[LINK] No more human sysadmins??

[Martin Barry]

One thing I would like to point out is that DevOps seems to have been
diluted in the same way cloud, agile, lean and other fashionable buzzwords
have in the past, gradually being used as a label on anything remotely
related to the original definition.

DevOps is not really a task, role, job description or anything so concrete.
It is much more about how people in a single organisation with different
skills and roles work together to push towards a common business goal rather
than sticking to their knitting and having turf wars with other silos.
 
http://www.opscode.com/blog/2010/07/16/what-devops-means-to-me/

http://www.agileweboperations.com/devops-is-not-a-job-description


$quoted_author = "Craig Sanders" ;
> 
> 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".

While this is certainly a common scenario, it usually becomes pathological
as time passes and the business grows. Most organisations will then bring on
someone with a sysadmin / operations background to set things straight.

Having said that, with the amount of "X as a service" components that can be
pieced together the thresholds are usually higher than they used to be.

 
> 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.

I think this hits closer to the mark. A lot of what you see now described as
"DevOps" is more a desire to hire a "jack of all trades, master of none".
Organisations need to recognise that they still need the same spectrum of
skills amongst their team(s) and just because someone can multi-skill
doesn't mean you get the best results.

 
> 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.

Correct, just because you have powerful tools doesn't mean you know how to
wield them in the right way.

 
> 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.

But if you think back far enough there were lots of old school sysadmins who
could wield enough C to debug and fix device drivers and other thorns in
their side. It was only in the late 1990s and through the 2000s that there
was a greater separation between the two. I guess you could say we are now
seeing a re-convergence as the amount of automation and tooling involved in
system administration grows. But there will always be those individuals with
an operations mindset who will be distinct from those with a programming
mindset.

cheers
Marty