IT Careers: Network/System Administrator

Duties:

The duties of a network/system administrator typically includes managing network equipment, servers, and desktops.  Depending on the organization, the network administrator might also be in charge of the lower level technology staff/tech support.  Additionally, network administrators will be troubleshooting failures when the occur, as well as implementing new systems and other projects.

Openings:

I found several positions in Indiana.  Most of them require atleast two years of experience in IT.  In general, they are wanting people who are familiar with Windows Server/Active Directory, as well Cisco network equipment.  Two of them also mentioned having experience with Citrix as a plus.  Certifications were also mentioned as being “preferred.”  One requires a associates degree in a related field, one requires a bachelors degree, and the third does not mention any degree requirements.

Here are links to the jobs on Monster:

http://tinyurl.com/2tg4hh

http://tinyurl.com/2odhk9

http://tinyurl.com/353q88

Sources:

Duties of a network/system admin:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/solutionaccelerators/cits/mo/smf/smfnetadm.mspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_administrator

Free speech on the Internet is an important topic.

What is legal in one country may not be legal in another, so there might be some questions about what country has jurisdiction over a particular website.

Generally, it is up to the country where the site is hosted, however there has been cases where the US has arrested people who host websites that are legal in the country in which they are hosted, but illegal in US. There was one case where a person who ran an online gambling website based in Europe (where it is legal) was arrested during a layover in the US (the person was flying through the US, between Europe and somewhere in the Caribbean I think). Clearly, in that instance, the actions of the US law enforcement were questionable at best. I cannot really understand how law enforcement could believe that the person they arrested committed any crimes – considering that what they did (hosting the website) was legal in the country in which it was done.

I think any government censorship of the web is very dangerous and it risks making America a totalitarian regime like China or Myanmar/Burma, that restricts the dissemination of information in order to stay in complete control of their population and, in affect, “brainwash” them. On a side note, I read an interesting article on some of the ways that the Chinese government communicates with news websites about what they are allowed to post. Its available here. The definition of “hate speech” is something that is invariably going to be different from person to person. Additionally, I feel that people have the right of freedom of speech. Even if what they are saying is outrageous and offensive, I feel that they have the right to say it. The only potential exception I could see in that area would be something that realistically encourages people to harm others. And that could be kind of vague too. In that particular case, however, I think the crime of actually harming other people is much more significant that simply posting an article or something that encourages others to do so. While I am not against taking legal action against those who encourage violence against others, I do not think that governments should block their websites or anything – just potentially arrest/charge the people who posted the opinions.

In the case of pornography (other than child pornography which obviously is illegal and the people posting/distributing it should be prosecuted), I see no reason why the government should be censoring it. It is not their job to play “moral police” regardless of what some people may think. In fact the New York Court of Appeals recently ruled against a law that would require sites to keep incredible amounts of detailed paperwork on those who are in the videos, apparently because of the first amendment.

I think that parents do probably have the right to monitor the usage of their children, however I’m not sure if that is actually beneficial to the child. They are obviously going to have to take responsibility themselves one day, and parents who “protect” their children too much might be hurting their child by not exposing them to the real world.

Bluetooth is a pretty useful protocol that can be used by mobile devices to do many different things.  Bluetooth has a much longer range than IRDA, and supports higher speeds (and is also not line-of-sight).  So Bluetooth has replaced IRDA for most of its tasks.  Here are some of the most popular uses of Bluetooth:

• Transferring small files
• Sending contact information
• Synchronizing computers with mobile devices
• Connecting keyboards/mice to computers
• Connecting mobile devices to Bluetooth headsets

Small amounts of money might be saved by using Bluetooth to transfer contact information, because paper business cards would not have to be purchased.  Most traveling sales/business people will already have a device that supports Bluetooth. 

The biggest advantage is probably that it is more convenient for the person receiving the information.  They don’t have to input the information from the paper business card into their mobile device.  This could reduce accidental errors.  And assuming that they synchronize their cell phone/PDA with their computer, the contact information will automatically transferred to their computer.  People are also less likely to lose their cell phone/laptop than they are to lose a small piece of paper that they stuff in their pockets. 

