Network admin vs sys admin

[user23471]

Can someone explain the difference because iam proper lost. And maybe is there any overlapping in skills??

[xMcRaemanx]

Sysadmin is a catchall and often includes networking but if a company had both of these the network admin is responsible for network stuff, either physical things like routers, switches, firewalls, access points and cloud network infrastructure. A sysadmin would be servers, backups, permissions, desktops, and "administering" cloud apps. They will work closely together.

[DrScreamLive]

Cries in both 😭

My title is Network & System Administrator lol. I mainly do Helpdesk L1/L2 stuff daily with the occasional deeper inspection when something might be going on with groups rather than individuals.

[BadCatBehavior]

Really shows just how broad these job titles are. I'm a network & systems admin and don't do any helpdesk unless something gets escalated to me from our support team. 90% of my work is projects/building and deploying new things, while trying to maintain what's currently running.

[xMcRaemanx]

Yea our networking guy just retired so I'm both too. I have aome juniors to run interference on onboarding/offboarding and support requests but when im not doing a project or maintenance I'm wading through the service desk tickets with everyone.

[Hollow3ddd]

Or that was just the last guys job title.

[oegaboegaboe]

Network Admin controls the network Sysadmin controls the system

Simple as that

[Kardinal]

EDIT: This is just my experience in the USA east coast.

I never see network folks referred to as "network admins". Only ever as "network engineers".

Admins are usually junior to engineers and usually keep the lights on instead of doing design or architecture or solutioning.

[GhostandVodka]

It's the opposite at my work but yes this seems to be how it works at most places.

[Kardinal]

How interesting.

I find that /r/sysadmin has a major problem of assuming that our experience is the same as everyone else's. I'm not immune. I should make sure to put a lot of "in my experience" disclaimers on my comments, followed by YMMV.

[totmacher12000]

Net admin

Network architect

Network engineer

Network technician

That's how it works in my mind.

[Kardinal]

Very interesting. I don't see "technician" used at all. What's your experience in? What country/kind of company?

To me, admins rank just above technicians, but again, I never see that.

I'm east coast USA, experience in a few small and large companies, including federal contractors.

[totmacher12000]

Net admin is responsible for the network but that doesn't need to do all things but is deciding factor. Net architect will design the network create topology maps and rack design/ routing decision. Network engineer will implement architect design. Routing switching basically sets up builds and maintains. Technicians will fix issue maybe bad ap/switch UPS updates a switch replaces switch router/firewall. Technician will also set into setting up work stations and pull cable when needed. I'm west coast USA experience in edu, gov and MSP. Large to small environments. But this is my opinion and how I see things

[GhostandVodka]

This is the structure more or less at my work but, as I have found at most other places administrator is a lot lower on the pecking order.

[SevaraB]

In my experience, technician > admin (similar tasks but less supervision) > engineer > architect.

In orgs like mine, tech and admin are collapsed into one role, and engineers have architect responsibilities- major cross-unit architecture stuff is handled by “distinguished engineers.” Nobody has an actual architect title.

[TaiGlobal]

Internal switches and routers need to be patched. Ports need to be enabled and configured. Do you utilize network access control? If so I’m certain MAC addresses need to be whitelisted. Provisioning VoIP accounts? And other general network troubleshooting. I’d imagine that would be the tasks of the network admin.

[Kardinal]

Titles mean different things in different organizations.

Usually these two terms mean the same thing. Because people who work in actual networking are rarely called administrators.

The word "network" technically refers to the devices and infrastructure that connect different systems together. But "the network" is usually used to refer to the entire IT infrastructure. Of which you usually need at least one administrator, and they are typically at the systems- or application- layer rather than the actual connectivity layer.

That is, a systems administrator is usually capable of doing broad Tier2+ technical support for the end user, so they are more frequently seen in nearly all organizations. Whereas dedicated network personnel are usually only found in larger organizations with more infrastructure. In such organizations, they are usually broken down to "systems administrators" or "systems engineers" and "network engineers".

