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A Sysadmin for Sysadmins?
crazyharry asks: "I have recently been hired to be a system administrator to a bunch of system administrators. Aside from my personal experience, which is probably biased, I would like to know from the disproportionately large number of IT people here: if you, as a system administrator, were forced to have a system administrator, what would you expect of that role? How would you want your business machines (not the ones you admin, but your daily use machines) managed, if they were not up to this point? This is a mixed environment (Windows, Mac, and Linux/Unix), so feel free to assume I've already heard the 'leave me the FSCK alone' comments. What other issues are probably going to crop up, if you have been in a similar situation?"
Sysadmins are going to make your job hard (wouldn't you?). Nobody likes knowing how to fix a problem but having to go through somebody else. Why are you needed? This smells like a manager came up with the idea without understanding how sysadmins operate.
I've normally found managers that manage managers to be worthless. The best thing you can do is admin from a far and only let your presence be noted when things have gone badly. While guidance is appreciated too much guidance is, to quote the hippies, "a drag".
Let your people show their strengths, don't force them to.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
As I see it:
The *good* news is it might make existing sysadmins more symapthetic to the needs of their users if they have to experience the same sort of interactions with them that some experience with their co-workers (some of my own experiences have been negative in the past and as such are biased).
The *bad* news is that more bureaucracy means more places for people to hide, more paperwork for everyone to got through, and another layer of clearance required for people to do their jobs.
The *ugly* news is that a single feudal overlord of a sysadmin with political qualifications instead of technical ones might turn a workplace from a productive well-oiled machine to a mess rather quickly.
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
in my experience, there are 2 completely differnt types of sys admins:
/. you are more the "people first type"
- ones who think computers are their clients
- ones who think people are their clients
both have their plusses and minuses. it seems that some people fit one camp - other people fit into the other camp, and they don't easily change. personally I prefer the sys admins who focus on the people first, and get the computers to meet their needs. I'd make sure in your case you know the expectations of the people who you work for and work with and see if you fit their expectations.
I would guess from your post, and the fact you wanted input from a large group of people on
Good luck!
....than how your sysadmins would run their network.
.exe file attachments, which is good for you.
You keep it open enough for them to do their job, and not much else, provide the proper storage and network services that they require, and that's about it. What I see as the main difference is that your users aren't dumb enough to open
Expect a lot of griping from your sysadmins, mainly involving filtering out Quake server traffic, if it comes to that. You have a job to do, so just do it.
You're in for a tough job. This is bound to be even worse than managing a group of programmers.
Proverbs 21:19
Also, don't be afraid to impose restrictions on the other administrators. Communicate clearly why these restrictions are required, and where possible, allow the administrators to make their case as to why they need the restrictions listed. Listen to their arguments, and alter your guidelines if needed.
If you have time and money, play with the budget you have at your disposal to make life easier for yourself and your charges.
Don't enforce; Provide.
if you, as a system administrator, were forced to have a system administrator, what would you expect of that role
You said it... If I were forced to have a system administrator... You should maintain your distance, be amiable. You should offer all the help you can to those who are either not doing things properly (in which case you can be somewhat forceful, but be sure you know they're doing it wrong), and to those who actually ask for it. If you start bossing them around, you're not going to last long (psychologically) in your position.
Hell, depending on how many of them there are, just buy them all a beer Friday after work... That ought to make thing easier
What the hell's a "gewie?"
What is the point? System administrators can administer their own computers, they usually have quite a bit of time on their hands anyway. Even if their own system is hosed during a time of crisis, all they will ever need is a computer with a NIC and a CD drive to plop Knoppix in and SSH into the servers...
I can't imagine what you would possibly have a use for...
This seems to be the opposite of what other people say, but as a sysadmin who has a sysadmin I can say I like mine because I never have to apply my sysadmin-ing to our internal computers. I don't expect to be given Special Powers just because I've got root somewhere else, but I expect the same quality of service I deliver to our external clients (well, OK, I expect better than that).
