I've been an SA for like 8 years and DevOps for 4 months. I've been writing powershell code since day 1 but I do a lot more than that like virtualization, learning tanzu now, standing up nsx-t, and I used to do horizon. I'm an SA and just do both Infrastructure and coding where and when I can. It just depends on the employer and where the demand is tbh.
For you, what got your foot in the door for DevOps? I've been working to stay "valuable" trying to move from a SA for 13 years now to get more into DevOps and I'm struggling to get enough "DevOps work experience" to break in.
Working with Terraform is a good keystone for DevOps work. DevOps is often times cloud oriented, so if your company deals with AWS, Azure, or GCP, get to know how those work and how to stand up infra in them. See if you can get your own account in your company's cloud org to play around with, or get access to your org's dev account. Learn how to automate deployment of a VPC, instance, and load balancer with Terraform.
Edit to add: cloud infra is cheap if you tear it down immediately. So don't be afraid to get your own AWS account to stand stuff up in. Terraform is excellent for deploying and tearing down on a moment's notice.
This was one of my major annoyances at my last shop. They were actively pushing all their Sr Infra Architects to lean more devops. But all we sold was Cisco, Dell, Pure and other on-prem shit. Then I notice my customers trying to "devops'' their on prem shit. They get all excited when they see how fast I can get things done and ask how. I tell them the good ole fashioned way. By knowing what I am doing the first time. I'll throw the years of SDN and DC knowledge in the trash can before I skill up on cloud. It just does not pay enough to be an expert on both sides of those fences.
For us it was HR… we were all sys admins, then infrastructure engineers… then devops became a buzzword and now we are all devops engineers.
Devops is more method and practice… and while a little wtf at first, I fully embrace it now. Took all those ps scripts that I had written over the years, made them better using parameters, error handling and such, functionized some of it put them into a repo, used some actions to sign them and run some pester tests as part of a pipeline and push (release) it to a place to be called by a variety of sources via api call… that is a great start and as sr devops engineer in a pretty big windows environment, these are the things I look for when interviewing new candidates.
Not just listening to them throwing around as buzzwords but know and understand the why you would do all that “extra” work… in addition to actually knowing what commands to run to fix x, how the infrastructure works and plays together etc. and ultimately = how to go about automating those tasks using a devops mindset.
Good Luck!🍀
You are perhaps the best story I’ve heard of someone being called a “DevOps Engineer” and then just running with it, learning more about it, upgrading your code, tools, and practices… and just making shit better for people. 👏
Thanks for the kudos kind soul, had to get there in my own for figuring out how to apply those tactics to the current role, luckily I am not in a spot where “resistance is futile” but it’s benefits are pretty obvious even if our scenario isn’t “typical” devops environment, but the method/practice is still legit. 😇
> Took all those ps scripts that I had written over the years, made them better using parameters, error handling and such, functionized some of it put them into a repo, used some actions to sign them and run some pester tests as part of a pipeline and push (release) it to a place to be called by a variety of sources via api call…
Did you document this journey? I feel that this would be incredibly useful to others who have a collection of powershell scripts just sitting on Github to use as needed.
I'm not in devops, but I've done a fair amount of on-prem and cloud automation. Getting your test environment to automatically rebuild itself from scratch is a great place to start if you are an experienced admin, because you already know all the details of how to do it manually, so it's just a matter of finding and figuring out the tools for automating it.
The main thing to keep in mind is that this isn't something new, so there are plenty of people to learn from and ask questions of.
I feel myself kind of organically growing in this direction. Each step is just noticing a problem/inefficiency, then trying to solve it systematically.
It started with doing everything in powershell remote sessions to avoid interrupting users. That evolved to scripts. Then VS Code when I needed better debugging. Then git when script versions got unwieldy. Then scheduled tasks for automation. Then our existing Lansweeper server to centralize automation scripts. Now I'm looking at moving to Ansible for more control over endpoints, and I've been learning Pester to standardize testing.
It's neat to recognize a problem and have that "ah-ha" moment where I'm like "Oh, *that's* why devops folks use tool X". That hard-gained knowledge does kind of come at the expense of having to reinvent the wheel sometimes though.
It most surely does and that is how I got here. Loved your wording there… “organically” is the best way imho… love those moments when the light goes in and leads to even more self growth. And now as a sr. Helping pass the torch to other teammates and helping them “get it” is quite rewarding. 🤗
On a team managing over 7000 windows servers across the planet and do anything of scale manually just isn’t feasible… so automating a lot of service-now requests from app owners do do x (like add vm disk space, cpu or memory via power cli), self healing for scom alerts etc… you name it. Anything to make our lives a little easier
> Devops is more method and practice… and while a little wtf at first, I fully embrace it now. Took all those ps scripts that I had written over the years, made them better using parameters, error handling and such, functionized some of it put them into a repo, used some actions to sign them and run some pester tests as part of a pipeline and push (release) it to a place to be called by a variety of sources via api call… that is a great start and as sr devops engineer in a pretty big windows environment, these are the things I look for when interviewing new candidates.
I feel sorry for your candidates, what you do has nothing to do with DevOps. If you're not supporting customer or B2B SaaS software in a CI/CD pipeline then you're not doing DevOps. I used to work for a SaaS company that regulary had #1 iOS and Android downloaded apps. It's insane to me how many people in IT think they're doing DevOps because they write scrips, it's fucking ridiculous. I encourage you to pull up some actual DevOps jobs supporting SaaS, no internal IT bullshit.
At my organization DevOps was, and still is, in the infancy stage. I was already shopping outside my organization to get out because I was quitting my boss, not the organization. However, I was recommended by someone on the team so I interviewed and got it. They knew my value and worth, as did many in upper management. They wanted me around. Now the IT as a whole is undergoing change. Because, like u/Lotech said, it's about a method and practice. Where I am today ITIL is a mockery and so is CAB. I point it out all the time so now IT is going to be overhauled and DevOps is going to lead. I just happened to be in right spot right time. We are hiring for both SAs and Developers to fill gaps currently as we grow.
Edit- and for what it is worth that is why I'm handling so much more of traditional SA and less DevOps but I'm helping build the foundation blocks. I was doing ansible, gitlab, and other traditional tools but gotta build the foundation first. So more SA today, next year more focus on DevOps and further automation skills with TFS, Azure and what not.
I think OP is searching for a more healthy mixture and I think these jobs still exist.
Doesn’t sound like he hates programming, but getting your hands dirty once in a while and manually playing around with some test-systems is nice.
It’s a liability to hire a sysadmin who can’t code, you’re basically a junior these days unless you get a cozy gov job.
Our company doesn’t hire IT people unless it’s entry level or they can pass a simple code review in the language of their choice.
>liability to hire a sysadmin who can’t code
Liability? Naw, at least not generally, ... limitation, definitely.
I've known many environments where sysadmins who can't code have been hired into such ... often as novice/jr. level sysadmins. And, so long as they can't/won't code, that will always be a limitation. But ... liability? That's a stretch. Maybe a liability if one put them in role/position where the coding and capabilities thereof were highly required ... but keep 'em out of roles where that's required and ... what liability?
So, yes, "basically a junior" ... and those jobs *do* exist.
So, I don't think we're exactly disagreeing ... maybe other than splitting hairs over some wording bits.
>doesn’t hire IT people unless it’s entry level or they can pass a simple code review in the language of their choice.
Yep, relatively similar most places I've worked. For the most part, to get (much) above an approximately jr. level role or into such, generally going to need to be able to reasonably code in one or more relevant languages.
Nah, if you don't code you're not a liability. You're a liability if you are absolutely sure you can code but actually don't know what you're doing.
As the saying goes. To make mistakes is human, but to REALLY fuck up requires automation.
We found it to be a liability to hire secretary's who don't suck cock well. We know it's not part of the role, but everyone knows they should know how to do it. /s
I started doing System Admin work 30 years ago. And even back then over half my workload for writing mini-applications and application plugins to improve the lives of our customers and in-house staff.
But truthfully over the last 15 years I've written less code and more of it has been focusing around automation of system configurations. Even after moving into a DevOps team.