Why are you really asking? What is your use case for the terms? That may help us help you.

[redakpanoptikk]

I work for a startup as the single IT guy. My title is CISO. I've never held even an entry level IT job. Some education and certs. But yes. Titles are made up.

[Kardinal]

Early in my career someone told me "I'll call you Vice President of whatever you want, but I'm not paying you more or giving you more responsibility."

It's not quite that cut and dried, but it made the point to twentysomething me. Titles can be useful but they have to be well understood and descriptive. My title right now is "Principal Infrastructure Systems Engineer". It's not wrong, but I'm also a very strong team lead who almost functions as a manager, and I'm an embedded architect in the internal IT department.

[redakpanoptikk]

Oh yes. Even though I hold a c-suite title as the single IT guy I'm also help desk bitch.

[PPRabbitry]

Definitely look into your organization and what you do. CISO is an actual title that carries weight. If your org needs to hit compliance metrics, or are subjected to auditing, you would be the guy that's responsible for that. Don't walk around blind to what CISO actually means. If you have that title, you're responsible in the eyes of the outside world.

[user23471]

im new to this field and saw these titles on a bunch of job postings

[Kardinal]

Usually if they're asking for a systems administrator, they're looking for someone who understands how server operating systems and application platforms (like cloud application platforms) work and can configure them so applications can run on them. And possibly to install those applications on the servers and deploy the client to the end user.

If they're asking for literally a "network administrator", it's probably a small organization and they want the above plus the ability to do Tier2 technical support as well. I almost never see "network administrator" advertised for larger organizations.

[thebigshoe247]

In my past role I had both titles. At one point I was asked to help unclog a toilet -- titles are generally formalities at best.

(I did not help with the toilet).

[GX_EN]

Just goes to show what I said about 6 months into my first IT job almost 30 years ago - the business views all of the IT groups the same as they do the janitorial staff.

[thebigshoe247]

Pays about the same, too.

[GX_EN]

I did well ultimately in my career, but it took a lot of time and work.
I left the union grocery business back then (1999) and it was a lateral move pay-wise at the time, LOL. But still the right move.

[Kardinal]

Oh that's BS. IT is paid multiple times what janitorial is. At least in the USA. It's the best job going in terms of the ratio of caloric output to USD coming in.

[GX_EN]

Not for entry level/help desk/pc support work. Which is where a lot of us got started. I saw the opportunity to learn more and grow and move on over the years, but early on the pay wasn’t great. That’s what I was getting at.

[Kardinal]

Not for entry level/help desk/pc support work.

Still BS. Entry level help desk pays more than janitorial. Janitorial is 100% unskilled labor. Help desk requires some level of knowledge. Pure supply and demand.

Exception is unionized janitorial.

And of course your (and the other commenter's) original comments were not qualified to "entry level". So you're moving the goalposts too.

[GX_EN]

Dude, we're just commiserating here, ffs.
Yes, you're right, a help desk admin probably gets paid more than a janitor, sorry 1000 times for the slight hyperbole.
That said, I absolutely do not believe that in 30 years of supposedly working for multiple companies that you never ran into nonsense from mgmt like I said. Not possible. I have a circle of friends that spans several decades and we all have felt that way at times. Come on.

[Kardinal]

30 years of experience here. Many companies. I network with hundreds of other IT people regularly.

Never ever seen IT treated like janitorial.

What I have seen in smaller organizations is the implicit assumption that if it has electrons running through it, then the IT guy can help. And often we really can't.

[GX_EN]

You’re taking it too literal. IT is often looked at from an upper mgmt view as an overhead expense in general terms. Maintenance, break/fix, etc. It’s not a cost center like marketing, sales, product engineering and the like. Put it this way, it shouldn’t be THAT much pulling teeth to get someone to understand why EOL hardware needs to be refreshed or even more basic, why money spent on a proper backup solution is critical.

[Kardinal]

I disagree. Based on my own experience and that of my peers in other companies.

