4 ms·

I don't want to be a downer, but devops is definitely NOT just a new name for being a sysadmin. We've actively recruited for people who are not old fashioned ju

by estefan 11y ago

I don't want to be a downer, but devops is definitely NOT just a new name for being a sysadmin. We've actively recruited for people who are not old fashioned jump-on-a-box-and-make-hot-changes sysadmins. They need to understand automated infrastructure and deployment through code, so it's not a small niche to just pick up easily. If it was that easy, everyone would be doing it and it wouldn't pay so well.

kasey_junk 11y ago
We used to distinguish the jump on the box kind vs the write automation kind as amateur vs professional...
manyxcxi 11y ago
On top of that, there needs to be some Dev to go with the Ops. I've seen some guys who come from a great SysAdmin background that are used to some Powershell or Bash but get utterly lost with Chef or Puppet. Not just that but the overall package of scripts is just messy and very hard to maintain. That being said- I'd rather have someone transitioning to DevOps with more SysAdmin experience than Dev- the cleanliness and composition can be learned a lot faster than the networking, security, and other topics that most Devs have never had to maintain first hand.
- skewart 11y ago
  "I'd rather have someone transitioning to DevOps with more SysAdmin experience than Dev- the cleanliness and composition can be learned a lot faster than the networking, security, and other topics that most Devs have never had to maintain first hand." Totay agree. It's a lot easier to pick up enough Ruby to be comfortable with Chef than it is to learn the thousands of different things about networking and security - and probably the OS your average developer has been using for a long time too - that a good sysadmin knows.
officialchicken 11y ago
Sure it is. Don't the "DevOps" administer, provision, and manage your systems? Have you ever seen a unix guru who didn't have scripts and use automated tooling? And when a system fails (and they all fail eventually) the routine is the same no matter what you want to call it.
- estefan 11y ago
  At one company our "unix guru" didn't bother to set up anything like ganglia so when the server's disk got full and brought down the product he looked like an idiot... Maybe it's good vs bad but it happens. In the puppet/chef era I'd have said you needed to have a background in coding to be a good devop, but ansible has changed that now I think.
  - PaulHoule 11y ago
    You haven't lived if you haven't filled a disk at some point.
    - BingsF 11y ago
      While true, this doesn't make for a good excuse to let your employer's server go down when its disk fills.
  - partisan 11y ago
    Hindsight is 20/20. Plus, you learned from his mistake and now, anywhere you go, you can remind the unix gurus to prevent that type of thing from happening.
- brianwawok 11y ago
  There are two kinds of DevOps. You have DEVops... think of a web developer who also knows linux. Then you have devOPS... think of a sysadmin who knows bash and python. The former is where I think the value comes.. they find ways to automate your infrastructure and do lots of cool things. The later tend to make webs of bash scripts that you have to delete when they quit because no one understands them.
  - dozzie 11y ago
    ...yet when you start looking at how this automated infrastructure works, it turns out to be sloppily crammed together however the webdev happened to work, be very brittle, failing every now and then, requiring constant attention and adjustment, non-standarized with tremendous ramp-up time for anybody who needs to take over, and with components mingled together without any separation, so it couldn't be replicated somewhere else. All that because the webdev was learning new Csharp.JS framework like dozen before, being too busy to learn how package system or daemonization or networking or RPC or SSH or push vs. pull architectures worked and what they are good at, or what tools and why a seasoned sysadmin uses for automation. What you really need is not a dilletante armed with sharp and pointy PHP-du-jour, but a system programmer. There used to be such a profession, the guys who wrote syslog, init, bash, grep, awk, libnss, and tons of other goods people today either use without much thinking or don't know existence of at all.
nvarsj 11y ago
This is hilarious. What do you think good sysadmins were doing before "devops"? Just hacking around cowboy style? Everything old is new again.
- estefan 11y ago
  Yeah. Just writing their own custom stuff. It's partly about standardisation. Using a standard web framework means transferable skills which makes it easier to find and on-board staff. Devops is the formalisation of the same thing for ops, i.e. standard tools instead of just chucking together bash scripts however you please.

by estefan 11y ago

kasey_junk 11y ago

We used to distinguish the jump on the box kind vs the write automation kind as amateur vs professional...

manyxcxi 11y ago

On top of that, there needs to be some Dev to go with the Ops. I've seen some guys who come from a great SysAdmin background that are used to some Powershell or Bash but get utterly lost with Chef or Puppet. Not just that but the overall package of scripts is just messy and very hard to maintain. That being said- I'd rather have someone transitioning to DevOps with more SysAdmin experience than Dev- the cleanliness and composition can be learned a lot faster than the networking, security, and other topics that most Devs have never had to maintain first hand.

skewart 11y ago
"I'd rather have someone transitioning to DevOps with more SysAdmin experience than Dev- the cleanliness and composition can be learned a lot faster than the networking, security, and other topics that most Devs have never had to maintain first hand." Totay agree. It's a lot easier to pick up enough Ruby to be comfortable with Chef than it is to learn the thousands of different things about networking and security - and probably the OS your average developer has been using for a long time too - that a good sysadmin knows.

officialchicken 11y ago

Sure it is. Don't the "DevOps" administer, provision, and manage your systems? Have you ever seen a unix guru who didn't have scripts and use automated tooling? And when a system fails (and they all fail eventually) the routine is the same no matter what you want to call it.

estefan 11y ago
At one company our "unix guru" didn't bother to set up anything like ganglia so when the server's disk got full and brought down the product he looked like an idiot... Maybe it's good vs bad but it happens. In the puppet/chef era I'd have said you needed to have a background in coding to be a good devop, but ansible has changed that now I think.
- PaulHoule 11y ago
  You haven't lived if you haven't filled a disk at some point.
  - BingsF 11y ago
    While true, this doesn't make for a good excuse to let your employer's server go down when its disk fills.
- partisan 11y ago
  Hindsight is 20/20. Plus, you learned from his mistake and now, anywhere you go, you can remind the unix gurus to prevent that type of thing from happening.
brianwawok 11y ago
There are two kinds of DevOps. You have DEVops... think of a web developer who also knows linux. Then you have devOPS... think of a sysadmin who knows bash and python. The former is where I think the value comes.. they find ways to automate your infrastructure and do lots of cool things. The later tend to make webs of bash scripts that you have to delete when they quit because no one understands them.
- dozzie 11y ago
  ...yet when you start looking at how this automated infrastructure works, it turns out to be sloppily crammed together however the webdev happened to work, be very brittle, failing every now and then, requiring constant attention and adjustment, non-standarized with tremendous ramp-up time for anybody who needs to take over, and with components mingled together without any separation, so it couldn't be replicated somewhere else. All that because the webdev was learning new Csharp.JS framework like dozen before, being too busy to learn how package system or daemonization or networking or RPC or SSH or push vs. pull architectures worked and what they are good at, or what tools and why a seasoned sysadmin uses for automation. What you really need is not a dilletante armed with sharp and pointy PHP-du-jour, but a system programmer. There used to be such a profession, the guys who wrote syslog, init, bash, grep, awk, libnss, and tons of other goods people today either use without much thinking or don't know existence of at all.

nvarsj 11y ago

This is hilarious. What do you think good sysadmins were doing before "devops"? Just hacking around cowboy style? Everything old is new again.

estefan 11y ago
Yeah. Just writing their own custom stuff. It's partly about standardisation. Using a standard web framework means transferable skills which makes it easier to find and on-board staff. Devops is the formalisation of the same thing for ops, i.e. standard tools instead of just chucking together bash scripts however you please.