I'm not root on our local Linux boxes; I'm not a domain admin on our local Windows domain (though I think I'm a schema admin for some reason) -- I don't want to be. I want the local resources I need to connect out and do my work, and I don't want to have to think about them.
YMMV.
All's true that is mistrusted
You're being asked to fill a position that amounts to a collective slap in the face to a whole department. How do you think this is going to turn out for you? I don't have much information to work with here, but my suspicion is that you know that this situation is a bit awkward, to say the least, and you're not sure about it. Follow your gut and take a different job.
slashdot broke my sig
Is your job to manage a team of sysadmins, or just manage a bunch of desktop machines which happen to be used by sysadmins? The latter is generally a lot easier, although some admins can get as picky about someone managing their personal box as any huffy user.
If you're just managing the machines, make sure you've got a software baseline (start with, what software do we have and how many legit licenses have we paid for), and make sure that all of the machines which are supposed to have that stuff do, and it is patched and up-to-date. Keep a mental checklist of any machines which have severe problems; that may not be the sysadmin user's fault, but it still ought to be a warning sign.
Sysadmins always seem to get buried in the never-ending stream of building new machines, or running Windows update, or virus-scanning, etc, but try to keep the team aware of longer-term goals beyond the humdrum of such routine daily tasks. Try to give everyone at least two long-term goals or tasks to complete: one that's fun or interesting or cool, and one that sucks or is boring but needs to be done. Make sure everyone knows that everyone has got to deal with some suckatude, publicly praise/reward the first guy who finishes a sucky task. On the other hand, if someone gives you problems or blows off the difficult task, make another public point of awarding another sucky task to the guy.
"The human race's favorite method for being in control of the facts is to ignore them." -Celia Green
Two thing thats piss me off the most usually is limitations on my access, or annoying security measures, both of which I look at similarly because they are different sides of the same coin often. I host a website on a host where I don't have root access. They are supposed to be good, and a place geeks like to host, and for the most part they are. But having no root access can be annoying. For example, the machine load average was very high for some weeks. It would shoot up to something like 10 or 20 times the number of processors for an hour and then go back to normal. My e-mails to the techs didn't do anything for some weeks. My ps only let me see my own processes, I couldn't see what processes were hogging the machine. The first time they checked, the spike hadn't happened, so they had no idea what was wrong. So they were slow to do anything about it, I had the ability to better diagnose what was wrong. Eventually I ran a script that did an uptime every minute and wrote it to a file. But after two days they killed that - that's another thing, they killed a script that I was running. Although if it was an attempt to find this rogue process, I didn't care as much. Anyhow, eventually they fixed the problem.
Another thing that happened with these hosters, which again is related to me not being able to see system processes with ps - one day my password protection for directories (htaccess) died. I had to recreate everything with their automatic system in terms of the htaccess and htpasswd files. I couldn't see what user was running our Apache web server processes, I just had no idea why it broke.
Once I worked at a company where you needed SecureID to log into their machine for customers, among other security provisions. I thought it was rather silly - I only read mail from the machine, and not much else, why do I need a SecureID card to do that? Wasn't ssh enough? Did I have to carry around a SecureID card just to access this one machine and my e-mail which I read with pine? Again, a mixture of limited access and what I felt was unnecessary security is what pissed me off. Our company had a lot of smart programmers and sysadmins, I'm sure anyone motivated enough to hack in could get in and get root despite the SecureIDs. It sort of reminds me of the World Trade Center. The security to get in was ridiculous after the first bombing. But they hadn't walked into, but drove into the building the first time, so why was taking my picture and other silly measures necessary? It did little for them as they eventually got flown into, which destroyed the buildings. As I said, once something becomes a target for somebody motivated enough, there is little you can do.
That said, if everything is working well, you become the buffer between the sysadmins and the rest of the world.
