1. 1 / xxx The Path to Senior Sysadmin Adam Moskowitz Copyright 2011; Adam Moskowitz. All rights reserved.

2. 2 / ??? BBLISA Only Talk geared to different (larger?) audience You probably have better attitudes than intended audience

3. 3 / ??? BBLISA Only Hopefully there will still be some good ideas and suggestions

4. 4 / xxx Purpose Some suggestions for professional and personal growth, and to help you advance your career

5. 5 / ??? Bad News This section: 1 topic This section: 13 slides Slides completed: # Slides remaining: # (%age)

6. 6 / ??? Agenda “Hard” technical skills “Squishy” technical skills “Soft” (non-technical) skills

7. 7 / ??? Bad News I have some bad news …

8. 8 / ??? Bad News You won’t like a lot of what I’m going to say tonight

9. 9 / ??? Bad News You Want to Hear: “Expert with puppet” “Deep internals of Xen” “TCP 3-way Handshake”

10. 10 / ??? Bad News I’ll Say All That, But … You could figure it out for yourself Only 5 – 10 minutes Least important part of this talk

11. 11 / ??? Bad News You will probably like “Squishy Skills”

12. 12 / ??? Bad News But you’re really going to hate “soft skills” Unfortunately (for you), they’re the most important And the hardest to learn

13. 13 / ??? Bad News Because becoming a senior sysadmin is only a little bit about this (picture of two sysadmins)

14. 14 / ??? Bad News And a lot about this (picture of my AARP card)

15. 15 / ??? Bad News Well, not so much age as maturity

16. 16 / ??? Bad News Most common manifestations of a lack of maturity: Bad attitude Lack of respect for your co- workers

17. 17 / ??? Let’s Start Over Let’s pretend to get off on the right foot

18. 18 / ??? Agenda Hard technical skills “Squishy” technical skills “Soft” (non-technical) skills

19. 19 / ??? Hard Skills This section: 1 topic This section: 8 slides Slides completed: # Slides remaining: # (%age)

20. 20 / ??? Hard Skills User commands (1) Admin commands (7) Boot process /etc/init.d SMF, launchd, etc. Back-ups RAID NIS / LDAP / AD sh / awk / sed Perl Ruby? Some C Bonus: Assembler

21. 21 / ??? Hard Skills For (1) and (7), spend an hour a day trying commands on a test machine Start at beginning, move on after you understand each command

22. 22 / ??? Hard Skills Basic S/W Eng: Version control RCS, svn git? Hg? p4? ClearCase? Variables, params in scripts SysConfig Tools The Big Four: bcfg2 chef cfengine puppet Also: lcfg, pan, quattor, radmind

23. 23 / ??? Hard Skills Networking Common protocols: IP, TCP, UDP Set-up, tear-down, ARP, basic routing “App” protocols: DHCP, DNS, HTTP, IMAP, LDAP, NIS, SSH, SMTP Routers, firewalls, load balancers, caches, (WAN) accelerators Protocol analyzer wireshark, NetScout

24. 24 / ??? Hard Skills Double Word Score Having experience on two or more different platforms is a great “hard” skill to have

25. 25 / ??? Hard Skills Different == Linux + Solaris Not Debian + RedHat

26. 26 / ??? Hard skills One last hard skill: Triple-bonus: the *nix kernel

27. 27 / ??? Hard skills “Hard skills: Done” Should be obvious why you need to learn this stuff Now on to bigger & better things

28. 28 / ??? Squishy Skills This section: 7 topics This section: 39 slides Slides completed: # Slides remaining: # (%age)

29. 29 / ??? Agenda Hard technical skills “Squishy” technical skills “Soft” (non-technical) skills

30. 30 / ??? “Squishy” Huh?

31. 31 / ??? “Squishy” These are very clearly technical skills But not based on specific technologies (or commands or whatever)

32. 32 / ??? “Squishy” Some “face out” Planning & analysis Others “face in” Career growth

33. 33 / ??? (ADPE) This section: 6 slides Slides completed: # Slides remaining: # (%age)

34. 34 / ??? “Squishy” “Out” Analysis Planning Design Evaluation

35. 35 / ??? “Squishy” Ability to look at “big picture” for a project Figure out requirements Make a plan based on analysis

36. 36 / ??? “Squishy” Evaluate results Includes things like roll-back, decision trees, scheduling

37. 37 / ??? “Squishy” “Big Picture” Need to be able to figure out how all the pieces fit together

38. 38 / ??? “Squishy” And how pieces affect each other Like: System throughput/response time Security

39. 39 / ??? “Squishy” Must be able to apply this to new systems during design/planning And to existing projects for systemic trouble-shooting

40. 40 / ??? (process) This section: 3 slides Slides completed: # Slides remaining: # (%age)

41. 41 / ??? “Squishy” “Rules” and systems for how things get done Change management, disaster plans, security breaches, releases, etc.