The disadvantage of using Bluetooth to transfer contact information some people may still not have a mobile device.  So, having a few paper business cards just in case could be a good idea. 

I vaguely remember when my family got AOL in the mid-to-late nineties.  I was probably around nine at the time.  I didn’t use it a whole lot then; it took a few years for me to really start to use it.  I was really into flight simulators at the time, so eventually I came across a few sites with communities for Microsoft Flight Simulator.  They had news, addons, etc.  Playing around with some of the addon’s was one of the things that first got me beyond the basics of computers.  I had to play around, edit files and folders and stuff to get some of them to work.  Later, I was a part of a forum for a FPS that I played a lot back then, Operation Flashpoint.  I spent lots of time on that forum and finding new mods for the game.   So those are some of my first memories I guess.

In the last couple of years I have began to use the Internet and the web more for communications, with friends from school.  I think that is a trend with society in general.  I’ve also used it to follow technology news more in the last two years, though I followed tech related news before then as well.  Sometimes, I also follow news groups/forums related to some technologies that I’m interested in, such as Cisco networking, Linux, .NET, etc.

I think that open source software is a really good concept, in that it makes it very difficult for a single organization to  totally take control of something and kill it if it no longer suits their business interests, or impose unnecessary restrictions on it.  The great thing about OSS is that most projects are going to put making a technologically sound piece of software before business interests.  Too often, software companies put their own profits ahead of their customers.   All software is not open source though, and it is not likely to be so any time near in the future.  So, to an extent, people should be pragmatic about what software they use.  Generally, I choose the best tool for the job, however, I am pleased when that best tool happens to be open source.

Software and media companies abuse the DMCA far too often.  There have been many cases where people have sent DMCA takedown requests to websites illegally because they were not the copyright holder or the person who posted the content was legally allowed to do so because it was protected under fair use.  Unfortunately, websites and ISP’s usually accomodate these requests without any real effort on their part to determine the legitimacy of the request.  The only slightly refreshing thing about the DMCA is that recently it has been established that people have the right to unlock cell phones without incurring the wrath of the DMCA.

The purpose of copyrights is not necessarily to ensure the profits of media conglomerates – the purpose of intellectual propery is to promote the advancement of arts/sciences/society.  Far too often, copyright and other intellectual property laws, such as patents, do the opposite.  They hinder people’s creativity, make it difficult for people to develop software (patent trolls and other companies have managed to get overly broad, ambiguous, or obvious patents approved by the patent office, which they use to sue other companies.*  Patents can also sometimes be used to stop other people from using a technology, even if the company owning the patent has no intent to use it themselves.)  Considering the pace of technology today, the length of time patents and copyrights are good for needs to be significantly reduced.

*Some examples of this would include NTP’s lawsuit against RIM (the makers of Blackberry), as well as Eolas lawsuit against Microsoft for browser plugins.  These lawsuits clearly have a detrimental effect on technology and innovation.  Additionally, SCO attempted to sue IBM and other Linux-related companies claiming that they owned copyrights on some of the code in the Linux kernel.  However, they never were able to display any evidence, and their reasoning – that code from SCO’s Unix software was put in the Linux kernel was squashed when the courts determined that Novell, who sold SCO their version of Unix still owned the copyrights on it.  Novell, having become a significant Linux company in the last several years, was more than happy to produce evidence against SCO.  SCO has filed for chapter 11, and they are due to be delisted from their stock exchange shortly.

Standard Software Packages

Career-wise, I want to design and or run networks for a company(either as a consultant or as a network admin for a single company).  People in these fields should be familiar with lots of different software.  Some of the most frequently used software is listed below.

