On Sun, 10 Nov 2013, Edward D'Azzo-Caisser wrote:
When I look at our community, I see people concerned about system
administrators being knowledgeable and qualified. I see it whenever someone
asks for help in IRC and elsewhere, whenever someone volunteers to mentor a
protege and whenever the subject of the profession or education as a whole
comes up. Why not make "knowledgeable and competent" system administrators
the central goal and look at what we need to accomplish this? I think a
base body of knowledge is important for the ideal administrator. A code of
ethics is also important, so is continued education and a number of other
factors. Let's assume there are a few more out there, too. Now, assume
someone tries to start their career right and achieve all of these goals.
How do they know where to begin? If they make some headway, how do they
know they're on the right track? When they're done, how do they know
they've succeeded? That's where I think you should direct this endeavor.
When I think of "professionalization of system administration", I don't
think of what being a system administrator actually means in terms of
duties and technologies. I think of a map some kid at the beginning of
their career can follow and know they've satisfied the expected standards.
And by extension, they'll easily see how to *exceed* them. Ideally, it's
something anyone can achieve in a year or two while on the job. And no
matter what, it won't cover anything. Just enough to help demonstrate
competence.
This approach assumes that the kid starts out planning to make system
administration their career.
I know I sure didn't plan that. I was planning to be a programmer and fell into
system administration. I'll bet a very large percentage of people have 'fallen
into' the field.
There are those who were the 'computer person' for a group who then became
dedicated to that job when the group became big enough, and only years later
realized that they were a "System Administrator"
There are those who started at the help desk and branched out from there.
As we go forward, I expect we will get a lot of people who are DevOps
programmers who end up doing all the sysadmin work.
When someone didn't plan to do the work, laying out a specific roadmap for them
to follow isn't going to work very well.
David Lang
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