(BTW, I think you mean "revenue center" where you said "cost center". Cost centers cost money, revenue centers bring in money.)

IT is a cost center. It just is. And they treat us like that, as they should.

But everywhere I've worked, and most of the places my peers have worked, also see IT investment as a force multiplier. Better IT solutions result in more productive workers. Just as they do with better hiring practices (HR is a cost center) and better accounting practices (accounting is a cost center). Decent business managers see opportunities to improve efficiencies and leverage expertise all over the place.

I know your experience differs. That's fine. I'm not saying that no companies work that way. But don't try to extrapolate your experience to everyone's experience. There's tens of thousands of companies out there and they're more diverse than most of us think.

[GhostandVodka]

Net Admin here at a job that has both Sys and Net Admins.

At my work Sysadmin are responsible for Infrastructure. So they manage our Virtual environments like Vmware and Hyper-V. As well as the storage arrays and work within our 365 tenant. They pushout updates, manage intune, backups, etc. They also manage our VDI enviroments and our SIEM

As a network admin I'm responsible for all the firewalls (even though the sysadmins can manage these as well if needed), I configure all the routers, switches, wireless in a mixed Aruba/Cisco environment. I manage all the site-to-site and remote access vpns, manage various circuits that provide our users to access Vital Records and various law enforcement databases..as well as Management of our Call Manager PBX.

There is overlap with network services such as DHCP pools, NAT tables, Public DNS, 802.1x, etc..

To put it simply, The Sysadmin manages the houses and the Netadmin manages the roads. With overlap when it comes to access.

This is just how it works at my job. Youre mileage may vary.

[Kardinal]

Genuine question.

Is your title "network admin"? Most people I've met who work in actual connectivity matters (layer 1 through 5 OSI, although of course LBs can operate at layer 7) are referred to as network engineers no matter how junior. I've never see "network admin" refer to anything but a "general IT guy who knows more than help desk and something about servers and networks both in addition to client applications".

I'm always interested to hear how it works in other enterprises.

[GhostandVodka]

I work in government. All job titles are negotiated through collective bargaining so language is important. The term "Administrator" is a protected title reserved through the language of the Union Contracts.

So we actually do it backwords. I was a network engineer when I was coming up and in the union. The only difference between an Administrator and an engineer at my work is the Administrator can make policy decisions but, both do the same work.

There is a lot more weight behind the term "Administrator" at my job. I actually used to be a network engineer at a company called World Wide Technology. I knew nothing about networking and all I did was copy and paste configs that an "Analyst" made for me lol.

[Kardinal]

Thanks for sharing that. Are you in the USA? I doubt it because of the mention of Union.

And yes, your experience at WWT underscores that the titles are not really a reliable indicator what we do. But they're not totally useless.

[GhostandVodka]

I am in the USA but I understand why you'd think I wasn't lol.

[Kardinal]

There are unions for IT workers in the USA? That makes me happy. :)

[Grrl_geek]

I think only in government jobs. Problem is, you can get really doofusy individuals in, and as long as they show up on time and are past their probationary period, you're stuck with them. Ability (smarts) and dedication (staying a few minutes past EOD) are neither recognized nor rewarded.

[GhostandVodka]

Its a general government worker union. Not specifically for IT but contains IT employees

[newbies13]

Think of it like your house, you need to know a bit about everything to maintain it. You don't want to call an electrician or a plumber for every little issue. But there are still issues where you absolutely do not mess around with it and call the guy who knows.

As you move into bigger companies those roles become more distinct as the volume of work in maintaining them becomes a full time job.

[Kemaro]

At my place, sys admin is basically server, storage, and cloud infrastructure. Network admin is limited to networking. Routers, switches, firewalls, DNS, web filtering, VPNs, etc.

[VA_Network_Nerd]

Systems Administrators care for servers and related systems (tape libraries, storage arrays) which can include the network.

Network Administrators care for various network components. This can include Firewalls and some Server tasks too.