•  As with any job in an office setting, people in IT should be able to use office suites such as Microsoft Office, or OpenOffice.org, etc.  In particular, as a consultant, Powerpoint and Visio would be particularly useful when making presentations to potential clients.
• A good text editor (such as EditPlus, my favorite for Windows) is essential for anyone working with networks or servers.
• Being familiar with VMware and other virtualization products might also be beneficial considering how commonplace virtualization is becoming in the data center.
• For people who work with servers, being knowledgeable about Linux/Unix would be valuable.  In particular, knowing how to use software such as vim (text editor), Apache (most popular web server), or database software such as Oracle, MySQL, or PostgreSQL would be a useful skill.  That’s in addition to just knowing the basics, such as how to configure users, file permissions, network settings, etc.
• Most companies have some Windows based server.  I think its reasonable to expect server admins to know enough about IIS to set up a basic website.  Also, knowing the basics of SQL Server could be helpful because of its prominence on the Windows platform.  Active Directory is also the de facto standard for handing authentication of Windows clients.  Knowing how to administer users and computers in AD, as well being able to apply group policy configurations is an important skill.
• Consultants and some network admins also might use Visual Studio on a regular basis, if developing small applications for their company is something that they do.  Consultants also might develop small .NET web apps or applications for clients as well.
• Network admins, or anyone who might have to troubleshoot network problems should be able to use tools such as Wireshark (packet sniffer), ping, nslookup, traceroute, telnet etc.
• Also, be familiar with Cisco IOS would be helpful when running a company’s network.  Most medium to large sized businesses use Cisco routers and/or switches somewhere in their network.  Being able to use the IOS command line interface is certainly going to help you administer and configure the network.  While many things can be done through a GUI, some things can’t be and for most relatively simple configurations it is probably simpler to just configure it via the command line.  GUI’s can be helpful for much more complex things such as setting up VoIP, and configuring security settings beyond simple ACL’s on firewalls.

Of course, everyone, whether in IT or not, should be able to do basic tasks such as use a web browser, open and store files, etc.

I think I have a reasonable familiarity with most of the software I have listed above, though there is a lot more I could learn about how some of it really works.  Software such as IOS, Active Directory, VMware, and Oracle is very complex and requires a lot of time and experience for someone to really know how those systems really work on the inside.

Here is some of the software that I would like to become more familiar with:

• Cisco PIX/ASA – I have not used any of Cisco’s dedicated hardware firewall’s such as the PIX or ASA line of products.  The PIX and ASA hardware does not run IOS like Cisco’s routers and (most new) switches do, so they are different in the way that they operate.  They have more security related features, such as web content filtering, and many of these things are becoming very important in companies today.
• Solaris/other Unix – While I have run Linux servers for several years now, I have very little experience with *nix outside of Linux.  I would like to become more familiar with Solaris or other the other “big iron” Unices, such as AIX.  While much of the basic operations, such as shells (bash, sh, etc) or text editors (vim/vi, emacs) are the same between Unix systems and Linux, administering the systems is not the same because the OS kernel itself is different.
• Oracle – Oracle is one of the most used databases in enterprises, and it is used for many massive databases, with terabytes of data.  I have almost no experience with Oracle, outside of playing with Oracle XE (a free, lighter, and limited version of Oracle) briefly.  Because so many businesses use Oracle, I would like to have atleast a little bit of knowledge or experience with it.
• Windows Server 2008 – Previously codenamed Longhorn Server, Windows Server 2008 has a lot of new features that 2003 did not offer.  I have briefly played around with a public alpha or beta of it, and the final version should be released within the next six months.  Some of the features, such as Core Server are entirely new.  Core server is a version that does not have a GUI and is meant to be used for file servers and other types of servers that might not need a GUI actually installed on it.  Not having the GUI reduces the OS’s overhead performance wise and also reduces potential security risks.  Terminal services in Windows Server 2008 also has many new features, as does IIS and Active Directory.  Windows Server 2008 will likely be adopted by companies in the next several years, so by the time I graduate from college it will likely be well established.
• Also, while its not something that most systems administrators use on a regular basis, but I also have played around with GDB (the Gnu Debugger), briefly on a Linux box at home.  Its was very interesting to look at the assembly language code, and I would like to learn more about how assembly language works.  I think it is sort of interesting to know the very basic operations that are behind every program.

