Can we get a sysadmins vs developers thread?
Both are such hugely divergent paths with hugely different skill sets that I think aren’t addressed enough.
Has anyone here worked as both? Hate one?
What makes a good sysadmin that makes a bad software engineer and visa versa?
bump I really want to know what goes into the sysamdin mindset
I already know how to be a dev
And obviously I do plenty of managing my own environment and putting out fires. But I can’t imagine what it’s like doing it 40 hours a week
Free bump
>I really want to know what goes into the sysamdin mindset
>go to work
>sit down
>check servers, 5 min
>coffee break
>check servers again
>get called
>change printer toner
>check servers
>lunch break
>check servers
>go home
sysadmin seems comfy enough, but i didn't endure 4+ years of CS to become that or heaven forbid a fucking webdev.
just my two cents
sysadmin is mostly chill from what I understand.
Developer can be everything between comfortably satisfying and hell on earth.
Also, devs have better career progression opportunities.
Is it really that low-clout? I was under the impression that if not sysadmins then at least network admins are considered pretty wizardly
I have a B.Sc in Software Development, but employed as a sysadmin for 5 years.
AMA?
Q OP: ..different skill sets that I think aren’t addressed enough.
A: It's writing software and maintaining software, so basicly 90% is knowing and understanding software for both groups. The real difference is the sysadmin knows generally about a lot of the software, where developers dig deep into specific parts of it.
Q OP: What makes a good sysadmin?
A: Being good at documenting, and order. It's a chaotic setup with lots of crazy complicated moving parts regardless of place. I honestly think autism isn't bad for this industry.
Q OP: ... makes a bad software engineer ?
A: Code bases are always chaotic aswell, so gaining quick overview and maintaing overview in SoftE, is probably an essential skill, not having just means you output crap.
sysadmins are users.
No sysadmin knows better than developer
I think here the distinction between admin and dev is a bit clearer, because you don't want to check servers constantly, and you don't wanna put the _same_ fires out all the time, so for admins, creating long-term solutions, and reusable solutions are key, where in dev it can be slacked upon and "fixed later".
The mindset clearly has to be, "Will this configuration cause me future problems? And how do i prevent that."
90% chill, and 10% OMFG EVERYTHING IS FIRE, CALL 911, BUSINESS IS GOING BUST, F.U.D.
This x1000
Everything is chill, then one person gets a random one in a million error message or they have to wait an extra 20 milliseconds for a page to load and suddenly their hair is on fire and they're going out of business.
I've come across developers who would struggle to swap out a hard drive from a PC but would pretend like they know everything.
Hold the fuck up. Do you even need a CS degree at that point?
I’ve been plunging into infosec lately but now I’m becoming wary of this putting out fires/spinning plates aspect that I can’t imagine leads to much satisfaction. It seems like it’d be easier to be a def and have the masturbatory feeling of creating something.
Is this something I’m reading into too much or is adminning really one of those talents that requires a big capacity for shit?
Admin is pretty consistent across the subgroups, like it's all RAID, and user ACLs etc.
Development is like crazy different if you are web or embedded.
eh my understanding was help desk monkeys can make their way to sysadmin with certs or whatever.
might be what makes me view them the way i do.
might not be fair, but oh well
A good sysadmin is just a developer who happens to write monitoring and provisioning tools, and automates administration tasks.
A bad sysadmin is someone who just babysits servers and SSHs in to restart a service when something fails.
You still create mate.
Like software-dev is creating small things in a bigger picture.
Admining is not reseting passwords for Carl because he is the living definition of a floating turd. It's also about designing and combining software into a functional infrastructure. So if you setup WiFi Firewall/Sniffing and Intrusion detection systems, it feels pretty great.
bumparoos. Used to be a sysdba now a developer. I always loved to experiment with the root privileges and Oracle SYS which I deeply miss now.
sysadmins don't have to understand how the software works to be able to keep it running. If something fucks up and it can't be fixed in settings or by repairing/reinstalling, that's why they have support for the software. Sysadmins/network admins also have to deal with actual networking as well as repairing and maintaining the PCs and servers themselves, which a lot of devs would struggle to do because they don't have to know any of that to do their jobs. They are very different skill sets. A good sysadmin needs to have a deep understanding of networking, firewalls, operating systems, and be able to diagnose issues, although they do not necessarily need to be able to fix every issue themselves because, again, that's why people pay for support.
This new school "call support when something, anything" is pretty wide-spread now.
But you still run into stuff where you really have to know what the exact behavior of the software is, like the Windows Server, it's expensive to call support just to help setup group permissions correctly.
Also spec'ing servers etc, also requires in depth knowledge of the software and how you are gonna use it in the org, you can't just throw infinite ram at a DB server.
I'm not talking about calling support for Windows server, I don't think I've ever actually talked to Microsoft support except for issues with Exchange. I'm talking about shit like anything to do with Sage (which is always a terrible experience) or EMR software, that kind of thing.
I guess I’d just imagine that there are already a plethora of scripts with those purposes out there?
As a network admin, i can say it's comfy but at the hospital I work at, people expect you to fix their Microsoft office settings constantly.
