[AusNOG] Time for AusSOG I think (was Re: Happy Sysadminday)

[Matt Carter]

> If I want
> to see and participate in sysadmin related discussion, I'll subscribe
> to both this and a sysadmin related mailing list.
> 
> What sort of reception do you think I'd get if I subscribed to a
> SAGE-AU mailing list and then said something like "We network operators
> are great, we make the Internet work"?
> 

The link I clicked on took me to great pics of patch panel network cable nightmares, so how is that O/T for a network operator??

>From my limited knowledge of SAGE-AU I dare so no-one would have cared. Having kept my fingers in that pie to a degree from my Sysadmin roots, and just chatting to a couple of the more active members, the immediate response seems to be that as a general rule sysadmins dabble in a bit of network administration, although they 'don't understand BGP like the network guys', they are hardly going to take offence at such a post. 

An interesting point that was raised, aren't pieces of networking equipment not by definition, "systems" that need to be administered?

If you check the SAGE-AU website; "Computer systems are generated from an intricate interrelationship between administrators, users, employers, other network sites and the providers of software, hardware, and national and international communication networks." <...> "SAGE-AU represents Australia's system administrators, the technology experts who keep computers and networks running."

If you check the SysAdmin website at the center of this discussion it claims on the front page " A sysadmin installed the routers, laid the cables, configured the networks, set up the firewalls, and watched and guided the traffic for each hop of the network that runs over copper, fiber optic glass, and even the air itself" it goes on to say " A sysadmin makes sure your network connection is safe, secure, open, and working"

So, one has to wonder if a Sysadmin does all that, what does a netadmin do? :) Or is the perception we are all one and the same??

This probably re-enforces that the line between the two for many people is rather blurred, even in professional circles. Some view networks as a subset of systems, others don't. Consider that in many years past, "systems AND network" administration was often a combined role, generally by virtue of the fact that the network began as an extension of the servers, before there was enough work to justify a designated network admin. The knowledge on both was held in one brain. Then came divergence & separation, specific roles evolve and a clear boundary being the network port is established as the demarcation/handover between the two roles. Now comes reconvergence & virtualisation. Now we have switches sitting inside servers, the servers to an extent are an extension of the network. Etc etc.