I think we are moving more and more to multicore processors.  Also, in the future I think it will be hard to find pure 32bit hardware that does not support 64 bit operating systems.  Microsoft has sort of acknowledged that this has already happened in servers, when they released Exchange 2007 in Q4 2006.  In production environments, it is only support on 64 bit hardware.  This was done so that they could take advantage of some of the better performance of 64 bit hardware, especially the additionally memory that applications can use.  Virtualization is also becoming more and more important.  Many new processors support hypervisors like Xen on the hardware.  For example Intel’s technology is called VT.  Virtualization enables companies to consolidate servers to save money.  For desktops, virtualization is also useful.  It enables people to run apps that cannot mess up the host operating system.  It also makes it much easier to develop for more operating system environments by making it easier to access different OS’s while not having do dual/multi-booting.  There are also ways that virtualization can be used with thin clients to centralize desktop/workstations to make them easier to manage from one location.  One other significant thing that is happening hardware wise is the increased interests and efforts towards building very power-efficient chips.  This will be especially  beneficial in laptops and in large data centers where massive amounts of money are spent on power and cooling.

In summary, I think that multicore processors will continue to become more dominant.  Virtualization is also becoming a very hot topic for servers.  64 bit processors and OS’s will become entirely take over in the next five to ten years.  And power efficient processors and systems will help OEM’s who are trying to build laptops with long battery lifes as well as companies running large data centers, such as Google and Microsoft.

There are many different types of cases that some people might like.I found four different types of cases on NewEgg that illustrate some of the options available.

Sun Bean Case

$79.99

This is an ATX compatible case which and is a clear blue color. It supports seven expansion slots, and up to 9 external 5.25″ bays for devices such as optical drives, tape drives, and card readers. It also supports four internal 3.5″ bays for harddrives, and comes with three 120mm fans.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811166032

RAIDMAX Case

$69.99

This is also compatible with ATX motherboards and is black with a clear blue side window. It comes with a 4502 power supply, and has five 5.25″ external bays, three 3.5″ internal bays, and seven expansion slots.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811156177

LOGISYS Case

$59.99

This is also an ATX case. It can handle four 5.25″ external bays, still more than enough for most purposes, and can take up to six internal 3.5″ harddrives. The case is entirely clear, and it comes with three 80mm fans.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811148001

IN WIN Case

$69.99

Unlike the other cases, this is a MicroATX case, meaning that a standard ATX motherboard will not fit in it. Because it is smaller, it does not have as many bays. It has two external 5.25″ bays, and two internal 3.5″ bays. It has four expansion slots, and a 90mm fan. This case is silver in color and is made of steel. It does not have a side window.

There aren’t quite as many options as far as modding for keyboards and mice goes. However, there are much higher quality mice and keyboard available than what comes with most computers.

For example, here is a Bluetooth keybaord and optical mouse set made by Logitech. It costs about $110, but it has many more features than most standard keyboards and mice. Since it is wireless, it could be used in more places. Also there are additional buttons on the keyboard and mouse that can be mapped to do different things on the computer, such as launching a program.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823126176

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Personally, I do not see the purpose of case modding. A computer does not need to look “cool” – it needs to do a job. I am far more interested in the features/quality/specifications of the actual hardware than in the looks of the case itself. That actually makes a different in the operation of the computer, whereas the purpose of the case is just to protect the internal components of the computer. I do, however, think that investing in a quality keyboard and mouse would be a good idea for anyone who uses a computer much. Not only are there generally more comfortable to use, their advanced features can help you work more efficiently. The case is not an important part of my “ultimate” computer. A simple gray, black, or white case is perfectly fine to me, as long as it is easy to work with inside when upgrading/changing components.

My ultimate computer would probably be a small laptop or tablet PC that I could easily take with me when I go places. Having a long battery life would be very important. Of course the reliability would be critical, to ensure that I could rely on it. A docking station would also be useful so I could use it sort of as a desktop with a normal monitor and normal desktop style keyboard and mouse.

To make things a bit more interesting, I decided to find parts for a server.  Since there was no budget specified, its pretty expensive.  I used NewEgg exclusively.