42. 42 / ??? “Squishy” Need to be able to figure out how much process is appropriate Manual or automatic? For what tasks?

43. 43 / ??? “Squishy” Also need to be able to evaluate existing process, recommend changes/improvements And that brings us to …

44. 44 / ??? (about business) This section: 6 slides Slides completed: # Slides remaining: # (%age)

45. 45 / ??? “Squishy” Understanding (the) business Ahem … Unless your business is sysadmin consulting services …

46. 46 / ??? “Squishy” Sysadmin is about supporting the business!

47. 47 / ??? “Squishy” Everything sysadmin does must have a business reason behind it

48. 48 / ??? “Squishy” Meet an SLA, meet a defined risk level, conform to a regulation, build a product, enable an employee to perform his/her job, etc.

49. 49 / ??? “Squishy” The gear isn’t there for you to do “cool stuff” with

50. 50 / ??? “Squishy” “Good enough” Meet the requirements and no more Because any extra time/money is wasted

51. 51 / ??? (YAGNI) This section: 4 slides Slides completed: # Slides remaining: # (%age)

52. 52 / xxx You Ain’t Gonna Need It

53. 53 / ??? “Squishy” From Agile / Extreme Programming Or, don’t add a feature unless there’s a defined requirement Again, wasted time/money

54. 54 / ??? “Squishy” Yes, some “economy of scale” and “planning for future growth” But that should be part of the business plan, too

55. 55 / ??? “Squishy” Some people call this BDIM: “Business-Driven IT Management” I say there’s no other kind!

56. 56 / ??? (bottom line) This section: 3 slides Slides completed: # Slides remaining: # (%age)

57. 57 / ??? “Squishy” You also need to think about “the bottom line”

58. 58 / ??? “Squishy” When asked, if you can’t provide the business case for a particular task (machine, whatever), management probably can’t provide it either

59. 59 / ??? “Squishy” In which case, don’t do that task Spend that money Add that feature Etc.

60. 60 / ??? (boss, learning) This section: 8 slides Slides completed: # Slides remaining: # (%age)

61. 61 / ??? “Squishy” Skills that “face in” …

62. 62 / ??? “Squishy” You are likely to know more about the technical side of IT than your manager This is OK! Learn to accept it!

63. 63 / ??? “Squishy” Managers manage people Senior sysadmins manage technology

64. 64 / ??? “Squishy” Managers may never have been sysadmins Because so many sysadmins have bad people skills and thus make lousy managers

65. 65 / ??? “Squishy” Again, it’s not the manager’s job to be the technology expert

66. 66 / ??? “Squishy” This means you can’t ask your manager for technical help You have to learn how to learn new things on your own

67. 67 / ??? “Squishy” Quickly With limited resources From incomplete or incorrect documentation

68. 68 / ??? “Squishy” The best way to do this is to develop a network of people you can ask for help (the usual suspects)

69. 69 / ??? Soft Skills This section: 8 topics This section: 58 slides Slides completed: # Slides remaining: # (%age)

70. 70 / ??? Agenda Hard technical skills “Squishy” technical skills “Soft” (non-technical) skills

71. 71 / ??? Pay Attention

72. 72 / ??? Pay Attention I want you to please pay attention to your reaction when I’m talking about soft skills

73. 73 / ??? Pay Attention Most likely, the more you don’t like what I’m saying, the more you need to hear it

74. 74 / ??? Pay Attention Some sysadmins place high value on these bad attitudes and lack of respect

75. 75 / ??? Pay Attention They couldn’t be any more wrong And they need to hear this more than anyone else

76. 76 / ??? “Soft” Skills Attitude A few “people skills” Attitude

77. 77 / ??? “Soft” Skills This is the stuff that’s probably going to be the hardest for you to learn Because sysadmin is about people (and business) not technology!

78. 78 / ??? “Soft” Skills Yes, people and business, not technology

79. 79 / ??? “Soft” Skills I said this in “squishy”: Machines exist to perform business functions

80. 80 / ??? “Soft” Skills Sysadmin is about keeping those machines running And about helping people use those machines

81. 81 / ??? (helpful, friendly) This section: 6 slides Slides completed: # Slides remaining: # (%age)

82. 82 / ??? “Soft” Skills If people don’t ask for help because sysadmins make them uncomfortable, those people won’t be effective when there are problems, then you have failed to perform your job

83. 83 / ??? “Soft” Skills That is, your job of helping those people

84. 84 / ??? “Soft” Skills This is worth repeating Your job is to help the business Keep machines running Help people use the machines

85. 85 / ??? “Soft” Skills Yes, you have to stay within security policy, PCI, etc. But the goal is to “get to yes” and not “just say no”

86. 86 / ??? “Soft” Skills Part of this is giving the answer most helpful to the person asking In terms they will understand

87. 87 / ??? “Soft” Skills Being pedantic doesn’t help Being snide doesn’t help Saying “don’t do that” doesn’t help

88. 88 / ??? (respect) This section: 2 slides Slides completed: # Slides remaining: # (%age)

89. 89 / ??? “Soft” Skills Attitude #2: Respect other people in the company They know less about computers than you do Probably a lot less

90. 90 / ??? “Soft” Skills It’s not their job to know a lot about computers If it was their job, the company wouldn’t need to hire you!