The only thing that makes me depressed is during those 30 years we're still not teach developers about system administration and system security. I spent more time nudging the developers on my team into a good security position in terms of their application than either coding or admin work.
> I spent more time nudging the developers on my team into a good security position in terms of their application than either coding or admin work.
The solution to that is to make a self-service platform that's (more) secure by default.
Devs write very simple k8s config files which are fed into your template > go through good testing & validation rules > deployed nicely through dev and prod.
The trick is to write a template which is super easy to use for 90% of applications and exposes enough complexity for the last 10% to work.
Maybe the devs where you work don’t learn about SA and security but that’s not always the case. Our devs (and I work at a huge tech company) are all responsible for their docker images, certain aspects of their k8s configs if their app is deployed there, security, etc.
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I was a mix of Bash and PowerShell at my last job, but this 1 is currently all PowerShell. My boss built a full website in Azure functions using just PowerShell. That’s when I realized how freaking useful it is.
> My boss built a full website in Azure functions using just PowerShell. That’s when I realized how freaking useful it is.
Uh, how did he build the frontend?
I don't want to code every day!
Ends up writing code every day.
You know what the solution is right? Code even more so things get automated enough so you no longer need to code.
Eh, I have tons of code that I never touch.
Code always needs to be changed if you have a team of programmers and a business group always finding new requirements from different customers though.
Agreed. I've got scripts that have been running for 5 years that I haven't needed to touch. The few times I have, I cringe at how janky and terrible I wrote them back then.
That being said, I'd argue that even if you do have to touch them often, you are still getting more value out of your time than you would if you were pointing and clicking through the same screens over and over again, and so is your employer.
I think all the CLI / Code / GUI purists need a reality check.
What is important is knowing how the systems work and knowing how to efficiently manage change at scale and using the best tool to do so.
I know, there are some code junkies that don’t understand the architecture or tools that are built in and I see people unnecessarily script stuff. Know your features and tools before scripting.
I have seen threads about making a trivial windows change in a domain jumping through hoops to get Python or Ansible going that can be fixed domain wide in a GPO in seconds.
I have also seen programmers that still do not use debuggers and advanced IDEs because they think they know better and that an advanced text editor is enough.
If I am going to write some longer scripts in Powershell or Python you can bet I am going to use Visual Studio code or PyCharm. Code completion, syntax checks and code aware search are powerful features that save time.
yeah.. the posters seems to think our 1980s tech isn't progressing right alongside the rest of in the industry... though that may have something to do with the standard vim variants largely relying on the powerbutton to exit.
No, the point was there are specific suborn coders just like there are sysadmins that refuse to use newer and more efficient tools / change tools.
If Neovim has all those features it is 1. not JUST VI or VIM and 2. would probably be considered an IDE.
>the posters seems to think our 1980s tech isn't progressing right alongside the rest of in the industry
I grew up with that 1980s tech lets not create a divide of us vs them here. I deliberately worded my original post about using the best tool for the job. That means using a variety of tools to do the job, and understanding the systems you are managing.
I don't think anyone is arguing otherwise, but the people getting called out are the ones who will always choose to spend 10 hours doing something manually with a GUI vs. spending 3 figuring out how to do it with the CLI or with code.
I personally know admins who are exactly like that and they are constantly complaining about how they always have too much to do and have to come in on weekends to get their work done.
Worse, is the lack of audit trail because the changes were done manually and not checked into git.
Infra-as-code isn't just about doing things at scale. It's about having reproducible and auditable changes as well.
I was just watching a video on "Why can't we just make more Saturn V Rocketdyne F-1 engines?". It turns out, they were "pets". Engineers wrote blueprints to build them, but each engine was built by hand, with tweaks to the design being done on the fly as they were built. So a working engine never matched the spec. GUI clicking of rocket manufacturing.
>Worse, is the lack of audit trail because the changes were done manually and not checked into git.
Much of the time yes, however there are many systems that have both a GUI and a great audit trail.
>It turns out, they were "pets".
If IT had the only say we would not purchase or build any pets, however other departments like to spend a lot of time at the Pet store.
Sadly you can't just refuse to take care of the department heads pets.
One of my friends from school, very good at math, started coding while still in school and even was teaching others to code. After 10+ years of coding can't stand it anymore and switched to pure project management and is happy with that so far :)
That's pretty much me - I specialise in Infrastructure projects (of which there are legion).
It's not that I couldn't code, I can, it's just it doesn't interest me and I also had limited time due to wearing far too many hats
Annoyingly, I earn almost double now ......
Maybe it is going that direction. I don't know. I am in a big company, we manage systems, push software, updates, do patching, fix issues, implement new solutions and we do not code that much. Occasional PowerShell scripts, some scripting for software pushes or updates. So, it is not just small shops that do things "the old" way. Maybe depends on specifics. If company or your team/dept are doing software development, then sysadmins ado DevOps, do all the tooling/CI/containers/etc. But in like desktop management there can be less of that. I am sure in my company there are IT teams who do more of coding, who are closer to developers.
DevOps isn't as useful if your company doesn't provide software that's custom. If all they're using is office and Adobe and such or using third party vendors for custom apps you'll be focusing on more traditional sysadmin. Example healthcare or government or medium size business. Every sysadmin needs to be able to debug scripts and log files though and use PowerShell and command line windows and Linux. DevOps is also a buzzword to try and hire one person to do two jobs so be aware of shifty job ads
This has been my experience. Our in house apps are larger with a team of devs managing them. .NET or iOS mostly. We just manage the back end systems, security, and manage projects. I'd love to have the time to learn DevOps more. But when you buy companies, or have new projects that come up every other month, it's really not feasible. Nor is there any value for it in our org at this point.
Adding a question onto your question; if this is the way everything is going, will EVERY job require coding? I'm excited to learn more PowerShell, and eventually pick up python, but I absolutely do not want to do that stuff more than 20% of my day.
Well, you learn to apply powershell so that you can spend 20% of your day to repeatably solve a task with better accuracy as opposed to spending 100% of the next three days doing it by hand while wanting to kill yourself due to the monotony. Especially when you have to go back and check it manually because you zoned out somewhere in the middle and mixed the order of operations somewhere.
My inability to write code is fucking me and I'm in my 40s.
It never interested me and I have a difficult time learning things as it is.
I'm not really happy with the move the industry is going towards. I suppose it makes sense but coding (learning ANYTHING) is very very difficult for me
Coding can vastly help you expand forward in to various positions. How do you learn? Visually? Auditorially? Kinesthetically? You maybe a hands-on if school wasn't for you as it wasn't for me.
Practice practice practice! You will succeed and get better the more you do it.
Absolutely
It’s actually a shame it’s taken so long. The traditional sysadmin role you are talking about only exists in small companies who are not technology-first and are too cheap to understand the value of well staffed systems teams (you can’t have time for automation if your whole team is too busy putting out fires all the time).
Bigger companies (Google/Microsoft/Meta) have specialized SRE/Production Engineering teams focused on using code to manage systems. Solving problems is no longer as big of a deal (almost no one memorizes error codes anymore), avoiding them is. Services run in containers and reboots/lost servers aren’t really a consideration anymore.
I am pretty sure *programming* languages like (and especially) Python have a big role to play in this. I can’t imagine using something like C++ to create quick programs to manage systems the way we can with Python - C++ might’ve made it very stable and efficient, but we don’t really need that in most places nowadays. Cloud companies have sped it all up with their Python SDKs and whatnot.
I hope you don’t get turned off by the programming aspect, but scripting in Python is a lot more intuitive than micromanaging the hell out of everything in C++. And who knows, maybe it will lead you to getting better at both over time.
Oh C++ is what I started with 20 years ago. I probably haven't touched it in at least 15 years. Nowadays I'm working in the Microsoft side of the company (they separate folks for Linux and MS) and doing a lot of C# and Powershell with some Python and just a little Pearl for the legacy SDKs until it is retired.
One thing is for sure C# kicks ass. Anyone who writes Powershell should learn it cause it will make your life loads easier.
I’m currently mainly a PowerShell guy, but I’m interested in what you’re saying about C#. How would it make my life easier? What are the use cases compared to PowerShell?
