[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I propose that in most cases, it's been the UNIX admins who put together the > systems then install and basically configure the apps that make up the > suite of apps that can be called an Information System such as a httpd, > php/perl plus SSL/TLS and a databases such as Mysql or Postgres.
Rachel, In my experience (mostly a very large national enterprise with a well-established IT group) you're right, it's the (Unix/Windows/...) system administrators who undertake such tasks. I once found myself pursuing an almost identical question, but along network lines instead: Who does the network configuration and administration of your server infrastructure? The network administration team or the system administration team? I've seen very few cases where it isn't the system admins that do the network configuration of the server infrastructure, yet nearly all network reconfigurations are prompted as part of projects initiated and owned by the network administration team. Who manages and configures your DNS? Your resolv.conf? Is name resolution an application service or a network service? The system adminstrators usually end up performing an entirely menial task almost completely under the direction of the network administrators. Why? Allowing the network admin team to change the IP address of an ethernet port on your server usually requires giving the router jocks your root password, something you'd never do. I've found that the allocation of responsibilities has generally fallen, somewhat pragmatically perhaps, along the lines of 'who can actually do it?' ie, along identity/access-control/authority lines. If you have the root password you can install and configure software and hence usually end up doing it, because to allow others to do it necessitates providing them with the very thing you preciously preserve: your control over the relevant piece of infrastructure. I have a case in mind that further illustrates the potential truth of this: mainframe environments. In mainframe environments the system security and rights allocation mechanisms are usually sophisticated enough and fine-grained enough that you can grant the network administration team sufficient rights for them to undertake their relevant activities, without giving them rights to completely reconfigure everything. In these environments the division of labour is often more rational. Virtual machine environments will see a shift I think, especially in the scenarios in which you're most interested: application configuration. When it becomes more common for individual or clusters of related applications to be hosted in virtual hosts rather than within the same single shared operating system instance it will be easier (read: safer|more likely) for responsibilities within a particular virtual host to be shared with the people actually responsible for the applications running within them. The application support teams may be given more power over their applications and the system administration team may voluntarily relinquish the exclusivity of rights that they currently preserve. regards Terry -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
