Following encouragement from Mario and discussion with Ski after the BoF, I dusted off my SABOK draft and moved it from www.lopsa.org/content/sabok to www.sabok.org.
I then expanded it based on feedback from Willard Dennis, Shawn Shehidzadeh, and initial feedback from the ops-education folks. Adam, thank you for mentioning the Heilmeier; and Carolyn for seconding it. Here we go: * What are you trying to do? I am trying to make it easier to consistently produce well qualified system administrators in sufficient volume to keep up with the explosion of computer systems. Modern civilization depends on computer systems, and the state of the art today is such that qualified humans must be in the loop to keep it all running smoothly. I am trying to make it easier to make more of such humans, and to do so more efficiently. My initial goal is to put together a reading list, which, accompanied by a sequence of practical exercises, would make it possible for trainers, educators or master sys admins to make new sysadmins in greater volume than was possible under the old master-apprentice system (which is limited to a few apprentices per year at most). * How is it done today, and what are the limits of current practice? The booklet "Educating and Training System Administrators: A Survey" by Koncicky and Wynn (USENIX Short Topics in Systems Administration, 1998) describes how it is done today. In short, there is vendor-specific training and there is a handful of degree programs, and there is the good old apprenticeship system. https://sites.google.com/site/educatingsystemsfolks/home/university-programs describes the state of Education (degree programs) today (2012) I'm still waiting for any kind of report from first System Administration Educators' Summit 2013, so I don't actually have the very latest scoop. The main limit of current practice is: different places teach differently. Some programs are more theoretical than others (in other words, lack a practical component, which IMHO is vital to making a competent practitioner). It is hard to find a good system administrator. Many "senior" sys admins I've interviewed recently were sadly lacking in fundamental understanding of modern computer systems. I have friends at Google and Etsy who said they are having trouble finding good SREs / Ops Engineers. There is no common standard for what a sysadmin is, or what a sysadmin should know, which makes it harder to both train and hire sysadmins. * What's new in your approach and why do you think it will be successful? I am severely limiting the scope of my approach to keep it attainable. The product will be a guide to existing literature and resources. That's all. * Who cares? The guide would be useful to students, educators, trainers and practitioners. * If you're successful, what difference will it make? A Guide-SABOK would make it easier for me to train junior sysadmins. As Kyrre Begnum pointed out, a Guide-SABOK would make it easier for a new degree program to develop their curriculum. It would make it easier to make system administrators, which are essential to maintaining the fabric of modern civilization. * What are the risks and the payoffs? The worst thing that'd happen is nothing would come of it. The best thing, we'd actually define and advance our field and make it easier to expand it. * How much will it cost? Vertical Sysadmin donated the domain, GitHub provides web hosting. The main cost to the LOPSA community would be volunteer time for participants. * How long will it take? I'm targeting releasing the v2.0 of Guide-SABOK by USENIX ATC 2014 (what I have now is a draft of 2.0). I'm targeting graduating Guide-SABOK (www.sabok.org) from a one-man effort to a communal activity involving industry and academia by LISA 2014. But this kind of thing can't be forced, people have to want to be involved, and there has to be something worthwhile to be involved IN. So consider this a sort of prototype. * What are the midterm and final "exams" to check for success? For full success, the Guide-SABOK (essentially a reading guide) would not be enough. It'd need to be accompanied by a sequence of practical exercises or field work. However, to constrain scope, let's consider the reading guide only. If others find it useful enough to contribute to it, this would be a mid-term success. (I already got half a dozen contributions. Thanks and keep them coming!) If others find Guide-SABOK useful enough to maintain and update without my involvement, this would be a final success. ### End of Heilmeier ### Feedback welcome! Please also visit www.sabok.org Yours respectfully, Aleksey Tsalolikhin _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