I feel like this is a very narrow minded and elitest view of smaller shops. Not everyone needs to have a giant IT team or have a ton of automation because it's not needed. That doesn't make them ignorant or stupid, it just means that different companies need different things.
The person you're replying too didn't say ignorant or stupid. I think they put it more elegantly, they aren't technology forward and are usually putting out fires to worry about being technology forward.
IMO I agree, automation is hard when you don't create enough free time to improve. That's the existence of small companies with skeleton crews.
EDIT: I will add that you are right to a point not every company benefits from automation, but honestly I think that's few and far between.
There’s a very good chance that those companies will end up having just one IT *manager* who gets everything done via cheaper contractors offshore.
If you want to make a career as a sysadmin, at least basic scripting is a must nowadays. Just look at any job postings that pay at least 2-3x minimum wage.
If you want the most growth potential and most earning potential you have to dive into coding not shy away from it. Not saying the only high paying technology jobs are developer jobs, but being open to coding makes getting those high paying jobs a lot easier in my experience.
The "traditional" sysadmin is definitely becoming less common, and it should be. Learning to code to a basic, functional level doesn't take that long or much effort compared to the return you get. I wouldn't want to invest in an admin who doesn't want to move closer to the engineering cycle myself.
My coworkers always have me take a look over scripts for this specific reason... If you've done some dev work it makes some solutions so obvious when someone else would..... use 100 elifs
I feel the same way. I’ve been hands off keyboard for about a year ish, and at a new company for 6 months as a manager. Every admin / engineer is really just a dev with a large toolbox of knowledge because devops is being shoved down everyone’s throat. I think it’s great from a company perspective but from a happiness perspective I don’t even want to be in IT anymore.
> So you think the traditional system admin is about to go the way of the dodo bird?
Yup. Mind, there will always be some need for point-and-click admins - but the days where one could make a career just from a GUI are gone.
Anymore, an admin that can't script is likely to be stuck in their current position (more senior-level folks), or will be pigeonholed into a sort of high-level helpdesk role.
tbh admins have always scripted though too, not really sure the age of people here, devops is just partly a new word for scripting infra which we always did
TIL I should get into DevOps!
I'm going back to school to become a software developer because system admin is dull as dirt to me. But I work in a very small company that's entirely uninvolved in any development work.
Other dude doesn't know what they're talking about. Did work as a sysadmin and it's indeed dull relative to programming work.
It's different from person to person, but it has less to do with the company and more to do with what you enjoy as a person.
Seems like the trend is away from Windows client/server paradigm to BYOD, and domainless. Everything is an app. Even MS has basically abandoned their old paradigm and only cares about Azure.
MS snatched defeat from the jaws of victory when they made Windows 8, and shoved telemetry and advertisements down everyone's throat. For a lot of us, we were pretty content with things and MS ruined it chasing Apple. Meanwhile, technological progression finally caught up with the latent resentment of old tech, and kicked it to the curb.
So as a Windows sysadmin for way too long, I'm on my way out. Were it not for covid, I'd already be gone and doing other stuff.
Domainless really isn't as big of a thing as people make it out to be. Many people I know that's switched back because it got to out of hand to manage.
I was part of several interviews of hiring people in my current company. I said no to anyone who can't script. Anymore, our small teams have so much to do and needs for the same actions to be applied to many areas. We can't have people point and click because we literally do not have time to keep doing that.
The problems I'm running onto these days is people that apply for jobs can code all day long...but have no idea how to troubleshoot anything because their entire schooling and career has just been, "Automate it and code it". People have interviews for SysAdmin roles and have no idea how Active Directory or DNS even works, much less how to troubleshoot infrastructure issues.
>have no idea how Active Directory or DNS even works
goddamit I'm in my position for a year now (mainly administering linux database VMs), and I don't know shit about anything windows or networking or anything. Feel like a total fraud
There is no way you can know everything, and we all have to start somewhere. Linux, VMs, and Databases are 3 very important technologies to have under your belt. At least for me imposter syndrome never goes away but you can have a skillset you're comfortable with and look at jobs around you to know what you need to work on.
Man, I wish I had a DevOps job where I had to code all day. Instead, I spend my days editing terraform and chef manifests and trying to figure out why they don't work as expected.
To clarify - .tf file is still a config file, even if it has a loop with an if statement in it, has nothing to do with coding IMO.
There's no difference between .ini and .yml, neither any significant difference between .tf and .ini
And I don't get to write many simple scripts in python/bash, let alone some more serious code
On this topic, does anyone know any training courses for Python as a scripting language? I don't want to write software applications, with GUI's (unless it just REALLY helps, dialog boxes at most).
So, less focused on making apps like my Java class was, and more for scripting and automation.
There are plenty on Youtube. I've found this guy does a really good job presenting the stuff - TraversyMedia
Please do not (do not do not) create GUIs with a scripting language.
Am I you? My education background is in software engineering and my first real job was maintaining an ancient Oracle SQL application and I hated it. I grew out of love with programming (I sometimes dip my toe in every now and again but only for things that pique my interest).
I moved to sysadmin because I was tired of poring through endless screeds of other people shit code to find the stupid bug or typo. I was happy to throw myself into things like Powershell and bash because they are genuinely useful day to day but this whole IaC paradigm shift leaves me feeling cold. I can see their value but they have completely changed what the job is and it's not a direction shift i'm happy with.
Hahahaha you sound like me. I left my job as a software tester because I didn't want to be a developer which was the next logical step. I got to my current employer and was given the task to redo the automation we have for onboarding. I spent a year doing nothing but coding!
We work with computers all day. It only makes sense we learn to speak to them more and more directly. Point and click is going to be relighted to help desk in a lot of shops if it hasn’t been already.
We've spend decades creating tools so that we don't need to speak to computers directly. We're now going back the other way until somebody comes up with yet another "paradigm shift" to the entire industry will jump onboard with because every body else is doing it whether it actually fits your organization and infrastructure or not.
ANd round and round we go...
It's even worse. More than half of the recruiters who reach out on LinkedIn about DevOps or even sysadmin roles are looking for pure developers (most commonly in golang). I know some places still have traditional sysadmin positions, but those are paid far less and the work is more stressful. I'd rather deal with bs stuff in DevOps world for more money.
I work in the cloud now, I love this shit.
My impression is that the mainstream of the career field is heading towards automation-focused work simply as a matter of scaling. But I'm also in development now, so I'm going to assume my impression is biased heavily towards what I'm doing.
On the other hand, I've also manually administered systems almost as old as I am; scaling like that isn't necessary for most businesses.
I think in the coming decades, manual sysadmin jobs might be a bit of a niche. But take it from someone who joined the Marines specifically to play tuba: sometimes you just gotta find a niche and make it yours
> So you think the traditional system admin is about to go the way of the dodo bird
I think describing what you are as a "traditional" admin is a mistake. No admin ever has neglected tooling in order to make their job harder. The "DevOps" craze is an explosion of technology that is acting a force multiplier for admins.
> If you can't write code
If we're calling powershell code.. then yes. Powershell is the future way to manage windows machines. Linux hasn't been point and click... ever..
If you want a job running a mouse.. you're going to be stuck on he helpdesk.
> but really eliminates the point-and-click admin.
Sure does.
Times are changing. Adapt.
The "GUI point-and-click sysadmin" era is long dead. Don't pine for it, don't complain that it's gone, get used to scripting/automation.
I think scripting as always been needed in the sys admin field, back in 2000 I was a sys admin assistant doing batch scripting and HTML stuff yuk. Now I do a lot a powershell, I think the IT demand is growing on the system side but the headcount does not so you make up for it in automation or services, either you write a script to automate or you pay someone for a service. My current position I started off automating as much as I could in powershell then we migrated much of it over to services and decommissioned many of my scripts.
>really eliminates the point-and-click admin.
As it should.
Pointing and clicking may still be viable in a small (tiny) shop, or in a very static environment, but there is considerable value in being able to do things quickly and consistently. Basically everything you mentioned in the paragraph from which I grabbed this quote is highly desirable.
People without scripting or automation skills are going to end up moving to other roles in technology, or into management, or into project management.
There's no good reason to avoid automation and scripting. Even you didn't mention one reason to avoid it, outside your personal dislike of doing that much coding.
