From: mccoy@cs.iastate.edu (Chris McCoy)
Subject: Re: Gaining system administration skills
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 17:23:42 GMT

brettw@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Brett D. Watson) writes:

>  Can the basic system administration skills learned be carried to
>another job with a different flavor of Unix?  If I learned solid admin
>skills under SCO Xenix, could I effectively take a job in a few years
>as a Sun OS admin?  I'm asking because I'm a little worried that the
>skills learned under Xenix may not apply directly to other variations
>of Unix.  What say you all?  Any sys admins listening?

Not to be facetious, but there is a difference between SA skills and
knowledge.  SA's for a long time have been considered simply the
software technicians of the computer world.  Fact is, an SA is a
manager.  He/she manages people, hardware, software, and information.
How one manages these things are really the skills that an SA 
should focus on.  

Here are some of the skills *I* think are important for an SA to
concentrate on:

	- troubleshooting and problem solving; I know this is broad
	  but it is important for an SA to thoroughly analyze the
	  problem and develop one or more methods of attack to 
	  solve it; the "let's try this and see what happens"
	  approach is costly and wasteful and sometimes disastrous.

	- handling user questions/attacks/etc. ;not just responses,
	  but building the trust and learning to convey the technical
	  stuff in a non-technical manner; sometimes this means you must
	  be a babysitter or a kindergarten teacher or a University prof.

	- working with the "big picture"; one change may affect another
	  seemingly unrelated part of the system. Learning how to
	  work in this type of an environment takes effort and patience. 
	  The "big picture" includes hardware, software, people and
	  information.

	- SA's *should* be able to analyze a user's need (sometimes
	  before the need arises) and be able to suggest the best
	  technical solutions based not upon personal bias, but upon
	  the available solutions at that time; this means that an
	  SA must constantly strive to stay current in this field
	  with the competetion (here's where you learn differences
	  and similarities among OS's)

	- Knowing how AND when to develop a set procedure and
	  documenting it thoroughly. This is sometimes that hardest
	  "skill" to learn, but can make an SA really successful.

	- Organization.  In everything.

In short, I'd say you can use almost any job as an opportunity.
Use Xenix to learn "UNIX" (all UNIXes).  

I'd take a staff of SA's with a great attitude and thorough 
understanding of the basics any day over a bunch of hackers who 
believe their way is the only way and have done the exact same 
things for 15 years even though the world is continually moving.
Remember, next year things will change again.  How does one get
experience with that?
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Chris McCoy, Systems Support          : INTERNET  mccoy@cs.iastate.edu
Computer Science Department           : FAX       (515) 294-0258
Iowa State University                 : VOICE     (515) 294-9727
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Chris McCoy                         : INTERNET  mccoy@cs.iastate.edu
Computer Science Department         : FAX	(515) 294-0258
Newsgroups: misc.jobs.misc