 Basically, I used a barebones kit for the case, powersupply, and motherboard.  Its a 2U rackmount case, and it has dual 700w power supplies.  The motherboard has two socket 771’s for processors, and can support up to six SATA 2 3.0Gbps drives in RAID 5 (RAID 0, 1, and 10 are also supported).  The motherboard has sixteen DDR2 slots, meaning it can take up to 64 GB of RAM.  It also has two integrated gigabit Ethernet ports, and a VGA port for the monitor.  It comes with a slim DVD-ROM drive.

 For processors, I chose two Intel Xeon Clovertown’s.  They are 2.33 Ghz, 64 bit, and have quad-cores.  Two of them are included in the price.  They are Socket 771 chips, and each one has a total of 8MB of L2 cache.  They also support Intel’s VT virtualization technology to speed up virtualizing more than one operating system with something like VMware or Xeon.

The price includes six Western Digital Raptor drives.  They are 74 GB each and have 16 MB of cache.  Raptor’s are 10K drives, which significantly reduced the latency.  They are SATA I, however, so they cannot take advantage of the full speed of SATA II, which is supported by the motherboard.

 For RAM, I chose Kingston’s pack of two 2GB DDR sticks.  They are ECC and registered, which is required by many servers.  I included eight of the packets, giving the OS a total of 32 GB of RAM, which would be very beneficial if many virtual machines were being used. 

 I included Windows Server 2003 for the operating system.  Its the Enterprise edition, giving the end user access to features like clustering.  It is also the 64 bit version.  The 32 bit version would not be able to use more than 4GB of the RAM, and the 64 bit version would be required for some new software such as Exchange 2007. 

 I chose a Linskey rackmount console for the monitor, keyboard, and mouse.  It has a 17″ LCD monitor and includes a KVM switch.  When not in use the console would fold down and slide into the rack.

The total cost comes to a little over $9200.  Considering the specs, that actually doesn’t seem like a huge amount.  Its about an order of magnitude out of my price range though.

 I have a link to a graphic showing the cost spreadsheet below, since apparently WordPress doesn’t accept .xls, .xlsx, or PDF files.

I also have the links to all of the items on NewEgg if someone wants them, they’re on the spreadsheet, but they won’t fit in the picture well.

For the resume builder activity, I took quizzes on three different websites (www.livecareer.com, ww.princetonreview.com/cte/quiz/, http://www.myfuture.com/toolbox/workinterest.html).  They all had different ways of categorizing people’s potential career interests, so it somewhat difficult to directly compare them.  However, I think that they generally seem somewhat accurate, based on my interests and abilities.  The results for all of them were fairly similar.

Live Career

After taking LiveCareer’s quiz, it gave me a  graph (show below) of the results.  Basically, it shows me primarily as a “thinker” (investigative), and an “organizer” (conventional).  I think the investigative category is definitely accurate, considering LiveCareer’s explanation of the category:

Investigative types enjoy the challenge of problem solving in mathematics, technology, and sciences, and the abstract and practical ideas related to these areas. Applied science, such as engineering, technology or computer science may also be of interest to them. They can be technically creative.

The Princeton Review Career Quiz

The Princeton Review’s quiz, categorized my “interest color” as red, and my “usual style” as blue.  According to their explanation, the results from this site seems similar to the ones from Live Career.  The explanation for red includes solving problems and organizing.  The blue category mentions preferring to think things through before acting.  All of this seems to be fairly accurate to me, perhaps surprisingly so considering that the quiz for this site was not nearly as long as the one hundred question quiz for LiveCareer.

My Future

My Future’s quiz put me into several categories. 

• The first of which is investigative.  According to them this means that I like to “solve problems” or learn about a new subject area, which I think is correct.  It also lists some possible careers, including detective and meteorologist.
• The next category is conventional, which makes me a good candidate for jobs which might require an attention to detail.  It mentions Computer Programmer as one of the possible career choices for me.
• The third and last category they put me in was “Enterprising.”  Their description says that I would be good in a job that was “fast paced”  and would “require me to take on a lot of responsibility.”  Most of the potential jobs it mentions are management positions, however I noticed Software Manager/Computer Software Specialist which seems like it is something that I might be interested in.