You get to be the one that goes to HR and complain about Clueless User #69 in cubicle 18 with his inappropraite visit to the wrestling website that installed spyware for a solid hour over lunch. You would also get to run the pilot projects before they role out company wide. You test the new toys, using the other sysadmins in fair rotation as project managers for the test.
You also get the really big headaches, like when Clueless User #69 is the incredibly cute and hot granddaughter of the boss, or some such thing (who never does anything wrong. No. Really.)
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I would never hire a sysadmin for sysadmins. Sysadmins can do their own sysadmining. Each can have their own server, or everyone can know the root password. In fact you can do a round robin system or just nominate one sysadmin to have the root password. Why would you want to get a doctor for doctors (beside one of the doctors) or using the car analogy, a driver for a busload of drivers?
If you have sysadmins admining different branches and you want a super sysadmin, you'd want a more senior admin, one who has used a diverse set of vertical and horizontal solutions.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
What are the expectations of the person that hired you to do this job in the first place? Why did they think these sysadmins needed a sysadmin of their own? That's where you have to start asking questions.
...and a 12 gauge. Why take chances?
I think the most important possible thing is to take input liberally. It is likely that specific sysadmins will be more experienced than you in certain areas, or be able to figure out problems first. If so, you should thank the admin who gave you the input (where his boss can see), and implement it. The key being that you try not to be a hurdle, instead try to make things more effective by co-ordinating efforts, while at the same time winning allies by giving positive feedback to those who are interested in team effort.
:)
Of course, if you are single-handedly responsible for running 4 platforms, you will be overloaded, which will negatively impact everyone if you are the only one given administrative rights. I would try to plan for that up-front by developing a procedure and getting management buy-in for overflow/emergency situations where admin privileges can be delegated where necessary. Eg., sticky problem on an admin's workstation that could take hours of troubleshooting? Instead of making him take downtime and wait for to be free, let him take a crack at it himself.
I have been in simliar situations, with another team managing common-use infrastructure machines, and a patchlevel/base software compliance tool scanning aspects of the system. In all cases you should make it clear that you are doing your job, and not be patronizing to your peers.
i.e., get a requirement from management? Refer to it as a requirement from management, and don't try to "sell" it, unless you really do think it's a good idea. Of course, if one of your fellow admins succeeds in convincing you otherwise while you are selling an idea you initially agreed with, don't pull rank, try to get things worked out to everyone's advantage.
In all cases, I think focusing on the positive teamwork will serve you better than getting drawn into disputes. Let management fight their own battles when someone is being difficult. After all, you're sysadmin, not nanny, and you will have to work with the others every day.
Hmm, yes I agree ... sort of.
I think that there is a 3rd type.
- ones who think the business is their client.
Where ultimately although people are important, they aren't more important than the business - no precious people please.
Yes, people have to be able to do the job. But if the machines aren't working then the peope can't do the job. In a way you almost need to assume the worst of people - not nice, but by doing that you protect the business by ensure those that don't kow any better don't get 'their' machines into a state where they can no longer do their job. Machines weighed down by extra 'applications' such as viruses and trojans don't help people work.
A lot of windows (for those that use it) applications are now better able to deal with multiple people using the same machine and are more intelligent about permissions and what people need access to to get an application working - still far from perfect, but better than 5 years ago!
By ensuring the machines are stable and in a controlled, locked down environment (Control Freak Alert!) you can ensure that a business can continue. Everyone (including me) must remember that the business network is more important than any one person.
Dude, this is pretty fucked up right here.
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
On the gripping hand, the retail company I work for at the moment has about 12 thousand servers to admin...
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Don't enforce; Provide
I'm always a little perplexed by this sentiment. It only makes sense if everyone working as admins on their own piece(s) of an operation are utterly trustworthy, completely competant, always farsighted, never snarky, always productive, and not ever inclined to go home at the end of the day having left something in a condition that only they can figure out, just in case of an HBAB (Hit By A Bus) event.