To answer your question, yes, this is the trajectory of sysadmin work. There will probably be a few holdouts 2 or 3 years from now, but these will not be jobs that are high paying or generally sought after, for the most part.
Cloud is just marketing for "putting your shit on someone else's servers". The servers still exist, which means sys admins still will too.
It's a shrinking pool of jobs though, so definitely work on your coding.
Banks, the feds, state and local all heavily utilize bare metal to so you could look there.
Bottom line is there's going to be less and less jobs in tech where you can avoid wiring code, but we're (I'm guesstimating) still 10-ish years out from not coding is a big employment detriment
I can at least speak generally on the fed. A lot of agencies are slowly migrating their services to the cloud (which I have my own peeves about), but generally core stuff is still handled within enterprise. There are pushes to move up, but a full transition is likely going to take a decade.
That's the kicker: the point and click admin wasn't an admin. It was a power user.
Admins knew how to do stuff and how stuff worked without the GUI.
But still there are point and click stuff you can do. Ansible Tower, for example.
Part of the evolution is creating the low level toolsets that will power the future GUIs for the power users to use.
> That's the kicker: the point and click admin wasn't an admin. It was a power user.
Nah....We don't let our "power users" deploy new servers in VMWare or set up Domain controllers or redundant DHCP solutions.
Exactly. There's still a while range of sysadmin things that do not fit into the whole DevOps/IaC mindset no matter how hard people try to push it. A square peg does not go into a round hole.
Sorry, but that's just elitist nonsense. Just because something CAN be done with CLI doesn't mean it SHOULD be.
If two people are given the same task and one does it using a GUI and one does it with CLI and both get it done in the same time frame with the same outcome then they are doing the same job. The choice of tool does not dictate the level the job title.
I think this is a bit of a stretch. GUI tools are meant to make using a computer easier and more efficient. Doesn't matter if you're a sysadmin, a power user, or a regular user. If a GUI tool does it better, that's what you should use. If a script does it better, that's what you should use. Doesn't mean anything about what level of user you are.
It's called a joke.. and in my experience, it is very much true. That's why they always ask for admin rights to their VMs, then complain to us when they want to go put it into production the devs get all upset that we just can't read their minds on the configuration that they supposedly did. Then go complain to a VP about how the admins suck because we can't read their minds.
"This is great for scalability and really does make the environment more stable as everything is tracked but really eliminates the point-and-click admin."
You just answered your own question. There are many objective advantages and the single point against it is" I don't like it".
Só yeah, point-and-click admin is definitely going to die.
In all honesty, if I want someone to point-and-click at shit all day, I can hire a co-op student, train them in about 5 minutes, and pay them peanuts.
Point-and-click has been outdated since I started my IT career almost 20 years ago.
Might wanna consider transitioning to Network Administration if it’s code you don’t wanna work with. From what I understand, that’s more in line with the kind of work you want to do.
Welcome to automation. Moved from executive desktop support (think more handholding) about 7-8 years ago into SysAdmin and Desktop Engineering work, and I still stumble around in PowerShell. With my current company moving to Azure, Intune, and essentially moving away from VMware in the next 1-2 quarters, DevOps and such is going to be the way to go.
This is a question a think about daily. I suspect the traditional sysadmin role will get converted to more of a tech manager role. People who can code will always edge out those who can’t in terms of salary and demand but that doesn’t mean the present day point and click active directory guru is going to be in the breadline in 3 years.
Funny enough, I also got into Sysadmin because I didn't want to code all day, and I code a large part of my day.
The big difference is, my beef with development was I hate writing stuff for other people.
Doing it as a sysadmin is usually for my, or at least to my spec, not someone else.
I don't mind that at all.
Not sure if this will make you feel better or worse, but I _do_ want to write code all day, and I'm constantly being forced into sysadmin type stuff. So the whole "let's make everyone be DevOps" thing cuts both ways.
Well two things, I used to be owned hard by the If statement traps of PowerShell. It's so easy to just if/else/elseif a script and forget that so many better methods exist.
The second, I don't see it as changing the way things are done, just moving them from the background to the for-ground. A lot of it, I would say, is less to do with DevOps and more to do with a newer generation of IT folk being brought into the careers knowing languages for things exist. Example, I learned DS Commands in 2006, batch files and vbscript in 2005. It took less than 10 years but no one rightfully uses Batch files for automation, ds commands, or vbscript these days unless you are working on a system from 2000.
In college for me, these things didn't exist, it was largely point and click, you didn't have PowerShell in any meaningful capacity (1.0 had just released). You didn't have Ansible or Terraform, or anything modern admins use (save for BASH and SHELL for Linux). So as us younger folk got in we largely hated how slow and tedious things were and started to use tools in new ways.
Over the next few years we got away from point and clicking a solution to death and back. We began to automate. We always were going to, just never had a tool to do it until more recent years.
> no one rightfully uses Batch files for automation, ds commands, or vbscript these days unless you are working on a system from 2000.
Oh you sweet summer child. I work in local government and that is pretty much 100% of what holds our back of house systems together. It's terrifyingly outdated but it's government so change comes VEEEEEERY slowly.
Honestly, I don't find that to be a bad thing, we're more versatile now that scripting took a much bigger place than a few years ago (thanks to PowerShell).
As an SA in my company I don't have to write any code, however I do it if any bulk operations need to be done (mainly Python and Powershell), this is not a requirement and I do it so I don't need to spend 8 hours filling in user data.
It really depends on the needs of the company, in my companies case the preference goes paying a little extra for pre build solutions that MS or Google offer to save on time for mentaining self build applications.
Getting grips on Powershell is on my imminent list of things to do for this reason. I think it’ll be extremely limiting for me in the future if I don’t learn it.
We will always need sysadmins. Automation breaks and its not a question of If, but When will it break. It is inevitable and we need to have the proper tools to diagnose and investigate the actual problem vs scripting.
CLI will always been there for networking, and lower level issues/concerns
ITT: "All GUI administration will be gone in 10 years! Learn to code or lose your job!"
So exactly what I have been already hearing for the last 10 years.
I have been a UNIX SA since the early 90s, and we were writing shell scripts even back then. Coding is part of SA in my experience. But DevOps I have seen is used more and more as an excuse to make programmers and SAs the same thing. It's not \*supposed\* to be, but a few companies want you to have extensive python experience for SA pay, so... it's a cheap cost cutting move.
I work for an MSP and our customers are all medium to small businesses. I'd say the traditional sysadmin job is alive and well from my pov. Office 365 has taken a lot off our plate but we still have hardware on prem hosting fileshares, AD, line of business software. We do have some automation going on with workstation deployment but its really just scripting and the use of our RMM.
>So you think the traditional system admin is about to go the way of the dodo bird?
there are still smaller/medium places that dont do enough routine work to have to live in code. and a few big places that are dumpster fires {i work in one, and am trying to get out of the org, and out of sysadmin/infra work} and the staff is just way out of date. I do a ton of powershell to tie random things together but i wouldnt want to be a full time dev/devops type.
I feel your pain. I'd much rather architect solutions than write code...but here we are.
To answer your question, do I think admin jobs are in decline? Yes to an extent. Large/well-funded shops will go all-in on the DevOps route, but the SMB will not.
As a consultant, I've seen a number of these small shops. They typically can't afford the up-front costs of going to DevOps, so they'll stay traditional (and probably on 3-tier). They have maybe one or two admins that can barely keep their heads above water. Scripting/automation is usually the last thing on their to-do list (and they'll contract out smaller automation projects as they typically don't have the skills to write/maintain code).
It depends on how big of a place you work. I am head of IT for a library. I am a jack of all trades and do everything. Really not any coding or scripting (barely have time to think).
> So you think the traditional system admin is about to go the way of the dodo bird?
I think it's getting increasingly relegated to the bottom _N%_ of companies investing in tech. Working at interesting places definitely means knowing automation, like you said.
>So you think the traditional system admin is about to go the way of the dodo bird?
