[LINK] No more human sysadmins??

[Craig Sanders]

On Fri, Aug 09, 2013 at 10:33:08PM +1000, Robert Brockway wrote:
> I don't agree that sysadmins are a fast disappearing species.  I do
> believe that Sysadmins who worked as they did 10 years are a fast
> disappearing species.

yes, the job of sysadmin changes constantly.

however, the devops push (while sounding pretty good on general
principles) almost inevitably devolves to programmers doing whatever
they like, when they like, and without any consideration for "big
picture" issues of systems management, maintainence, or planning; and
management thinking they can get more value for money by getting one or
more of the developers to do the sysadmin stuff in their "spare time".

> Whether services are run locally, or hosted or whatever, there is a
> need to make stuff work and to keep it working and this is where the
> sysadmin has always sat - it's just the stuff that keeps changing.

yes, and the DevOps meme says "you don't need this person, a developer
can do it in their spare time. the job isn't important enough to require
a dedicated person or to require a specialised skill-set"

actually, it's probably not DevOps itself that's the problem - it's
that devops has become infected with the wish-fulfilment fantasies
and expectations of obsolete management theology that production-unit
drones (i.e. workers) should be and therefore *are* drop-in replacable
components, with no individual skills or strengths.

> [1] I'll install Postfix from a package instead, or more likely, the 
> entire build will be automated.

it's not as straight-forward as that. the devops meme inherently
devalues the professional skills of systems administration - which are
*similar* to but quite distinctly different from the professional skills
of programming. there's a lot more to systems admin than installing and
configuring a package.

for example, there's a huge difference between a puppet deployment set
up by a sysadmin and one set up by a programmer. you can't automate
what you don't know. you can't foresee (and therefore avoid) potential
problems if you've never experienced them. and most of all, you can't do
a good job of systems administration if you see it as just an unpleasant
chore that you have to get through in order to get back to your "real"
work.

and the difference between a programmer and a system admin is NOT just
learnable skills, there's significant difference in aptitude and how
they each perceive problems and arrive at solutions. programming is
more detail-oriented, the nitty-gritty of coding some specific routine.
systems admin is more big-picture thinking about the system(s) as a
whole and how they inter-connect with other systems. there's some
cross-over, of course, but that distinction and difference in aptitude
and attitude is very real.

the meme involves a certain amount of (IMO, ultimately self-destructive)
self-deception that organisations don't really need a sysadmin, they can
just get one of the programmers to do it (which, of course, makes them a
sysadmin...but a semi-skilled one)

it's as if an engineering company had a policy that they don't really
need electrical or electronic engineers because their mechanical
engineers - with vast experience of mechanical engineering but almost
none with electricty or electronics - should be able to figure out the
details. and maybe they can, but it'll take them much longer and they
won't do anywhere near as good a job as someone with vast experience in
electrical or electronic engineering.


craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>

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