A well-tuned shop assumes that all of that's in place and being embraced by everyone with sysadmin rights and responsibilities... but the truth is that it never works that way. You say "don't enforce," but I say that when you don't keep the admin folks' work tuned in to what you need it to be (in case of an HBAB), you're failing to provide for the end users and the business that depends on everything actually working (and the success of which pays the sysadmin crew's paychecks).
Now, that doesn't mean that managing sysadmin staff doesn't include fighting to provide them with what they need (and sometimes, even what they want), but pretending that there shouldn't be an expectation of things going the way you need them to (and some holding of feet to the fire when someone decides to do it their own special, inscrutable way) is the way to make sure you never work on anything other than low-rent, marginal systems supporting frail, mediocre organizations. "Enforcement" is a real part of running a network that's secure enough, important enough to the business, and solid enough to earn the budget that lets you have the cooler toys, better sysadmin people, and even some time off once in a while.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Damn straight. Your duty as a sysadmin is to ensure that the company can maxamize profits. Whenever you think about doing something, try and decide if it will make the company more money than it will cost.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
That's all I need. Thank you very much.
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
Speaking as a sysadmin, we're lazy bastards. We don't replace people with very small shell scripts out of spite; we do it because it makes our lives easier.
"How will this make my life easier?" is probably the top question a Sysadmin asks about everything he or she encounters, even ahead of "How will this help me crush my lusers, see them driven before me, and hear the lamentation of their women?"
So the number one thing I can suggest is to find ways of making their lives easier/better - ideally ones which make it clear that (1) you're on their side, and (2) perhaps more importantly, you're not getting in their way.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
I expect stuff that WORKS.
:)
At my job, we the sysadmins have full responsibility for our Unix workstations (whether they be Sun, HP-UX, Mac OS X, et al.) However, the corporate Windows boxes, we're completely hands-off.
That's fine with me; I'm not a Windows expert nor do I play one on TV.
All I ask is that the tools I need there (mostly the Remedy client and Reflections X) work. And work well.
If you can make things stable for me, I'm a happy camper. The machines are just tools to get my job done; like any other tool, if it doesn't work, I want to smash it with a sledgehammer.
with a cupboard full of spare parts and useful bits, a headful of clue and an open office door. Talk to all the people you're adminning for, ask them what they want doing and make sure you don't overstep your agreed-upon boundaries. Make it clear to everyone that you're just there to help everyone get their job done faster and whether they want root or just a reliable box to SSH from, that's what you'll provide. Deal with pissy bureocrats on their behalf, harangue the network guys when things go wrong, just try and create as pleasant and hassle-free environment as possible.
Their job is to make sure the "customers" are being served. Your job is to make sure they have what they need to do that, and to look at the bigger picture. In that sense, it means you're both a manager (of them) and a co-ordinator of the resources they need.
Your charges can handle their own machines as well as the ones they administer, so let them. You need to set standards and goals, assess what the needs of the organization are at a higher level than what they can see, and (like any good Maitre d') apologize to people now and then when soup gets spilled on them.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
...it sucks to be you!
But seriously, I mean it.
Best wishes and lots o' luck, bubba -- you really gonna need it.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
At my job we have two distinct set of systems. The general computing environment, and our clustered computing environment.
I am one of three admins of the clustered computing environment. The general computing admins run the wifi, all desktops and printers. The clustered admins run our high performance computing clusters.
I have root on all machines on my floor, but in general the users go to the general computing admins. So I get to concentrate on my job, the clustered computing environment, and the general computing guys keep everyones machines running.
All is well!
Can I get an eye poke?
Dog House Forum
Just don't drop the soap!!!
instead of shiny foil or whatever it is non-sysadmins think about.
As a non-sysadmin I take extreme offense to that! It's not fai--- Ooh! Bouncy ball!
...or...
/. what you're in for--they'll tell you explicitly and soon.
Automate it, then get outta the way.