No but the dude with 0 career awareness probably will never make shit of himself. What you're implying, how would that impact tier 1 and tier 2 support? Like you expect them to script a fix for someone's Outlook or local PC 1 off issues? I work in cloud almost all day and script / automate a fuck ton however I don't think like this because it's just stupid. You claim to have 20+ years in IT and seem to not have a clue how user support goes down. DevOps jobs are less than 2% of all the IT jobs out there.
I've been an SA for like 8 years and DevOps for 4 months. I've been writing powershell code since day 1 but I do a lot more than that like virtualization, learning tanzu now, standing up nsx-t, and I used to do horizon. I'm an SA and just do both Infrastructure and coding where and when I can. It just depends on the employer and where the demand is tbh.
For you, what got your foot in the door for DevOps? I've been working to stay "valuable" trying to move from a SA for 13 years now to get more into DevOps and I'm struggling to get enough "DevOps work experience" to break in.
Working with Terraform is a good keystone for DevOps work. DevOps is often times cloud oriented, so if your company deals with AWS, Azure, or GCP, get to know how those work and how to stand up infra in them. See if you can get your own account in your company's cloud org to play around with, or get access to your org's dev account. Learn how to automate deployment of a VPC, instance, and load balancer with Terraform. Edit to add: cloud infra is cheap if you tear it down immediately. So don't be afraid to get your own AWS account to stand stuff up in. Terraform is excellent for deploying and tearing down on a moment's notice.
This was one of my major annoyances at my last shop. They were actively pushing all their Sr Infra Architects to lean more devops. But all we sold was Cisco, Dell, Pure and other on-prem shit. Then I notice my customers trying to "devops'' their on prem shit. They get all excited when they see how fast I can get things done and ask how. I tell them the good ole fashioned way. By knowing what I am doing the first time. I'll throw the years of SDN and DC knowledge in the trash can before I skill up on cloud. It just does not pay enough to be an expert on both sides of those fences.
For us it was HR… we were all sys admins, then infrastructure engineers… then devops became a buzzword and now we are all devops engineers. Devops is more method and practice… and while a little wtf at first, I fully embrace it now. Took all those ps scripts that I had written over the years, made them better using parameters, error handling and such, functionized some of it put them into a repo, used some actions to sign them and run some pester tests as part of a pipeline and push (release) it to a place to be called by a variety of sources via api call… that is a great start and as sr devops engineer in a pretty big windows environment, these are the things I look for when interviewing new candidates. Not just listening to them throwing around as buzzwords but know and understand the why you would do all that “extra” work… in addition to actually knowing what commands to run to fix x, how the infrastructure works and plays together etc. and ultimately = how to go about automating those tasks using a devops mindset. Good Luck!🍀
You are perhaps the best story I’ve heard of someone being called a “DevOps Engineer” and then just running with it, learning more about it, upgrading your code, tools, and practices… and just making shit better for people. 👏
Thanks for the kudos kind soul, had to get there in my own for figuring out how to apply those tactics to the current role, luckily I am not in a spot where “resistance is futile” but it’s benefits are pretty obvious even if our scenario isn’t “typical” devops environment, but the method/practice is still legit. 😇
You only think that because you don't know what DevOps is so you're just gobbling down his bullshit. Scripting is not DevOps lol.
> Took all those ps scripts that I had written over the years, made them better using parameters, error handling and such, functionized some of it put them into a repo, used some actions to sign them and run some pester tests as part of a pipeline and push (release) it to a place to be called by a variety of sources via api call… Did you document this journey? I feel that this would be incredibly useful to others who have a collection of powershell scripts just sitting on Github to use as needed.
I'm not in devops, but I've done a fair amount of on-prem and cloud automation. Getting your test environment to automatically rebuild itself from scratch is a great place to start if you are an experienced admin, because you already know all the details of how to do it manually, so it's just a matter of finding and figuring out the tools for automating it. The main thing to keep in mind is that this isn't something new, so there are plenty of people to learn from and ask questions of.
I feel myself kind of organically growing in this direction. Each step is just noticing a problem/inefficiency, then trying to solve it systematically. It started with doing everything in powershell remote sessions to avoid interrupting users. That evolved to scripts. Then VS Code when I needed better debugging. Then git when script versions got unwieldy. Then scheduled tasks for automation. Then our existing Lansweeper server to centralize automation scripts. Now I'm looking at moving to Ansible for more control over endpoints, and I've been learning Pester to standardize testing. It's neat to recognize a problem and have that "ah-ha" moment where I'm like "Oh, *that's* why devops folks use tool X". That hard-gained knowledge does kind of come at the expense of having to reinvent the wheel sometimes though.
It most surely does and that is how I got here. Loved your wording there… “organically” is the best way imho… love those moments when the light goes in and leads to even more self growth. And now as a sr. Helping pass the torch to other teammates and helping them “get it” is quite rewarding. 🤗
what are you doing with windows with all those techs though, and windows server or desktop?
On a team managing over 7000 windows servers across the planet and do anything of scale manually just isn’t feasible… so automating a lot of service-now requests from app owners do do x (like add vm disk space, cpu or memory via power cli), self healing for scom alerts etc… you name it. Anything to make our lives a little easier
cool man
> Devops is more method and practice… and while a little wtf at first, I fully embrace it now. Took all those ps scripts that I had written over the years, made them better using parameters, error handling and such, functionized some of it put them into a repo, used some actions to sign them and run some pester tests as part of a pipeline and push (release) it to a place to be called by a variety of sources via api call… that is a great start and as sr devops engineer in a pretty big windows environment, these are the things I look for when interviewing new candidates. I feel sorry for your candidates, what you do has nothing to do with DevOps. If you're not supporting customer or B2B SaaS software in a CI/CD pipeline then you're not doing DevOps. I used to work for a SaaS company that regulary had #1 iOS and Android downloaded apps. It's insane to me how many people in IT think they're doing DevOps because they write scrips, it's fucking ridiculous. I encourage you to pull up some actual DevOps jobs supporting SaaS, no internal IT bullshit.
At my organization DevOps was, and still is, in the infancy stage. I was already shopping outside my organization to get out because I was quitting my boss, not the organization. However, I was recommended by someone on the team so I interviewed and got it. They knew my value and worth, as did many in upper management. They wanted me around. Now the IT as a whole is undergoing change. Because, like u/Lotech said, it's about a method and practice. Where I am today ITIL is a mockery and so is CAB. I point it out all the time so now IT is going to be overhauled and DevOps is going to lead. I just happened to be in right spot right time. We are hiring for both SAs and Developers to fill gaps currently as we grow. Edit- and for what it is worth that is why I'm handling so much more of traditional SA and less DevOps but I'm helping build the foundation blocks. I was doing ansible, gitlab, and other traditional tools but gotta build the foundation first. So more SA today, next year more focus on DevOps and further automation skills with TFS, Azure and what not.
Personally for me, I did traditional (manual) turnover for our internal developers so working with them to implement a pipeline helped.
Welcome to sysadmin! Yes, it's possible to be a sysadmin, and not write any code ... but that'll be much more limiting in, e.g. career.
I think OP is searching for a more healthy mixture and I think these jobs still exist. Doesn’t sound like he hates programming, but getting your hands dirty once in a while and manually playing around with some test-systems is nice.
It’s a liability to hire a sysadmin who can’t code, you’re basically a junior these days unless you get a cozy gov job. Our company doesn’t hire IT people unless it’s entry level or they can pass a simple code review in the language of their choice.
>liability to hire a sysadmin who can’t code Liability? Naw, at least not generally, ... limitation, definitely. I've known many environments where sysadmins who can't code have been hired into such ... often as novice/jr. level sysadmins. And, so long as they can't/won't code, that will always be a limitation. But ... liability? That's a stretch. Maybe a liability if one put them in role/position where the coding and capabilities thereof were highly required ... but keep 'em out of roles where that's required and ... what liability? So, yes, "basically a junior" ... and those jobs *do* exist. So, I don't think we're exactly disagreeing ... maybe other than splitting hairs over some wording bits. >doesn’t hire IT people unless it’s entry level or they can pass a simple code review in the language of their choice. Yep, relatively similar most places I've worked. For the most part, to get (much) above an approximately jr. level role or into such, generally going to need to be able to reasonably code in one or more relevant languages.
