On Sat, 27 Jun 2015, Warner wrote:
On Fri, Jun 26, 2015 at 11:23:02PM -0700, David Lang([email protected]) wrote:
<snip>
specialists who's work terrifies others (think about rebuilding/modifying
an automatic transmission and think how most sysadmins think about
networking)
<snip>
I hope that's not true about networking with the majority of our
members. If not, I'm concerned.
the majority of sysadmins never have to do anything more with networking than
set the default route on their systems. A fraction of them have to set firewall
rules (and those are so frequently horribly insecure even by the ones who
specialize in it that a cringe at what the remainder must look like)
let's face it, we are never going to prohibit people from doing 'unlicensed
system administration' or running 'uncertified servers on the Internet',
just like you are never going to kill off backyard mechanics or prevent
modified cars (some of which are unsafe) from being on the road.
<snip>
For the record, I don't want to do that nor am I suggesting that.
You may not have, but others have, and when we start talking about making system
administration a "Profession" like Enginnering, etc every example used tends to
be one where those who aren't certified are banned.
If not automotive repair/modification/restoration/etc then what field
qualifies? Let's talk about various other fields that have the same type of
issue and see what they are able to do.
I'm okay with us doing it on our own terms, I don't often compare myself
to others and I'm fine doing the same with my profession.
If we must model after something, I'd model after something that is
closer to the level of skill and intelligence required to do the work.
I think there is a big dose of wishful thinking in your statement. Both in the
level of intellegence needed for the majority of the field (say the 80th
percentile).
Also, something that has the level of respect in society that's
consistent with the value it produces.
I especially think this is wishful thinking.
Many fields can point to how horrible it would be if they weren't around, and
society as we know it would collapse without auto mechanics
Perhaps we need to do a poll of members to acertain our demographics.
Based on this conversation, I'm questioning if I'm aligned with the
wrong organization or if we just need a signifcant rebranding. Given the
folks I speak to more often in the world at large, I'm leaning towards
rebranding.
you may be reading things into my statements that aren't intended. I've worked
in the field for a bit over 20 years, at a startup with <30 people that grew to
800 peopel before Intuit bought us, then at Google, now at a 300 person company.
I've seen a fair number of sysadmins over this time and worked with some really
good networking folks (at the first company, we had over 1000 WAN connections to
banks and credit unions). There are a lot of really great people in the field,
but there are also a lot of people who aren't as good. There are a huge number
that don't have the large system experience because they don't have that many
systems to manage, and if you haveunder a half dozen systems, a lot of things
that the large 24x7 shops worry about (and the papers that are written, research
done etc) just don't matter.
If system downtime costs thousands of dollars per minute, your priorities are
going to be much different than a system that costs thousands of dollars per
week or month of downtime.
Note to the board... understanding our demographics would inform our
strategy. Combined with hypotheses and metrics to inform if change is
successfully driving the organization forward. The lean startup model
could help us out right now.
It's not just our current demographics, it's the demographics of who we define
as our potential members, and if we are trying to define a "field" to be turned
into a "Profession", what the definition of the field is.
As far as I know, LOPSA has been defining sysadmin as anyone who administers
systems for others to rely on, no matter the scale, scope, OS, etc (i.e. as
broad a definition as possible)
David Lang
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