System Administration - A carrier choice

A frequently asked question by new IT entrants : What is System Administration ? Please find my views below..

0. What qualifications are required to become a System Admin in some BIG organization? Engineering degree? CCNA? CCNP? RHCE? MCSE?

There are various levels of sys administration. Some look after desktop level stuff (internal support), for which you may not need good qualifications. But some experience is necessary working on OS, solving user problems for popular desktop applications like MS Office.

On the other hand there are sys admins who actually look at the servers, where the companies real business lies. These people need to be well qualified, having proper domain knowledge. BE is not must, but ya graduation is necessary. MCSE is needed for working on Microsoft systems. CCNA is needed now a days for any one venturing in their field, as it gives you a good networking base. RHCE is gaining popularity now a days as organizations have started going for open source stuff now a days seriously. CCNP is a high level certification, needed for Network admins, they are a different breed all together. They work primarily on large WANS running business networks, spanning countries.

1. Can I say you are working as a System Administrator?

No not really. Previously what I did at Mithi was product support. I was a product support engineer, a delivery engineer, trainer, a project manager, a solution consultant, and a sys admin...... all rolled into one.

At CA, I'm again doing product support, but this time that’s all. I support other sys admins who have bought CA's product and installed it on their network.

2. What do you like about a job of System Admin?

A sys admin is a unique person. Every one in the company know that this is the one guy who can do it all. This sense of uniqueness does satisfy the emotional well being. Also the sys admin gets to work on ALL the systems, all kinds of technologies that have been employed in that company to run its IT. So you can really enjoy getting your hands dirty working on huge server racks, networking equipment and all such physical things.

3. What are the responsibilities of System Admin? How is his normal working day/night?

Most of the work can be divided in 90% tech 10% non tech. Non tech involves liasoning with system/software vendors for needs, or getting support for procured stuff. So you need good people skills here.

Main task is looking after servers, creating policies for users, scheduling backup, looking after disk quota, size etc; anything and everything related to servers and systems is sys admin responsibility. His working hours normally depends on outages, if the day is good he can go home early but if there are some issues (which are always there) he has to extend.

4. What’s next after working as a System Admin for some years? What’s the growth path ?

Next level of sys admin would be becoming a manager, but to become a manager he has to have a networking knowledge too, loads of experience under his belt and good people skills (read team leadership qualities). Also in some organizations, managers or senior sys admins are also sent abroad for trainings on new products or technologies which the company is going to implement. Although this is rare, the trend is picking up slowly.

The manager then can grow to a full fledged IT manager, managing the full blown infrastructure of the business, and does report to the CIO or CTO.

5. How much salary one should expect for System Admin's job?

Entry level salaries can be as low as 1L PA. It grows if your skills grow. Good companies pay better, smaller ones really don’t have that spare cash or cant afford, hence it might feel like expolitation. Pay really depends on experience and exposure. With 4/5 years of exp you can expect a package of 4/5 L.

6. Which companies to look for when one wants nice and challenging admin work + job security + good salary + Any names?

Speaking about challenges it depends on the organization, if its a big one, you have lot of issues and more challenges. Like in AXA where a friend works as a sys admin, some 3000 system were migrated to XP from NT, that’s a great experience and challenge. You have to change everything from policies to servers etc, although the design and planning is done by senior sys admins.

Job security is there if you are good, and not working on contract basis. Companies like Accenture hire sys admins mostly on contract basis, and you may not be retained after the end of the contract.

A good way to get in this field is to join some small firms who provide sys admins to the bigger fish.

Names to start of in this field are: CMC, CMS, Satyam and such service companies, who provide their services to other bigger clients. Or alternatively directly join the bigger brand names. But the bigger brands hardly do hire on their own, so a consultant is a good idea.

One disadvantage about being a sys admin is that you have to keep on certifying every few years to keep up with latest technologies, but mostly your employer will sponsor you.

Conclusion:

Becoming a System Administrator is a good way to enter the vast field of IT. It’s a non development area, so is easy, but not stress free. Hard work is needed for the first few years to gain the much needed expertise. Alternatives to this field are Network Administration (highly specific, high technology area), Enterprise systems management (products like CA Unicenter, IBM Tivoli, BMC Patrol, HP Openview), Product Support (where you give tech support to specific products), are better earners when it comes to salaries.

Please feel free to mail me for any further queries.