Going beyond the simple rate of introducton of new things, how much of how
things were done 10 years ago is now considered 'wrong' and actively harmful?
if you aren't completely up to date in most other fields (Doctors possibly
excluded), what you do is still reasonable, even if not the best possible thing
to do. In our field I'm not sure this is the case yet.
David Lang
On Mon, 11 Nov 2013, Chase Hoffman wrote:
Honestly the concern I have about "Body of Knowledge" and the principle of
"profession" vs. "occupation" is this:
All the other "professions" listed have bodies of knowledge that don't
fundamentally change month to month or year to year. Structural engineers
may be able to use better, stronger concrete or better alloys, but those
don't alter the fundamental principles of building a bridge or an office
building. Doctors may get new drugs that help cure $DISEASE, but the
function of the kidneys hasn't changed.
We're in an industry where software changes month to month. The
fundamental principles upon which we might base a BoK aren't yet mature -
for example, what constitutes a proper backup strategy? That's something
that's completely platform and technology independent, and I doubt we'd get
consensus from any 3 random LOPSA members consulted.
Is there a BoK that could be abstracted between Linux and Windows admins?
Those running mainframe OSes? Big Iron vs SMB?
I don't know that there are yet. I don't know that there ever will be.
One of the great triumphs of the internet is that it's the ultimate
disruptive technology - it forces us to change and allows us to iterate
quite rapidly. Why then are we trying to hold on to the notion of
traditional professions or occupations? Couldn't this distinction be one
of the casualties of the way the world is now?
On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 9:23 AM, Willard Dennis <[email protected]>wrote:
On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 9:26 PM, Edward D'Azzo-Caisser <
[email protected]> 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.
This is more in line with why I'm interested in professionalization - to
ensure that systems administrators are practicing their trade in accordance
with recognized best practices, in an ethical manner, and have the training
and ongoing educational support to do so. I personally am less interested
in the licensing and competition restriction aspects that mark some
professions (although I would want to see the day that totally unqualified
people can't BS their way into a sysadmin job, and cause their hiring
organization to suffer as a result.)
One of the definitions of professionalization that I think is simple and
achievable is the one from the L. Cox paper (dissertation) from 2010, which
states three attributes:
1) a [recognized / accepted] Body of Knowledge - this has been started by
some community members (Halprin and Tsalolikhin) but is only an outline
of an best practices audit checklist / normative literature list
respectively; I think that the meat of a BOK will come out of the higher-ed
institutions that are offering / working towards a 2/4-year degree in
systems administration/operations, since they need this for their
curriculum (also the open-source OpsSchool movement is producing
instructional material as well, not sure if any higher-ed institutions
have/will adopt this.)
2) A Code of Ethics - LOPSA and USENIX/LISA already has an agreed-upon
CoE, so this exists already.
3) A Professional Organization with a growing set of published papers and
best practices - We seem to have two professional organizations: LISA (nee
SAGE, the USENIX SIG) and LOPSA. LISA does have a set of published papers
("Short Topics" books, and the annual LISA conference proceedings) but not
sure that anyone is promulgating a set of best practices at this point. (As
far as a "best practices" set goes, I like Limoncelli et al's book "The
Practice of System and Network Administration", and would like to see this
endorsed by LOPSA/LISA.)
There is much work to be done in this area, but over time with people's
effort, is think the above is doable,and would form the basis for folks who
want to be known as a professional systems admin/operations practitioner.
Thanks,
Will
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