By Concerning “corporate” business, be it a small company or a larger facility, opinions regarding all of the computing structure and those few who keep it in one piece, are as many as the people who state them.
Most say that the local “sysadmin” taking care of your most prized virtual belongings usually sits on their rear while everyone else does the hard work.
For the time being I’m here to provide a little insight into the situation.
As general information, IT stands for “information technology” and, as the name says, the “hard work” is often made in front of the screens, “talking” to the machines.
The notorious “sysadmin” is usually one person who doesn’t really have time (or in many cases doesn’t even feel like) talking to people that much. His/her purpose there is to insure that every piece of information flows smoothly throughout the respective institution, inputs, processed and transformed properly inside, stored, relayed, received from the outside, and so forth.
In many regards, the “sysadmin” is the “soul” keeping the information structure alive and well.
How does it happen? Well, that’s not really our topic for now, but a simple set of guidelines is in order.
Any form of organization today no matter how small or how big has to have an electronic information system. Be it one or one thousand computers, data clusters, servers and so forth, they all have to be properly managed in order to reach their potential as close to optimal as it can be. That pretty much means everything – careful planning before Any action is made, and down to business – networks, terminals, licensing, servers, software, configuration, starting with the main computing core down to the last wire. On top of that – the whole structure has to be carefully linked to the power lines to minimize any possible damage and/or data loss, the internet providers and other services, outgoing links and eventual surveillance systems.
And, on top of that, everything comes down to people, costs and time. This, often makes everything a lot messier than it needs to be..
There’s plenty of guides and documentation concerning the work of a system administrator available everywhere, so I won’t bore you with it further on.
However, there are a few things that tend to be persistent more or less often, concerning either the sysadmin, or the people also working in the IT department if that is the case.
1. First of all, most people working in a company pay a minimum of attention to the technology at their disposal. If that can be understandable, demanding the impossible from your sysadmin isn’t.
For instance, if you use your pc just like you use your garbage can – clicking anything on the screen, installing, copying, deleting disregarding any implications, kicking your pc/laptop around all day – then you are bound to notice some issues in time.
However, if that is your least concern for now, there will be a time when events such as data loss, viruses, general slow application response and frequent crashes will soon be on your way. That will most certainly have a negative impact on your so precious corporate time and employee of the month image.
Furthermore, when that starts going down hill, you will begin your journey into the endless sea of phone calls to the IT department. Depending on how severe the damage, and how tolerant the admin, you may or may Not get your data and your functionality back, or at best not in time. Besides, you are prone to get some restrictions or some kind of “punishment” for your doings.
Bottom line for the user: take care of your system and it will take care of you. For the admin: limited rights are usually good for the user.
2. PC’s are not all there is to it. Most people also print their documents (for some reason), use copy machines, scanners and so forth. The vast majority of these items do need a certain degree of periodic maintenance and/or supplies.
*An interesting aspect would be to observe how many employees clean their desks and keep their belongings tidy, but pay no attention to their office electronics, leaving the balls of dust to grow on them without saying or doing not one thing (there is no point in explaining the “mysteries” of why pc’s might stop working when kicked, Lcd screens might start showing dead pixels when poked, copy machines might start showing streaks when the glass is filled with ooze, etc)
However, when something shows it’s first symptoms of maintenance needs (aka unusual behavior), call your administrator person and Notify him/her. When it breaks, it will be too late.
This applies to – pc’s who start showing puff balls of dust in the vents, pc’s with increasing fan noise and/or heat (mostly due to the up mentioned puff balls), printers that start printing odd colors, streaks, or showing unusual light/screen activity, and so forth.
Bottom line: if you just yell “it blew up” after 2 weeks of sparks and noise, you are Not going to get a new one in 5 minutes, flawlessly serving its usual purpose. Notify Someone who is paid to hear it, the day it all starts happening. For the admin: you cannot do impossible things, warn and don’t hide it. What won’t be done today, most certainly won’t be done yesterday either (I think Einstein explained it)
3. It so happens that most employees will start postponing their problems (if not urgent), until the moment some IT person shows up. Somehow, most of them will “spare” the first phone call, and the next, and the one after, making some sort of a “mental list” of their needs. When the respective IT person finally comes, minding his/her business, everybody just starts “popping up” with demands. And guess what, some unrelated issue(s) also appear at the same time. What happens then? Who can tell..
Bottom line: one person cannot solve a dozen problems at the same time; if that one person is there, he/she is there for a reason, already taking into account that some unforeseen events can also occur. Jumping with your monthly list of problems on that one man’s back might not do much good in the best case scenario. When something comes up, take a minute to dial a phone number, or write an e-mail, your concerns will be noted and taken into account. For the admin: prioritize, and explain that working with multitasking machines does not necessarily mean you are one yourself. Moreover, even supercomputers prioritize.
4. General technical thoughts:
* when one of the providers or any outside informational entity linked to your data system stops.. providing, the admin can ask for information from the respective entity. If the problem belongs to that separate data cluster only, all he can do is wait, the “call for help” has been made and noted. Calling every 5 minutes just to push the phrase “do something” will not solve anything for anyone, but most probably make it somewhat worse in a psychological term, if not even tech related as consequence.
* when all of your network suddenly starts sinking and all pings choke to death in a matter of seconds, first thing you do – unplug all switches, and try to isolate the problem by plugging them back in one by one, and keeping an eye on the ping screens. Be advised, computers might need restarting to get back on their feet after crash. Sadly, these kinds of symptoms can even come from things like a shorted patch cord, a shorted Ethernet wall socket, crashed switch, or sometimes even a loop-back cable.
* another omnipresent thing in the IT field is, something closely resembling the fight against chaos, entropy. Influenced by some of the situations mentioned above, lack of spare time and a multitude of details to attend to, things usually start getting more and more messy around the working spot assigned to the systems administrator. Before you know it, the admin starts losing track of more and more details. The best advise for him/her at this point – always try as much as you can to organize your stuff so that everything is easy to keep track of. When that fails to happen, even the smallest tasks becomes very complicated due to the prolonged attempts of finding all that one needs to carry it out.
5. Te longer list of “bugs” encountered among the personnel include:
* repeated attempts to email shortcuts in hope that the respective documents they point out to will eventually reach their destination. They won’t. In spite of all the explanations, many will keep trying.
* repeated attempts to install specifically prohibited software, download media and what not, in spite even signed agreements that it will not happen
* repeated attempts to stuff stapled papers in copy machines or printers in spite all warnings, eventually leading to the “death” of the respective machine.
* repeated requests to the IT department regarding Anything related to electronics, software and what not, even though about 60% of these requests are common usage issues, and can be easily solved via a simple google search or a help button. Not to mention a whole universe of things that does not require a programmer’s degree, things like basic image resizing. If you cannot learn to follow an example or learn the “how to” steps, learn to write and take notes.
* repeated calls for help in the form of “it broke” or “it’s not working”. A bit more detailed approach is in order, regarding the context and the specific issue.
However, the wonderful adventures of sysadmins in cyber-land is a never-ending story I will bore you with no longer.
The purpose of this small personal insight, was to state that one must at least Try to help one’s self before crying out to others, in order to be satisfied by the results.
Also, it is yet another manifest on just how much appreciation the system administrator gets for his job, and how many things only lead to making it much harder than it really should be.
Furthermore, my point here is common knowledge among various groups around the world, groups that claimed the last Friday of July to be the System Administrator Appreciation Day. Informing you in advance, the dedicated website for the event is:
http://www.sysadminday.com