I'm a sysadmin for several dozen engineers, and the approach I've taken is to writing the tools they need to do their jobs, toss the tools at them, and let them do their thing.
If you're controlling resources, they should be able to allocate that stuff themselves and you should do just that--stay out of the way.
If you're a service provider (doing the stuff they don't want to do), you don't need to ask
If you're in the position of defusing a contentious situation (like person A wants resource X, but so does person B and management can't make up their minds)... Er... Well... Good friggin' luck then.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." --Groucho Marx
Sysadmins don't administer people, they administer computers, and different ones can be responsible for different equipment.
In a large enough setup, equipment used by sysadmins' directly is separate from that used by everyone else.
It's only natural that the sysadmin using the machine isn't necessarily the one administering the desktops.
Then again, some prefer to administer a machine or two for their own use, or for special reasons, and this option should always be open, for efficiency and morale's sake.
If they've got knowledge, and they know how the network's to run, they should certainly be able to tinker with their own machine, particularly when something goes wrong. It's pretty ordinary that they may need to do so in the ordinary course of administering other systems, too.
I work in a department of computer scientists, where the average user is more than capable of providing their own sysadmin support. We do have a computing support department.
Effectively, the users partition themselves into two camps.
The first camp is more supported. They have the "official" image loaded on their hard drives, they log into the domain as users, and so on. When their stuff breaks, support comes out and fixes it.
The second camp is less supported. They have a "if I don't bother you, can you not bother me?" policy. They can run whatever they want, but if something breaks, they have to fix it themselves. Want to load Yellow Dog BSD on that old AIX box? Sure thing, just don't call us. Support will (at most) reimage you and put you in the first camp. Access to certain resources is more limited (non-support-sanctioned UNIX machines cannot mount NFS, for example).
I'm in Group 2. For us, support has been liberally good with requests outside the user's local domain of responsibility. For example, if a printer I use breaks, or I need an IP address assigned, or I'm having a problem with mail on the server side (and I'm really, really sure it's not a client side problem) they are more than happy to help. Activities where a user in Group 2 negatively affects other users (getting infected with a worm or port scanning the local net for fun) are rare and handled on a case-by-case basis. The worst penalty is that they'll unplug your wall jack from the switch and that generally keeps the rest of the users humming along quite nicely until you get your situation resolved.
In my experience, this is an effective compromise. Users in the first camp get more of support's facilities in exchange for some freedom. Users in the second camp get more freedom in exchange for less support. Anything in the "neutral zone" gets handled equally for both parties. In general, this keeps most people happy, including support, advanced users, and more mainstream users.
The other sysadmins are not computer illiterate - they're not going to be installing Bonzi Buddy or anything. Just get them all together and ask them what they'd like you to do. Perhaps they'd like having the admin passwords in case of emergency, or perhaps they've found that that leads to problems. I'd look for a consensus from the people you'll be working with, because they all have sort of the same job, and I imagine they have strong opinions about what you should do for them.
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you put the business first. anything else is myopic. thinking about whether you're on the side of the silicon or the human is foolish - you are supporting a business and that business' job is to maximise shareholder revenue. it might mean that you (for example) have to piss off a lot of people by restricting their user rights on a client PC because it demonstrably lowers support costs by x percent. it might be that you have to block certain ports on the firewall because some idiots are abusing your bandwidth downloading movies whilst your remote sales force are getting timeouts trying to connect.
If i can just ignore the machine and use it to access my lab mchines, then I'm happy. If I can't, and have to make emergency repairs, I can always rip open the envelope.
This, by the way, is how I ran a department at Siemens, with considerable success.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
From what I've seen in many larger environments, there can be a fair amount of paperwork, formalities, and other stuff that isn't really getting much accomplished. Granted that some of it does have it's place (keeping effort from being duplicated, making sure stuff happens, and the like), but much is not.
