On Fri, Aug 09, 2013 at 10:33:08PM +1000, Robert Brockway wrote: > I don't agree that sysadmins are a fast disappearing species. I do > believe that Sysadmins who worked as they did 10 years are a fast > disappearing species.
yes, the job of sysadmin changes constantly. however, the devops push (while sounding pretty good on general principles) almost inevitably devolves to programmers doing whatever they like, when they like, and without any consideration for "big picture" issues of systems management, maintainence, or planning; and management thinking they can get more value for money by getting one or more of the developers to do the sysadmin stuff in their "spare time". > Whether services are run locally, or hosted or whatever, there is a > need to make stuff work and to keep it working and this is where the > sysadmin has always sat - it's just the stuff that keeps changing. yes, and the DevOps meme says "you don't need this person, a developer can do it in their spare time. the job isn't important enough to require a dedicated person or to require a specialised skill-set" actually, it's probably not DevOps itself that's the problem - it's that devops has become infected with the wish-fulfilment fantasies and expectations of obsolete management theology that production-unit drones (i.e. workers) should be and therefore *are* drop-in replacable components, with no individual skills or strengths. > [1] I'll install Postfix from a package instead, or more likely, the > entire build will be automated. it's not as straight-forward as that. the devops meme inherently devalues the professional skills of systems administration - which are *similar* to but quite distinctly different from the professional skills of programming. there's a lot more to systems admin than installing and configuring a package. for example, there's a huge difference between a puppet deployment set up by a sysadmin and one set up by a programmer. you can't automate what you don't know. you can't foresee (and therefore avoid) potential problems if you've never experienced them. and most of all, you can't do a good job of systems administration if you see it as just an unpleasant chore that you have to get through in order to get back to your "real" work. and the difference between a programmer and a system admin is NOT just learnable skills, there's significant difference in aptitude and how they each perceive problems and arrive at solutions. programming is more detail-oriented, the nitty-gritty of coding some specific routine. systems admin is more big-picture thinking about the system(s) as a whole and how they inter-connect with other systems. there's some cross-over, of course, but that distinction and difference in aptitude and attitude is very real. the meme involves a certain amount of (IMO, ultimately self-destructive) self-deception that organisations don't really need a sysadmin, they can just get one of the programmers to do it (which, of course, makes them a sysadmin...but a semi-skilled one) it's as if an engineering company had a policy that they don't really need electrical or electronic engineers because their mechanical engineers - with vast experience of mechanical engineering but almost none with electricty or electronics - should be able to figure out the details. and maybe they can, but it'll take them much longer and they won't do anywhere near as good a job as someone with vast experience in electrical or electronic engineering. craig -- craig sanders <[email protected]> BOFH excuse #332: suboptimal routing experience _______________________________________________ Link mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