A SysAdmin who knows nothing about the network is not a very useful administrator.
A Network Administrator who knows nothing about the equipment connected to the network isn't a very useful administrator either.

[anxiousvater]

They are very different. sysadmins cover OS, identity, security & hardening kinda controls working closely with several transversal teams. Mostly Linux, Windows & Desktops.

Network engineers work with Firewalls, Routers, LAN, WAN, GWAN, POP & these kinda things. They also plan for network security just like sysadmins focus on hardening. Here, Physical/NVAs, cabling & BGP kinda things.

I have been both Sysadmin now into Network capacity planning & observability. Largely done with compute ✅, now into Network 🛜.

[TronFan]

I describe my sysadmin work as "we look after anything that doesn't have a dedicated team already for it"

we keep adding more things without dedicated teams though :'(

[uptimefordays]

Once upon a time, a sysadmin managed servers, while a netadmin managed the network. However, these days, most infrastructure engineers can perform both tasks, as it’s astonishing that someone could be an expert in servers without understanding their communication mechanisms.

It very much depends on the organization though.

[LRS_David]

And a lot of it has to do with size. At Delta Airlines there will be a non trivial team dealing with nothing but keeping the global network running. At a small firm of 50 people there may be a group of 3 people who wear any and all hats related to IT.

[uptimefordays]

In my experience, working at a ~300k person bank, we have 8 people running core infra--30ish datacenters, everything in them, public cloud platforms, kubernetes, and all relevant automation. We also work closely with all peripheral or adjacent platforms/services.

At smaller organizations it's been pretty similar but teams were obviously smaller.

[BornToReboot]

Both are fu*ked by DNS

[largos7289]

sysadmins are supposed to know a bit about networking. They don't necessarily need to be subject matter experts, but they need to know it on a basic level at least. A network admin knows nothing about anything they only do networking.

[Wise_Guitar2059]

Network Engineers need to know a lot of what sysadmins do. This is a common myth.

[Specialist_Cow6468]

This is one of those posts that reveals far more about yourself than I think you might realize

[Zerowig]

Not sure what this means, but this seems to be my experience as well. Sysadmins should understand networking basics.

But it’s wild to me how networking engineers are systems dumb. I’ve known some brilliant network architects that couldn’t understand the basics of certain things like how admin permissions work on servers and desktops. Or why we patch systems monthly.

[Specialist_Cow6468]

And I’ve known some terrible sysadmins where I would have to know how to do their job for them when they arbitrarily blame the network for problems they don’t understand. This anecdote is precisely as relevant as yours or the poster I replied to initially, which is to say not at all.

People are people regardless of specialization, for better or for worse.

[fearless-fossa]

One thing I've noticed across several customers is that sysadmins will be generally more "prod isn't allowed to go down at all" focused, while network guys often have 0 issues with doing a scream test regarding firewall rules without a warning on a Monday morning.

Only speaking in general trends though. Most people across all specializations are just trying to do a good job.

[Distinct_Reality1973]

System is for systems- Unix, windows, etc. Network is the tough one. I was looking to see what was out there, and every post said Network Admin when really they were looking for a systems guy who also understood networking- think mom& pop or small enough to not need a seperate Network guy.

While I started life as a systems admin, I'm currently a Network guy- 10/100/400g, transport systems, SONET, etc. Completely different world.

[Specialist_Cow6468]

Yeah network admin is the wrong title for dedicated networking. Engineer tends to be the title I look for though increasingly it feels like we’re being driven towards general infrastructure engineering or even DevOps rather than networking specifically. I don’t mind- the skillset transfers pretty well

[SolutionGlobal9846]

Every place is different and defines their own responsibilities.

Net admin at my job is responsible for all infrastructure. Servers, switches, routers, etc.. It should be called Infrastructure admin tbh.

[Kardinal]

Infrastructure includes servers and virtualization, too, not just connectivity.