I would say that right in the middle of said paperwork would be a good place for an Admin of the Admins. They don't really need to have someone admining them, but it might really help to have someone who is simply responsible for keeping track of everything that goes on, does most of the generic paperwork, does all the senior managemnt reports, goes to the generic meetings (and brings back the actual important and/or intresting bits to the rest of the admins). In short, deal with all the stuff that doesn't really need an Admin to do, and let the Admins do those things that actually require an Admin to do.
I suppose it is a "rule by serving" type approach, and one that might be better served by a good secretary/manager type with a good working knowledge of the field, but it deffinitly makes it more pallatable to have an Admin running things than some manager. At least you'll be able to understand what they're complaining about. *grin*
On second thought, it'd probably be better to actually have someone with Admin training/credentials occupying such a post than a manager/secretary type, since you'll have a better understanding of what your Admins need and want, and probably know enough to tell the difference.
Z
While I won't argue with the "business first" and "maximize profits" goals, I would like to add that the obvious straight line isn't always the shortest path.
A sysadmin maximizes profits by keeping the computer users productive. While system lockdown can tend to increase uptime, and improve the sysadmin's "productivity," it may very well impair the productivity of the users. Imagine a broad curve, with degree of lockdown on the X axis and net productivity on the Y axis. No controls at all, and productivity is low because the net gets bogged down, and nothing stays up. Controls too tight, and productivity is low because one size NEVER fits all. Try giving vi to an emacs bigot, or vice versa. Tell them their job REQURES that they use the ONE TRUE EDITOR, and they'll use it, but not happily, and there will be other symptoms, as well. To "maximize profits" you have to juggle multiple factors, and it just ain't simple.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
As a sysadmin, I want to choose my work environment. My preferred setup is SuSE or Ubuntu or whatever I want to try out that day. I have a job to do, and I want the environment where I'm best capable of doing it.
Do not reinstall other peoples machines if they do not ask you to.
If someone insists on running $OBSCUROS, then let them - but explain to that person that he has to do his own sysadmining - and that he's still expected to do his work.
Help people complete their tasks if they ask for help.
Provide, do not enforce.
I think having a sysadmin for other sysadmins could be a very good idea if the person in question was a "servant to" and not a "boss of" the guys he should admin. It would be great being able to tell my sysadmin to regularly compile the CVS version of $app for me and push it to my machine as I almost never have time to do that myself. It would be great to be able to ask for some internal service without having to muck around with it myself.
It would be horrible to have some "standard" pushed upon me. It would - without doubt - decrease my productivity. As an example - being forced to use Gnome instead of KDE would decrease my productivity - while others of my officemates would think the same if it was vice versa. Some would scream bloody murder if they couldn't use their heavily customized FVWM. Some would make hell if they couldn't use their self-compiled, self-patched version of $app.
In short - a sysadmin for other sysadmins should be the guy everyone likes because he makes things easier for them. He increases their productivity.
i've worked in a very mixed environ for the last 12 years(advertising/pre-press/graphic arts) and have had to support many different OS's and versions at the same time (win 95-2003, mac os9-10.x, sol 2.51-10, irix 6.5.x, aix 4.3.3-5, linux 2.4-2.6). having many different os's makes for some really interesting compatability issues... sometimes the sysadmin in place this are homegrown, possibly from the production environment, or was shifted into IT for political reasons or punishment. i've never come in as the sysadmin's sysadmin, but i have been a working manager with several sysadmin reporting to me... in any event once i size them up, i treat them one of two ways:
1) if their sysadmin-fu is GOOD, i tell them that i'm going to leave them alone if they keep me in the loop with daily/weekly sitreps, good/bad/indifferent. i also let them know that i will get involved only when requested by said sysadmin, and i will interfere only in emergencies (as defined at my discretion or that of management). i also let it be known that i will play interference on their behalf with other corporate entities, but in turn they need to come thru on their end. i'm the new sheriff in town.