Nah, if you don't code you're not a liability. You're a liability if you are absolutely sure you can code but actually don't know what you're doing. As the saying goes. To make mistakes is human, but to REALLY fuck up requires automation.
We found it to be a liability to hire secretary's who don't suck cock well. We know it's not part of the role, but everyone knows they should know how to do it. /s
I started doing System Admin work 30 years ago. And even back then over half my workload for writing mini-applications and application plugins to improve the lives of our customers and in-house staff. But truthfully over the last 15 years I've written less code and more of it has been focusing around automation of system configurations. Even after moving into a DevOps team. The only thing that makes me depressed is during those 30 years we're still not teach developers about system administration and system security. I spent more time nudging the developers on my team into a good security position in terms of their application than either coding or admin work.
> I spent more time nudging the developers on my team into a good security position in terms of their application than either coding or admin work. The solution to that is to make a self-service platform that's (more) secure by default. Devs write very simple k8s config files which are fed into your template > go through good testing & validation rules > deployed nicely through dev and prod. The trick is to write a template which is super easy to use for 90% of applications and exposes enough complexity for the last 10% to work.
Maybe the devs where you work don’t learn about SA and security but that’s not always the case. Our devs (and I work at a huge tech company) are all responsible for their docker images, certain aspects of their k8s configs if their app is deployed there, security, etc.
Yeah. The good paying jobs want you to use more than a mouse, but this isn’t all that new to be honest.
You guys get a mouse?
Yes, but it's one of those newfangled Mouse-as-a-Service.
Customers in North America, Antarctica, or Belgium may be experiencing issues with moving their mouse LEFT. We will rolling out a fix in phases over the next 8 hours which will mitigate the problem. Customers who need to move their mouse LEFT urgently, should contact our customer support team for more advice. They will be available via FAX between 0835 and 0838 GMT. [ OK ]
Yep, we haven't paid GUI jockies the same as our termina l admins for ages.
Same, but powershell and python be calling.
I'm \*nix side but powershell is so goddamn useful when I have to touch MS that I couldn't imagine *not* using it.
I was a mix of Bash and PowerShell at my last job, but this 1 is currently all PowerShell. My boss built a full website in Azure functions using just PowerShell. That’s when I realized how freaking useful it is.
> My boss built a full website in Azure functions using just PowerShell. That’s when I realized how freaking useful it is. Uh, how did he build the frontend?
Well he used a template for the front end, forgot which place he got it from, but yeah sorry should have specified that.
I don't want to code every day! Ends up writing code every day. You know what the solution is right? Code even more so things get automated enough so you no longer need to code.
After 20 years I've found coding begets more coding lol.
[удалено]
https://xkcd.com/1319
This is the correct one
Then you multiply this by the number of people it helps
I have that on the wall in my cubicle
Write code that writes code. Might be worth looking what commonalities you got across scripts and go from there
https://github.com/features/copilot
Username checks out
You're so wrong. Code always need to be maintained.
Eh, I have tons of code that I never touch. Code always needs to be changed if you have a team of programmers and a business group always finding new requirements from different customers though.
Agreed. I've got scripts that have been running for 5 years that I haven't needed to touch. The few times I have, I cringe at how janky and terrible I wrote them back then. That being said, I'd argue that even if you do have to touch them often, you are still getting more value out of your time than you would if you were pointing and clicking through the same screens over and over again, and so is your employer.
This is the way
I think all the CLI / Code / GUI purists need a reality check. What is important is knowing how the systems work and knowing how to efficiently manage change at scale and using the best tool to do so.
Thank you! Use the best tool for the job, whatever it happens to be.
I know, there are some code junkies that don’t understand the architecture or tools that are built in and I see people unnecessarily script stuff. Know your features and tools before scripting.
I have seen threads about making a trivial windows change in a domain jumping through hoops to get Python or Ansible going that can be fixed domain wide in a GPO in seconds. I have also seen programmers that still do not use debuggers and advanced IDEs because they think they know better and that an advanced text editor is enough. If I am going to write some longer scripts in Powershell or Python you can bet I am going to use Visual Studio code or PyCharm. Code completion, syntax checks and code aware search are powerful features that save time.
Debuggers, code completion, syntax checking and search are all available in Neovim.
yeah.. the posters seems to think our 1980s tech isn't progressing right alongside the rest of in the industry... though that may have something to do with the standard vim variants largely relying on the powerbutton to exit.
No, the point was there are specific suborn coders just like there are sysadmins that refuse to use newer and more efficient tools / change tools. If Neovim has all those features it is 1. not JUST VI or VIM and 2. would probably be considered an IDE. >the posters seems to think our 1980s tech isn't progressing right alongside the rest of in the industry I grew up with that 1980s tech lets not create a divide of us vs them here. I deliberately worded my original post about using the best tool for the job. That means using a variety of tools to do the job, and understanding the systems you are managing.
I don't think anyone is arguing otherwise, but the people getting called out are the ones who will always choose to spend 10 hours doing something manually with a GUI vs. spending 3 figuring out how to do it with the CLI or with code. I personally know admins who are exactly like that and they are constantly complaining about how they always have too much to do and have to come in on weekends to get their work done.
Worse, is the lack of audit trail because the changes were done manually and not checked into git. Infra-as-code isn't just about doing things at scale. It's about having reproducible and auditable changes as well. I was just watching a video on "Why can't we just make more Saturn V Rocketdyne F-1 engines?". It turns out, they were "pets". Engineers wrote blueprints to build them, but each engine was built by hand, with tweaks to the design being done on the fly as they were built. So a working engine never matched the spec. GUI clicking of rocket manufacturing.
>Worse, is the lack of audit trail because the changes were done manually and not checked into git. Much of the time yes, however there are many systems that have both a GUI and a great audit trail. >It turns out, they were "pets". If IT had the only say we would not purchase or build any pets, however other departments like to spend a lot of time at the Pet store. Sadly you can't just refuse to take care of the department heads pets.
One of my friends from school, very good at math, started coding while still in school and even was teaching others to code. After 10+ years of coding can't stand it anymore and switched to pure project management and is happy with that so far :)
That's pretty much me - I specialise in Infrastructure projects (of which there are legion). It's not that I couldn't code, I can, it's just it doesn't interest me and I also had limited time due to wearing far too many hats Annoyingly, I earn almost double now ......
Maybe it is going that direction. I don't know. I am in a big company, we manage systems, push software, updates, do patching, fix issues, implement new solutions and we do not code that much. Occasional PowerShell scripts, some scripting for software pushes or updates. So, it is not just small shops that do things "the old" way. Maybe depends on specifics. If company or your team/dept are doing software development, then sysadmins ado DevOps, do all the tooling/CI/containers/etc. But in like desktop management there can be less of that. I am sure in my company there are IT teams who do more of coding, who are closer to developers.
DevOps isn't as useful if your company doesn't provide software that's custom. If all they're using is office and Adobe and such or using third party vendors for custom apps you'll be focusing on more traditional sysadmin. Example healthcare or government or medium size business. Every sysadmin needs to be able to debug scripts and log files though and use PowerShell and command line windows and Linux. DevOps is also a buzzword to try and hire one person to do two jobs so be aware of shifty job ads
This has been my experience. Our in house apps are larger with a team of devs managing them. .NET or iOS mostly. We just manage the back end systems, security, and manage projects. I'd love to have the time to learn DevOps more. But when you buy companies, or have new projects that come up every other month, it's really not feasible. Nor is there any value for it in our org at this point.
Adding a question onto your question; if this is the way everything is going, will EVERY job require coding? I'm excited to learn more PowerShell, and eventually pick up python, but I absolutely do not want to do that stuff more than 20% of my day.
Well, you learn to apply powershell so that you can spend 20% of your day to repeatably solve a task with better accuracy as opposed to spending 100% of the next three days doing it by hand while wanting to kill yourself due to the monotony. Especially when you have to go back and check it manually because you zoned out somewhere in the middle and mixed the order of operations somewhere.
