5 ms·

Business Still Needs Sysadmins

36 points by jrussbowman 15y ago

munin 15y ago
I think the author misses a lot of what the original article was saying. for example, > When you look at the pure dollars and cents, if the could was going to knock out the Sysadmin profession, it would have done it already. in a lot of business cases, it has. my employer uses google apps, we have no sysadmin for email/phones/etc. my school just migrated all of their undergrad email accounts to google apps. I work with a big company that outsourced all their email/blackberry etc stuff to google apps. there are some businesses that have the special-case needs that the author describes. but there are a whole lot that don't. yeah, it would be nice having some local IT guys around to kick when email knocks out, but is it $500k/yr nice when I can outsource that for $50k/yr? the pie isn't gone. but it is shrinking, imo. that cute t-shirt that says "I can replace you with a very small shell script"? yeah well... is it as funny when it's happening to you? ;)
- irq 15y ago
  There are two kinds of sysadmins: pipefitters and engineers. Or put another way, maintainers and architects. The pie for maintainers is indeed shrinking. The pie for architects, for people who invent novel ways of solving new problems, is growing.
- nodata 15y ago
  But in your example, the sys admin hasn't been replaced by a small shell script. You've just outsourced some of the systems they would have looked after.
  - nl 15y ago
    Yes, but now 1 sysadmin manages between 10 and 100 times more machines than they used to[1]. What is more, each machine supports more people than it used to. [1] http://blog.rapleaf.com/dev/2008/12/10/rent-or-own-amazon-ec2-vs-colocation-comparison-for-hadoop-clusters/ http://blog.rapleaf.com/dev/2008/12/10/rent-or-own-amazon-ec... [2] http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/12/30/how-many-servers-can-one-admin-manage/ http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/12/30/how-m...
    - jrussbowman 15y ago
      The number of machines a sysadmin can support depends on what's running on those machines. This is a case where raw averages can be extremely misleading.
gaius 15y ago
I've been writing a bit about this in my blog recently. Devs and sysadmins serious about their careers need to move out of the back office and into the front office. http://gaiustech.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/scrum/ http://gaiustech.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/scrum/
poisonbit 15y ago
Depends on the size and activity of the business. Maybe there is no need for a 100% time sysadmin, maybe there is need for 30 sysadmins across different time zones. But that's not now, that has been always like that. http://poisonbit.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/opensource-clouds-and-liar-paradoxes/ http://poisonbit.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/opensource-clouds-...
serverascode 15y ago
Amazon may be the 8000 pound gorilla, but up here in Canada people are still concerned about the patriot and other similar legalities in terms of storing our data in US companies or in the US. I hear this all the time, and not just public organizations, but also startups. Or maybe group clouds, like Universities banding together to create IaaS. So, to conclude, don't forget about private clouds. :)

36 points by jrussbowman 15y ago

munin 15y ago

I think the author misses a lot of what the original article was saying. for example, > When you look at the pure dollars and cents, if the could was going to knock out the Sysadmin profession, it would have done it already. in a lot of business cases, it has. my employer uses google apps, we have no sysadmin for email/phones/etc. my school just migrated all of their undergrad email accounts to google apps. I work with a big company that outsourced all their email/blackberry etc stuff to google apps. there are some businesses that have the special-case needs that the author describes. but there are a whole lot that don't. yeah, it would be nice having some local IT guys around to kick when email knocks out, but is it $500k/yr nice when I can outsource that for $50k/yr? the pie isn't gone. but it is shrinking, imo. that cute t-shirt that says "I can replace you with a very small shell script"? yeah well... is it as funny when it's happening to you? ;)

irq 15y ago
There are two kinds of sysadmins: pipefitters and engineers. Or put another way, maintainers and architects. The pie for maintainers is indeed shrinking. The pie for architects, for people who invent novel ways of solving new problems, is growing.
nodata 15y ago
But in your example, the sys admin hasn't been replaced by a small shell script. You've just outsourced some of the systems they would have looked after.
- nl 15y ago
  Yes, but now 1 sysadmin manages between 10 and 100 times more machines than they used to[1]. What is more, each machine supports more people than it used to. [1] http://blog.rapleaf.com/dev/2008/12/10/rent-or-own-amazon-ec2-vs-colocation-comparison-for-hadoop-clusters/ http://blog.rapleaf.com/dev/2008/12/10/rent-or-own-amazon-ec... [2] http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/12/30/how-many-servers-can-one-admin-manage/ http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/12/30/how-m...
  - jrussbowman 15y ago
    The number of machines a sysadmin can support depends on what's running on those machines. This is a case where raw averages can be extremely misleading.

gaius 15y ago

I've been writing a bit about this in my blog recently. Devs and sysadmins serious about their careers need to move out of the back office and into the front office. http://gaiustech.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/scrum/ http://gaiustech.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/scrum/

poisonbit 15y ago

Depends on the size and activity of the business. Maybe there is no need for a 100% time sysadmin, maybe there is need for 30 sysadmins across different time zones. But that's not now, that has been always like that. http://poisonbit.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/opensource-clouds-and-liar-paradoxes/ http://poisonbit.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/opensource-clouds-...

serverascode 15y ago

Amazon may be the 8000 pound gorilla, but up here in Canada people are still concerned about the patriot and other similar legalities in terms of storing our data in US companies or in the US. I hear this all the time, and not just public organizations, but also startups. Or maybe group clouds, like Universities banding together to create IaaS. So, to conclude, don't forget about private clouds. :)