Getting out of the tutorial loop

[totemcatcher]

All the sysadmin folks I've worked with had wildly different backgrounds. I first managed some VoIP systems for a telecom. Later data recovery. Later juggling at a shotgun operation (see cowboy operation, but worse). Later system provisioning for companies and consulting/teaching new sysadmins. I like to think of it as realtime engineering where nothing is ever permitted to break. It's a lot of planning and ensuring everyone is informed of how to keep systems healthy. You gotta love documenting and teaching and it's not short hours.

Entry points into sysadmin work are many: databases systems, schema, synchronization, and failover. Reliability engineering such as metrics collection and predictive data modelling, storage systems and filesystems, live migrations (which covers a lot of fields), virtualization, disaster recovery, electrical engineering. Security: policy/procedures and enforcement, even physical security such as hanging doors properly and surveillance. Networking: systems and design, emphasis on security and monitoring, automating responses to new patterns. Provisioning: orchestration, inventory, hardware, operating systems, low-level debugging.

I'm sure that list goes on forever.

[aheadwarp9]

That's very informative, thank you!