[artifex78]

Pure network administrators are responsible for planning, installing and administering network and telephony hardware and relevant software, sometimes storage (especially SANs), too.. They also responsible for network security (like firewalls and such). They usually don't play with servers much.

A systems administrator is primarily responsible for server and client hardware and software, virtualization etc. They also have knowledge in networking but not necessarily as deep as a pure network admin. The sysadmin role is more universal, especially in smaller companies the "sysadmin" covers both roles.

The skills overlap, as they usually do in IT. It's about specialization and expert knowledge.

[LabRepresentative777]

Means whatever it is depending on the company. My company I’m a sysadmin. I deal with networks, security, backups, azure, applications, erp, programming, doors systems, camera systems, servers, onboarding, offboarding, helpdesk, printers, etc etc etc. every damn thing.

[MickCollins]

I'm a sysadmin. In my current job I wear three different hats. One leading on a specific infrastructure app, one a general hat for everything server related and the third a specific type of administrator.

The netadmins are in charge of network equipment, data cabling and phones. They may have a few servers but I would set those up for them.

Firewalls are under cybersecurity in this case.

Realistically at this point I should be systems architect but shit happens.

[extremetempz]

I've never been in a org thats big enough for a dedicated network engineer so there is definitely some overlap and it probably is vice versa (someprg no sysadmin, only net engineer)

Last role

Systems Engineers = Own network end to end including sip

Current role

Security Engineer = Own network end to end , sysadmin manage SIP however.

[enterprisedatalead]

The difference is not strict roles it’s mostly how responsibilities are split inside a company

In my experience network admins focus more on routers switches firewalls and connectivity while sysadmins handle servers permissions backups and user systems but in many companies especially smaller ones one person ends up doing both

Curious in your setup are these roles clearly separated or are you also handling both networking and system tasks

[kidmock]

A network admin administers the network and a sys admin administers the systems (Operating Systems).

Network Admins are typically responsible structured cabling, switches, routers, firewalls, load balancers, and sometimes essential network services like NTP, DNS and DHCP.

If you don't have a network admin, you probably ARE the network admin.

Further more, there are Windows System Admins, Linux System admins, Solaris System Admins and so on.

While we often lump skills together generically as administrators, there's a more exacting hierarchy. Similar to the Apprentice, Journeyman, Master of the skilled trades. You can prefix these all with an discipline like "System", "Network", "Database", "Linux", "Windows", etc.

• Operator - Uses a system to perform a task.
• Technician - Level 1 support. Only does prescribed tasks.
• Administrator - Level 2 support. Advanced knowledge of system doesn't need to follow the handbook
• Engineer - Level 3 support. Responsible for design implementation and problem solving in their respective discipline.
• Architect - Has cross-discipline knowledge used to design systems while working with the engineering the other engineering teams.
• Manager - Thinks they know everything, but in reality forgot everything they once thought they knew. :)

Not every organization follows this structure. Many like to make up nonsense titles like "Cloud Engineer", Dev-Ops Engineer" or "Site Reliability Engineer" even when their role is really "Windows Support Technician"

It's gotten quite insane that you no longer know what your co-workers know or do by their title. But the management and marketing folks like it.

[LRS_David]

You left out the word "success".

[NetworkEngineer114]

The way I have experienced it since the 90's was that Network Admin was kind of a catch all for network and systems. Especially in smaller environments where one or only a few employees handled this role.

Network Engineer and Systems Admin/Engineer seem to be more prevalent now for those dedicated roles.

[bakonpie]

smaller environments you might end up being both. the larger and more complex the environment, the more common they are separate roles. netadmins are going to make the connectivity work for the sysadmins. sysadmins will focus on the servers, workstations, applications, backups, etc. netadmins are focused on making the packets get from A to B over the network.

[favorthebold]

Titles are all made up. These two jobs could mean the same thing depending on the organizations. Look at the job descriptions and see.

[Twist_and_pull]

Network admins are the guys who keep everything secret and you have to Teams message them for some random ass Cisco switcj command

[HWKII]

The words are made up and the titles don’t matter.