[svlug] Help me in Defining what a "Sr Linux Admin" is.

[Alvin Oga]

hi ya james

> james at linuxrebel.org wrote:
> 
>    One of the things I want to do (That is polite) before I depart my
> current position is to leave behind a proper definition of what a Sr.
> Linux Admin is.  (and thereby explain why I'm no longer wanting to
> remain with them under the guise of my new "duties" or rather lack of
> duties.)

...

>    The PHB's seem to think it has more to do with Time in slot, than
> knowledge and I'd like to properly define things otherwise.

- yeah, them phb's think its somebody on call when something happens
  that can come fix it .. no matter what time of the day it is
	( it's the wrong view of "Sr" anything )

- beginners and intermediate admins will be asking "howto" questions 

my view of the world, sr people should be able to:

- work and get the task done w/o the use of google/yahoo
	- "what do you know" and what has been your past experience

- can automate their task ( esp silly things like monitoring )
 	"automate" as in write your own tools since most all
	existing monitoring tools are lacking something or other

- definitely needs to be able to do reliable backups which does
  not contain the "virus" that killed the corp network
	- most folks end up overwriting the "good backup" 

- sr admin should be using multiple partitions for
  /tmp, /var, /usr, /opt, /home, /Backup, ...

- sr admins can build a box and not touch it for the next 3yrs
  and it'd be working fine

  other side of the coin, they can build a box, have it update
  itself daily, and still be working fine for the next 3 yrs

	- aka, they can buy reliable parts from reliable vendors

	- there is NO such thing as disk failure or power supply failure
	( buy something better from better sources )

- sr admins would have been involved or witness near corp meltdowns
  and have learned what NOT to do ... or allow to happen or exist
  to prevent their job would be at risk since management needs
  to point their fingers at somebody

- sr admins can and should manually maintain say 10-30 machines at the 
  nitty gritty level

	- sr admins can also maintain 100 or 500 or 1000 machines
	in an automated fashion ( 100% hands off except for the initial
	put the box on the rack and turn it on )

- sr admins can provision new boxes with hands on ( build yourself )
  or hands off ( automated with scripts )
	- sr admins will NOT have "this hardware is NOT supported problem"

- sr admins will make do with the computer resources they have on hand
  and put in a request for the new widgets and if said widgets does
  not arrive by a particular period, xyz things are at risk

- sr admins can argue the merits and problems of any distro ( OS including MS )
  compared to another

- sr admins ( the community minded ones ) might be publishing stuff
  and or have websites and/or volunteer their time/skills at other places

- sr admins have built hobby projects w/ 555 timers, 741 op amps, 2n2222, etc
  and wrote ( video, kb, disk ) interrupt routines to run with 8080, 6800, z80, ...
	- aka, solid understanding of computers and how it works

- sr admins know that 80% of comptuer failures will be due to people
  doing or not doing what they should have been doing to prevent the failure

	- email that cant be sent or received might be a people problem
	since not everybody is computer literate

	- not being able to print stuff might be a people problem
	since not everybody can change the printer toner properly

... endless list of what sr folks should be able to do ??

c ya
alvin
dont print