>Can we get a sysadmins vs developers thread?
>Manager: developer you need to give me this data in an app.
>Developer: hey admin I need to access this db from this server so I can show the data in an app.
>Admin: No.
wow I want that kind of power
Uhh no. Sysadmin jobs can be nightmares, too. Combine bosses who know nothing about tech making unreasonable demands plus idiot developers who get chimp out because you won't let them use telnet in their shitty code, with a dash of "if it's working, why do we pay you?" and you can understand what a lot of admin work is like.
If developers construct the buildings in a city then sysadmins design the road net, keep the supplies flowing to the construction site, and prevent your local tribe of barbarians from assfucking everyone in town.
Bullshit. Some admins know Windows servers which are much different than Linux/Ukix admins who are different than the networking guys who are different than the security team, and in a small company one guy might perform all those roles.
No, there aren't, because every environment is different. Some parts can be automatic, a la spinning up a server in Azure but someone still has to know how all that shit fits together.
Can relate, gets fucking annoying when people bother you with stupid shit. Even today, I had an operations manager come to me because she didn't know how to right click a CSV file to open it in notepad
>"if it's working, why do we pay you?"
This is why you intentionally break simple and easy to fix things all the time so people realize you actually do stuff.
Like fucking with printers and then being the hero who fixes them for everyone.
People are fucking retarded so you have to do shit like this to appease their retardation. It can't be helped.
"THE PRINTERS ARE ALWAYS BREAKING WHY DO WE PAY YOU?"
You can't win.
They're not hugely divergent if you're in a Linux/DevOps role.
that just means you've been doing the same thing too much
change it up hombre
one day it's printers, the next it's internet access to reddit being slow
just make it look like you're the hero constantly putting out fires. People make a bigger deal about not being able to reach reddit for one day than they do if the backups aren't working for a whole week.
I'm autistic. I'm not good at being deceptive. Also my environment is the only thing in life I have so I can't hurt it.
>be me
>overhear rumours that boss isn't happy since I get paid so much and nothing goes wrong
>aka he's being a bitch that I'm doing my fucking job properly and that's the reason why nothing's going wrong
>okay you little cunt, fuck this
>delete printer drivers
>"user help I can't print this very important document please can you get back to me asap"
>reinstall drivers and save the day in 5 mins
>decide to fuck with him some more
>disable his network adapter
>"user pls help I have no internet"
>open cmd and spam ipconfig multiple times infront of him
>eventually turn adapter back on again and boss is amazed
>"wow thanks user you saved me there"
>take it up a notch
>unplug the network cable for the printer from the switch
>now nobody in the office can print
>entire office in a shit storm since project deadlines are coming up
>plug cable back into switch without anyone realising
>then go around each user and spamming ipconfig and pinging the printer for 10 minutes
>print a test page from every pc and everyone thinks I've saved the day
>everyone thanks me because they can reach their deadlines and print shit off cos of me
Still looking for more ways to fuck about like this, I try not to do it too often.
Sounds like you've secured your future already. Shouldn't press your luck. Funny story though.
It's hard not to have contempt for people who have give no respect for individuals keeping things running smooth and problem free.
These idiots NEED some kind of drama in their life.
reported
just joking, keep up the good work
sampling of questions sysadmins should ask themselves
- how do you automate [x] process?
- how can you keep the state of a machine consistent?
- do you have a system in place that lets you basically replicate the state or configuration of a machine in a under 15 minutes?
- do you have backups? how well do they work? how often do you do them? how often are they full/differential?
- what optimizations can you do for [x/y/z] service/application?
- what can you do to ensure reliable failover?
- do you have redundancy at every step of your service/application?
- how much of your stuff is self service (e.g. dev needs [x] to develop or deploy, how much do they have to interact with you? can they just get approval and hit the button without any interaction?)
- do you have sufficient monitoring?
- do you have have a central area for logs to make searching them easy? (e.g. elk stack + kafka, filebeat, etc)
- do you have automation around the supporting services for these things? (e.g. there's a shit ton of stuff you can automate for the ELK stack that Elastic provides nothing for)
- what are the pros/cons of using [x] over [y]? what will the longer term ramifications be?
- how can we implement this properly from the get go rather than monkey patching all the way throughout?
- how can we reduce the cognitive load for interacting & maintaining a service/application? (e.g. you shouldn't have to be top level senior engineer just to have an idea of what's going on, everyone should be able to understand the pieces and how they coexist)
no, poor environment if so
>No sysadmin knows better than developer
blatantly false
>has anyone here worked as both?
I have.
>Hate one?
Hate both.
As a sysadmin working for T-Mobile I was basically shoved off into a corner and was scolded for automating my job (because let's face it, my job was essentially just to copy/paste commands from a wiki into a terminal to configure new Linux servers).
As a developer working for Comcast I was just a code monkey. Someone would provide me with specifications describing the input and expected output and it was my job to follow instructions. There was very little room for me to provide creative input as that work was all done by software architects.
If you want a good job, become a software architect or find a way to become self employed.