the check-off list.
Definitions
A "small site" has 1-10 computers, all running the same operating
system, and 20 or fewer users. (A computer used by only the administrator does
not qualify as a site.)
A "midsized site" has up to 100 systems, running no more than 3
different operating systems, and up to 100 users.
A "large site" has 100 or more computers, potentially running more
than one operating system, and 100 or more users.
The following are the core templates:
Novice
Required skills:
- Has strong inter-personal and communication skills; is capable of
explaining simple procedures in writing or verbally, has good phone skills.
- Is familiar with UNIX and its commands/utilities at a user level; can edit
files, use a a shell, find users' home directories, navigate through the
file system, and use i/o redirection.
- Is able to follow instructions well.
Required background:
- 2 years of college or equivalent post-high-school education or experience.
Desirable:
- A degree or certificate in computer science or a related field.
- Previous experience in customer support, computer operations, system
administration or another related area. Motivated to advance in the
profession.
Appropriate responsibilities:
- Performs routine tasks under the direct supervision of a more experienced
system administrator.
- Acts as a front-line interface to users, accepting trouble reports and
dispatching them to appropriate system administrators.
Junior
Required skills:
- Strong inter-personal and communication skills; capable of training users
in applications and UNIX fundamentals, and writing basic documentation.
- High skill with of most UNIX commands/utilities. Familiarity with most
basic system administration tools and processes; for example, can
boot/shutdown a machine, add and remove user accounts, use backup programs
and fsck, maintain system database files (groups, hosts, aliases).
Fundamental understanding of a UNIX-based operating system; for example,
understands job control, soft and hard links, distinctions between the
kernel and the shell.
Required background:
One to three years of system administration experience.
Desirable:
- A degree in computer science or a related field.
- Familiarity with networked/distributed computing environment concepts; for
example, can use the route command, add a workstation to a network, and
mount remote filesystems.
- Ability to write scripts in some administrative language (Tk, Perl, a
shell).
- Programming experience in any applicable language.
Appropriate responsibilities:
Administers a small site alone or assists in the administration of a larger
system. Works under the general supervision of a system administrator or
computer systems manager.
Intermediate/Advanced
Required skills:
- Strong inter-personal and communication skills; capable of writing
purchase justifications, training users in complex topics, making
presentations to an internal audience, and interacting positively with upper
management. Independent problem solving; self-direction.
- Is comfortable with most aspects of UNIX systems administration; for
example, configuration of mail systems, system installation and
configuration, printing systems, fundamentals of security, installing
third-party software.
- A solid understanding of a UNIX-based operating system; understands paging
and swapping, inter-process communication, devices and what device drivers
do, file system concepts ("inode", "superblock").
- Familiarity with fundamental networking/distributed computing environment
concepts; can configure NFS and NIS, can use nslookup or dig to check
information in the DNS, understands basic routing concepts.
- Ability to write scripts in some administrative language (Tk, Perl, a
shell).
- Ability to do minimal debugging and modification of C programs.
Required background:
Three to five years systems administration experience.
Desirable:
- A degree in computer science or a related field.
- Significant programming background in any applicable language.
Appropriate responsibilities:
- Receives general instructions for new responsibilities from supervisor.
- Administers a mid-sized site alone or assists in the administration of a
larger site.
- Initiates some new responsibilities and helps to plan for the future of
the site/network.
- Manages novice system administrators or operators. Evaluates and/or
recommends purchases; has strong influence on purchasing process.
Senior
Required skills:
- Strong inter-personal and communication skills; capable of writing
proposals or papers, acting as a vendor liaison, making presentations to
customer or client audiences or professional peers, and working closely with
upper management.
- Ability to solve problems quickly and completely.
- Ability to identify tasks which require automation and automate them.
- A solid understanding of a UNIX-based operating system; understands paging
and swapping, inter-process communication, devices and what device drivers
do, file system concepts ("inode", "superblock"), can
use perfomance analysis to tune systems.