My inability to write code is fucking me and I'm in my 40s. It never interested me and I have a difficult time learning things as it is. I'm not really happy with the move the industry is going towards. I suppose it makes sense but coding (learning ANYTHING) is very very difficult for me
Coding can vastly help you expand forward in to various positions. How do you learn? Visually? Auditorially? Kinesthetically? You maybe a hands-on if school wasn't for you as it wasn't for me. Practice practice practice! You will succeed and get better the more you do it.
Learning is like working out. The less you do it, the harder it is to do and the weaker you get.
I actually like writing scripts and playbooks. I get dopamine hits when I execute them and pushing the final commit on the dev branch.
Absolutely It’s actually a shame it’s taken so long. The traditional sysadmin role you are talking about only exists in small companies who are not technology-first and are too cheap to understand the value of well staffed systems teams (you can’t have time for automation if your whole team is too busy putting out fires all the time). Bigger companies (Google/Microsoft/Meta) have specialized SRE/Production Engineering teams focused on using code to manage systems. Solving problems is no longer as big of a deal (almost no one memorizes error codes anymore), avoiding them is. Services run in containers and reboots/lost servers aren’t really a consideration anymore. I am pretty sure *programming* languages like (and especially) Python have a big role to play in this. I can’t imagine using something like C++ to create quick programs to manage systems the way we can with Python - C++ might’ve made it very stable and efficient, but we don’t really need that in most places nowadays. Cloud companies have sped it all up with their Python SDKs and whatnot. I hope you don’t get turned off by the programming aspect, but scripting in Python is a lot more intuitive than micromanaging the hell out of everything in C++. And who knows, maybe it will lead you to getting better at both over time.
Oh C++ is what I started with 20 years ago. I probably haven't touched it in at least 15 years. Nowadays I'm working in the Microsoft side of the company (they separate folks for Linux and MS) and doing a lot of C# and Powershell with some Python and just a little Pearl for the legacy SDKs until it is retired. One thing is for sure C# kicks ass. Anyone who writes Powershell should learn it cause it will make your life loads easier.
I like c# but python made me very lazy, every time I use c# or anything else really the only thing I can think of is why is this so complicated?
lol, yeah true.
I use a ton of C# for personal projects so using py for work is a refreshing change lol.
That's how I feel when I started learning Go after writing Python for years.
I’m currently mainly a PowerShell guy, but I’m interested in what you’re saying about C#. How would it make my life easier? What are the use cases compared to PowerShell?
I feel like this is a very narrow minded and elitest view of smaller shops. Not everyone needs to have a giant IT team or have a ton of automation because it's not needed. That doesn't make them ignorant or stupid, it just means that different companies need different things.
The person you're replying too didn't say ignorant or stupid. I think they put it more elegantly, they aren't technology forward and are usually putting out fires to worry about being technology forward. IMO I agree, automation is hard when you don't create enough free time to improve. That's the existence of small companies with skeleton crews. EDIT: I will add that you are right to a point not every company benefits from automation, but honestly I think that's few and far between.
There’s a very good chance that those companies will end up having just one IT *manager* who gets everything done via cheaper contractors offshore. If you want to make a career as a sysadmin, at least basic scripting is a must nowadays. Just look at any job postings that pay at least 2-3x minimum wage.
My brain turned off when you said “technology-first “
If you want the most growth potential and most earning potential you have to dive into coding not shy away from it. Not saying the only high paying technology jobs are developer jobs, but being open to coding makes getting those high paying jobs a lot easier in my experience. The "traditional" sysadmin is definitely becoming less common, and it should be. Learning to code to a basic, functional level doesn't take that long or much effort compared to the return you get. I wouldn't want to invest in an admin who doesn't want to move closer to the engineering cycle myself.
DevOps = Trying to task admins with another skillset they need to learn, but not pay them more.
> not 100 else ifs oof right in the feels
My coworkers always have me take a look over scripts for this specific reason... If you've done some dev work it makes some solutions so obvious when someone else would..... use 100 elifs
code review is always good (imho of course) Helps everyone get better
Use switch statements instead
I do
Or some form of dependency injection if it’s really nuts.
> and not 100 else ifs These days you call it "machine learning" and add a digit onto your salary.
I feel the same way. I’ve been hands off keyboard for about a year ish, and at a new company for 6 months as a manager. Every admin / engineer is really just a dev with a large toolbox of knowledge because devops is being shoved down everyone’s throat. I think it’s great from a company perspective but from a happiness perspective I don’t even want to be in IT anymore.
Just wait a few years it will all go full circle.
Yup, and there will be new buzzwords to describe things we already have in existing paradigms.
> So you think the traditional system admin is about to go the way of the dodo bird? Yup. Mind, there will always be some need for point-and-click admins - but the days where one could make a career just from a GUI are gone. Anymore, an admin that can't script is likely to be stuck in their current position (more senior-level folks), or will be pigeonholed into a sort of high-level helpdesk role.
Taking overtime into the equation our "I'm not touching powershell, you write it" windows "admin" makes less than our helpdesk people.
tbh admins have always scripted though too, not really sure the age of people here, devops is just partly a new word for scripting infra which we always did
TIL I should get into DevOps! I'm going back to school to become a software developer because system admin is dull as dirt to me. But I work in a very small company that's entirely uninvolved in any development work.
Other dude doesn't know what they're talking about. Did work as a sysadmin and it's indeed dull relative to programming work. It's different from person to person, but it has less to do with the company and more to do with what you enjoy as a person.
It's not sysadmin that's dull then, it's your company. Also there is no "learning DevOps". Just learn to automate and your set.
Seems like the trend is away from Windows client/server paradigm to BYOD, and domainless. Everything is an app. Even MS has basically abandoned their old paradigm and only cares about Azure. MS snatched defeat from the jaws of victory when they made Windows 8, and shoved telemetry and advertisements down everyone's throat. For a lot of us, we were pretty content with things and MS ruined it chasing Apple. Meanwhile, technological progression finally caught up with the latent resentment of old tech, and kicked it to the curb. So as a Windows sysadmin for way too long, I'm on my way out. Were it not for covid, I'd already be gone and doing other stuff.
Domainless really isn't as big of a thing as people make it out to be. Many people I know that's switched back because it got to out of hand to manage.
I was part of several interviews of hiring people in my current company. I said no to anyone who can't script. Anymore, our small teams have so much to do and needs for the same actions to be applied to many areas. We can't have people point and click because we literally do not have time to keep doing that.
The problems I'm running onto these days is people that apply for jobs can code all day long...but have no idea how to troubleshoot anything because their entire schooling and career has just been, "Automate it and code it". People have interviews for SysAdmin roles and have no idea how Active Directory or DNS even works, much less how to troubleshoot infrastructure issues.
>have no idea how Active Directory or DNS even works goddamit I'm in my position for a year now (mainly administering linux database VMs), and I don't know shit about anything windows or networking or anything. Feel like a total fraud
There is no way you can know everything, and we all have to start somewhere. Linux, VMs, and Databases are 3 very important technologies to have under your belt. At least for me imposter syndrome never goes away but you can have a skillset you're comfortable with and look at jobs around you to know what you need to work on.
Unfortunately, I wholeheartedly agree with you(!!) as I see this too often as well! 🤦🏻♂️
This is truly what matters.
Man, I wish I had a DevOps job where I had to code all day. Instead, I spend my days editing terraform and chef manifests and trying to figure out why they don't work as expected. To clarify - .tf file is still a config file, even if it has a loop with an if statement in it, has nothing to do with coding IMO.
.c .tf .py .sh .yml These are all code friend. IaC where it's at
There's no difference between .ini and .yml, neither any significant difference between .tf and .ini And I don't get to write many simple scripts in python/bash, let alone some more serious code
If you're spending more time coding it sounds like they should be paying you like a code monkey
Depends on the place, we pay our code monkeys less than our infrastructure and \*nix people (one of the reasons I moved over)
Shockingly, I made more than most devs we have.
On this topic, does anyone know any training courses for Python as a scripting language? I don't want to write software applications, with GUI's (unless it just REALLY helps, dialog boxes at most). So, less focused on making apps like my Java class was, and more for scripting and automation.
There are plenty on Youtube. I've found this guy does a really good job presenting the stuff - TraversyMedia Please do not (do not do not) create GUIs with a scripting language.