2) if their lack skillz, i'll find out why... apathy, wrong department, stoopid, etc. i'll try to either encourage building a skill set(hard/software, helpdesk, pc, mac, unix, install, scripting, etc), or eliminate the position and find someone else. and i make it clear that those are the choices. oh, and that i'm the new sheriff in town. the good ones will rise, the bad ones will hang themselves.
i don't know what your official role or title is, but it almost sounds either managerial or as a mentor. in any case you'll meet resistance with some folks and false acceptance(while they are sizing you up) by others. treat everyone equally, and resist the temptation of forming alliances too quickly.
find an area that this current crew has a big void (trouble ticket, escalation path, response time, purchasing criteria, customer relations, etc) and implement a real improvement, not just a bureaucratic step. you might also consider asking everyone to train you on how they do their job, as if you're a trainee. this will give you a chance to see how they operate and assess their true skills as well as offer some tips or pointers. consider also sharing some of the IT load by being a working manager. whomever hired you thinks they know your qualifications, show it to your crew.
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
It's simple. There are resources they use and control, and they can do whatever they like, to the limits of company policy. There are resources you control, and they can use them in ways you allow, to the limits of company policy. :-).
In other words, if you break your server, you get to keep the broken bits. If you break my server, I'll sweep up your broken bits
Envy my 5 digit Slashdot User ID!
Why would a sysadmin need a sysadmin? This seems like a redundancy. Furthermore, your position as a sysadmin of sysadmins seems like it is only going to generate friction. Why would I, as a skilled sysadmin, want you to fix/adminster a machine that I use when I am perfectly capable of doing so myself; furthermore, I can fix it quicker, not only because I am there, but because I am probably better at troubleshooting than you are.
I guess what I am getting at is that in order for your position to have meaning, you have to limit the sysadmins artificially... and I do not really understand why this would be a good idea. If I were to be thrust into your position, I would be concerned only with the personnel aspect of it all... as a manager or supervisor, not as a syadmin to a bunch of sysadmins.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
It's not about users.
It's not about computers.
It's about configuring the computers so that the users can get the maximum amount of (business) work done, correctly, in the minimum amount of time and with the minimum amount of effort. With the required security.
And in order to achieve that, you have to find the current bottlenecks and solve them. And those bottlenecks will vary from company to company and MAY NOT BE 100% TECHNOLOGICAL.
Which means that you'll have to work around the existing corporate culture and kindoms and so forth.
Can you bring some doughnuts on Monday? Thanks.
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"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
I worked in a very large (60,000+ users) company as a SysAdmin providing a particular service to everybody in the company. This took up all of my time. My data was keep on the same server's as other employees'. I'm glad that I didn't have to maintain those machines and back up all of that data in addition to doing my assigned job. That was done by other SysAdmins with different responsibilities. It was sometimes frustrating having to get somebody else to fix something that I could have easily fixed but, the total amount of time I saved was totally worth it. Plus the company didn't have to pay for raid arrays and back up tapes and such for me to provide myself with the same uptime and data security that the other SysAdmins did.
-- AC
I've worked as a sysadmin at a company that provided consulting services to a range of clients. I was lucky in that my manager was very technically competent (moreso than I in a lot of areas, though I loved to impress him with my knowledge in other areas). He controlled the company infrastructure, which we had limited or no access to beyond user priveleges (with the exception of our desktops). As long as our desktops were functional, had the software appropriate to our jobs, we had flexibility in terms of software, OS, etc, and I had a personal server to try things out on (not to mention a vmware install). He'd do things that we didnt have a lot of time for or want to do (push out updates, upgrade servers, etc). It was a great environment to work in. Your aim should be to provide what they need to get their job done, and in general make their lives easier. What you shouldnt do is police their desktops, or be heavy-handed. After all, they're used to the freedom of being at the top of the IT chain, and that's generally where they flourish. If they dont have the sense to maintain a halfway workable machine, then that's a discussion you'll have to have with the individual employee. To summarize, support them, make their lives easier, but dont police them!