- A solid understanding of networking/distributed computing environment
concepts; understands principles of routing, client/server programming, the
design of consistent network-wide filesystem layouts.
- Ability to program in an administrative language (Tk, Perl, a shell), to
port C programs from one platform to another, and to write small C programs.
Required background:
More than five years previous systems administration experience.
Desirable:
- A degree in computer science or a related field.
- Extensive programming background in any applicable language.
- Publications within the field of system administration.
Appropriate responsibilities:
- Designs/implements complex local and wide-area networks of machines.
- Manages a large site or network.
- Works under general direction from senior management.
Establishes/recommends policies on system use and services.
- Provides technical lead and/or supervises system administrators, system
programmers, or others of equivalent seniority.
- Has purchasing authority and responsibility for purchase justification.
Check Offs
These are things you might want to add to the base job descriptions as either
required or desirable.
- Local Environment Experience
Experience with the specific operating systems, applications, or programming
languages in use at the site (for example SunOS, AIX, CAE/CAD software,
FrameMaker, Mathematica, Fortran, Ada). Experience with the work done by the
users at the site.
Heterogeneity Experience
Experience with more than one UNIX-based operating system. Experience with
sites running more than one UNIX-based operating system. Familiarity with both
System V and BSD-based UNIX operating systems. Experience with non-UNIX
operating systems (for example, MS-DOS, Macintosh OS, or VMS). Experience with
internetworking UNIX and other operating systems (MS-DOS, Macintosh OS, VMS).
Programming Skills
Extensive programming experience in an administrative language (Tk, Perl, a
shell). Extensive programming experience in any applicable language.
Networking Skills
Experience configuring network file systems (for example, NFS, RFS, or AFS).
Experience with network file synchronization schemes (for example, rdist and
track). Experience configuring automounters. Experience configuring license
managers. Experience configuring NIS/NIS+. Experience with TCP/IP networking
protocols (ability to debug and program at the network level). Experience with
non-TCP/IP networking protocols (for example, OSI, Chaosnet, DECnet, Appletalk,
Novell Netware, Banyan Vines). Experience with high-speed networking (for
example, FDDI, ATM, or SONET). Experience with complex TCP/IP networks
(networks that contain routers). Experience with highly complex TCP/IP
networks (networks that contain multiple routers and multiple media).
Experience configuring and maintaining routers. Experience maintaining a
site-wide modem pool/terminal servers. Experience with X/X terminals.
Experience with dial-up networking (for example, SLIP, PPP, or UUCP).
Experience at a site that is connected to the Internet. Experience
installing/configuring DNS/BIND. Experience installing/administering Usenet
news. Experience as postmaster of a site with external connections.
Security
Experience with network security (for example, building firewalls, deploying
authentication systems, or applying cryptography to network applications).
Experience with classified computing. Experience with multi-level classified
environments. Experience with host security (for example, passwords, uids/gids,
file permissions, file system integrity, use of security packages).
Site Specialities
Experience at sites with over 1,000 computers, over 1,000 users, or over a
terabyte of disk space. Experience with supercomputers. Experience
coordinating multiple independent computer facilities (for example, working
for the central group at a large company or university). Experience with a
site with 100% uptime requirement. Experience developing/implementing a site
disaster recovery plan. Experience with a site requiring charge-back
accounting.
Documentation
Background in technical publications, documentation, or desktop publishing.
Databases
Experience using relational databases. Experience using a database query
language. Experience programming in a database query language. Previous
experience as a database administrator.
Hardware
Experience installing and maintaining the network cabling in use at the
site. Experience installing boards and memory into systems. Experience with
SCSI device setup and installation. Experience installing/configuring
peripherals (for example, disks, modems, printers, or data acquisition
devices). Experience with board-level diagnosis and repair of computer
systems. Experience with component-level diagnosis and repair of computer
system.
Management
Budget responsibility. Experience in writing personnel reviews, and ranking
processes. Experience in interviewing/hiring.