91. 91 / ??? (not stupid) This section: 15 slides Slides completed: # Slides remaining: # (%age)

92. 92 / ??? “Soft” Skills Attitude #3: More respect Your users are not stupid! Many of them are experts in their own fields

93. 93 / ??? “Soft” Skills They can’t solve computer problems You can’t solve nuclear physics problems

94. 94 / ??? “Soft” Skills This doesn’t make either of you stupid!

95. 95 / ??? “Soft” Skills For example … I use an IBM ThinkPad X-61 My wife uses a Mac iBook They’re different in ways most of us don’t even realize

96. 96 / ??? “Soft” Skills While on vacation last year, she tried to use my X61...

97. 97 / ??? “Soft” Skills First she asked me “how do I open it?”

98. 98 / ??? “Soft” Skills Thirty seconds later, “how do I turn it on?”

99. 99 / ??? “Soft” Skills Another 30 seconds and it was “which button clicks the mouse?”

100. 100 / ??? “Soft” Skills “Boy, is she dumb!”

101. 101 / ??? “Soft” Skills Um, no … She has an MS in biomedical engineering And at least one patent She’s also an MD

102. 102 / ??? “Soft” Skills In some ways, she’s smarter than I am I just happen to know more about computers than she does How much more?

103. 103 / ??? “Soft” Skills She has ~7,500 hours

104. 104 / ??? “Soft” Skills I have ~120,000 hours!

105. 105 / ??? “Soft” Skills That’s ~16x

106. 106 / ??? “Soft” Skills Most sysadmins forget how big this experience gap is

107. 107 / ??? (Windows) This section: 5 slides Slides completed: # Slides remaining: # (%age)

108. 108 / ??? “Soft” Skills Stop whining about Windows! It’s pretty much the standard in the business world Get over it Better yet, accept it

109. 109 / ??? “Soft” Skills Whining does nothing except annoy your boss And reinforce his/her belief that you have a bad attitude

110. 110 / ??? “Soft” Skills Even if you don’t think you’re whining, that’s probably how it sounds to your boss

111. 111 / ??? “Soft” Skills While you’re at it … Learn Windows (desktop) Learn common Office apps Learn Outlook or Lotus Notes

112. 112 / ??? “Soft” Skills Learn to do basic config Again, because it’s the standard And you need to “play nice” with managers, executives, etc.

113. 113 / ??? (PCI et al.) This section: 7 slides Slides completed: # Slides remaining: # (%age)

114. 114 / ??? “Soft” Skills Stop whining about PCI HIPAA SOX FERPA etc.

115. 115 / ??? “Soft” Skills These regulations often don’t make sense They may not increase security The point is neither effectiveness nor security

116. 116 / ??? “Soft” Skills The point is about compliance as a legal requirement Or about compliance as part of a legal defense if something goes wrong

117. 117 / ??? “Soft” Skills The meta-point is about staying in business!

118. 118 / ??? “Soft” Skills You don’t have to like it As senior sysadmin you do have to help implement it

119. 119 / ??? “Soft” Skills If possible, you have to improve things above and beyond the regulations And you have to do it all without whining

120. 120 / ??? “Soft” Skills Remember: Your attitude counts almost as much as your actions

121. 121 / ??? (developers) This section: 5 slides Slides completed: # Slides remaining: # (%age)

122. 122 / ??? “Soft” Skills When the developers you work with give you bad software, rather than bash them, go work with them to help them fix the problem

123. 123 / ??? “Soft” Skills Go help them understand the problem

124. 124 / ??? “Soft” Skills Developers are not dumb Usually they’re just not familiar with ops requirements

125. 125 / ??? “Soft” Skills Or, more likely, ops stuff never made it into the design, so it’s not on the devs’ schedule

126. 126 / ??? “Soft” Skills In which case, work with the designers Because this isn’t the devs’ fault

127. 127 / ??? Summary Stop whining Attitude counts as much as technical performance

128. 128 / ??? Wrapping Up This section: 1 + 1 topics This section: 3 + 3 slides Slides completed: # Slides remaining: # (%age)

129. 129 / ??? Answers For soft skills, find a mentor A good manager Probably NOT a techie

130. 130 / ??? Answers Might find someone through the LOPSA Mentorship program But someone you work with might be easier

131. 131 / ??? Answers Again, your “soft mentor” doesn’t have to be technical

132. 132 / ??? That’s All, Folks

133. 133 / ??? Credits Thanks to: John Dalton Steven Ellis Andrew McMillan Shirt by KOG

134. 134 / ??? After Today … Copies of my speaking notes: (on the web site) Questions: Thank you!