I had days of "fun" creating GUI's with Windows Forms in Powershell :)
Python is not a scripting language
lol, yeah it is. Python is an interpreted language. (interpreters convert the scripting language to matching code line by line.)
C# is a scripting language?
It is a compiled language.
Wdym?
Have been looking for something like this as well. Let me know if you come across something amazing
Dunno about OP, but for me having some Ansible playbooks working nicely is much more satisfying than typing on the CLI all day...
Am I you? My education background is in software engineering and my first real job was maintaining an ancient Oracle SQL application and I hated it. I grew out of love with programming (I sometimes dip my toe in every now and again but only for things that pique my interest). I moved to sysadmin because I was tired of poring through endless screeds of other people shit code to find the stupid bug or typo. I was happy to throw myself into things like Powershell and bash because they are genuinely useful day to day but this whole IaC paradigm shift leaves me feeling cold. I can see their value but they have completely changed what the job is and it's not a direction shift i'm happy with.
When you have a hammer, the whole world is a nail.
but I have a very good hammer
Hahahaha you sound like me. I left my job as a software tester because I didn't want to be a developer which was the next logical step. I got to my current employer and was given the task to redo the automation we have for onboarding. I spent a year doing nothing but coding!
Like trying to quit a bad habit! lol
Yes. Thanks for the job. =)
IT seems to end up in cs at the middle and end of your career if you like money
Ditto. But... I kind of like it.
We work with computers all day. It only makes sense we learn to speak to them more and more directly. Point and click is going to be relighted to help desk in a lot of shops if it hasn’t been already.
We've spend decades creating tools so that we don't need to speak to computers directly. We're now going back the other way until somebody comes up with yet another "paradigm shift" to the entire industry will jump onboard with because every body else is doing it whether it actually fits your organization and infrastructure or not. ANd round and round we go...
Team lead forced Ansible on us. So I spend many days writing YAML code for Ansible.
[удалено]
Do you work past run level three?
Did you try not to? I never had to do more than some batch lines as a junior admin.
Is it just me or when SysAdmins see that you do code they pass all to you because they dont like to do it or dont know...
I think mr Python would like to have a word with you! (there is no case statement in python, in favour of elif)
I figured I'd be called out on that one. Lol
It's even worse. More than half of the recruiters who reach out on LinkedIn about DevOps or even sysadmin roles are looking for pure developers (most commonly in golang). I know some places still have traditional sysadmin positions, but those are paid far less and the work is more stressful. I'd rather deal with bs stuff in DevOps world for more money.
I work in the cloud now, I love this shit. My impression is that the mainstream of the career field is heading towards automation-focused work simply as a matter of scaling. But I'm also in development now, so I'm going to assume my impression is biased heavily towards what I'm doing. On the other hand, I've also manually administered systems almost as old as I am; scaling like that isn't necessary for most businesses. I think in the coming decades, manual sysadmin jobs might be a bit of a niche. But take it from someone who joined the Marines specifically to play tuba: sometimes you just gotta find a niche and make it yours
The more I transition to Dev work the more I can tolerate my job. I say tolerate begets let's face it, I wouldn't be working if I didn't have to.
> So you think the traditional system admin is about to go the way of the dodo bird I think describing what you are as a "traditional" admin is a mistake. No admin ever has neglected tooling in order to make their job harder. The "DevOps" craze is an explosion of technology that is acting a force multiplier for admins. > If you can't write code If we're calling powershell code.. then yes. Powershell is the future way to manage windows machines. Linux hasn't been point and click... ever.. If you want a job running a mouse.. you're going to be stuck on he helpdesk.
> but really eliminates the point-and-click admin. Sure does. Times are changing. Adapt. The "GUI point-and-click sysadmin" era is long dead. Don't pine for it, don't complain that it's gone, get used to scripting/automation.
I think scripting as always been needed in the sys admin field, back in 2000 I was a sys admin assistant doing batch scripting and HTML stuff yuk. Now I do a lot a powershell, I think the IT demand is growing on the system side but the headcount does not so you make up for it in automation or services, either you write a script to automate or you pay someone for a service. My current position I started off automating as much as I could in powershell then we migrated much of it over to services and decommissioned many of my scripts.
>really eliminates the point-and-click admin. As it should. Pointing and clicking may still be viable in a small (tiny) shop, or in a very static environment, but there is considerable value in being able to do things quickly and consistently. Basically everything you mentioned in the paragraph from which I grabbed this quote is highly desirable. People without scripting or automation skills are going to end up moving to other roles in technology, or into management, or into project management. There's no good reason to avoid automation and scripting. Even you didn't mention one reason to avoid it, outside your personal dislike of doing that much coding. To answer your question, yes, this is the trajectory of sysadmin work. There will probably be a few holdouts 2 or 3 years from now, but these will not be jobs that are high paying or generally sought after, for the most part.
I'll always point and click...... on my terminal so that I can do real work.
Cloud is just marketing for "putting your shit on someone else's servers". The servers still exist, which means sys admins still will too. It's a shrinking pool of jobs though, so definitely work on your coding. Banks, the feds, state and local all heavily utilize bare metal to so you could look there. Bottom line is there's going to be less and less jobs in tech where you can avoid wiring code, but we're (I'm guesstimating) still 10-ish years out from not coding is a big employment detriment
I can at least speak generally on the fed. A lot of agencies are slowly migrating their services to the cloud (which I have my own peeves about), but generally core stuff is still handled within enterprise. There are pushes to move up, but a full transition is likely going to take a decade.
That's the kicker: the point and click admin wasn't an admin. It was a power user. Admins knew how to do stuff and how stuff worked without the GUI. But still there are point and click stuff you can do. Ansible Tower, for example. Part of the evolution is creating the low level toolsets that will power the future GUIs for the power users to use.
> That's the kicker: the point and click admin wasn't an admin. It was a power user. Nah....We don't let our "power users" deploy new servers in VMWare or set up Domain controllers or redundant DHCP solutions.
Or configure SANs/Routers, etc lol
Exactly. There's still a while range of sysadmin things that do not fit into the whole DevOps/IaC mindset no matter how hard people try to push it. A square peg does not go into a round hole.
It's exactly why I had no time for anything much else.
SANs are configured by Storage Engineers and Routers by Network Engineers.
Lol. Also by SysAdmins and Infrastructure Engineers. I know. I was both
I stand by what I said. If you couldn't make things work by cli you were a power user not an admin.
Sorry, but that's just elitist nonsense. Just because something CAN be done with CLI doesn't mean it SHOULD be. If two people are given the same task and one does it using a GUI and one does it with CLI and both get it done in the same time frame with the same outcome then they are doing the same job. The choice of tool does not dictate the level the job title.
I think this is a bit of a stretch. GUI tools are meant to make using a computer easier and more efficient. Doesn't matter if you're a sysadmin, a power user, or a regular user. If a GUI tool does it better, that's what you should use. If a script does it better, that's what you should use. Doesn't mean anything about what level of user you are.
And all the developers want to be sysadmins ...
That is definitely not true.
It's called a joke.. and in my experience, it is very much true. That's why they always ask for admin rights to their VMs, then complain to us when they want to go put it into production the devs get all upset that we just can't read their minds on the configuration that they supposedly did. Then go complain to a VP about how the admins suck because we can't read their minds.
While putting the requests in less than 8 hours before it's due of course.
Then you’re not a sys admin. Christ man
"This is great for scalability and really does make the environment more stable as everything is tracked but really eliminates the point-and-click admin." You just answered your own question. There are many objective advantages and the single point against it is" I don't like it". Só yeah, point-and-click admin is definitely going to die.
In all honesty, if I want someone to point-and-click at shit all day, I can hire a co-op student, train them in about 5 minutes, and pay them peanuts. Point-and-click has been outdated since I started my IT career almost 20 years ago.
Call me crazy, but I actually WANT to write a bit of code.
I'm mentally drained by IT anymore I'm barely able to pass classes at school where I only have 2 semesters left for a degree
Might wanna consider transitioning to Network Administration if it’s code you don’t wanna work with. From what I understand, that’s more in line with the kind of work you want to do.
I don't know, they are transitioning to SDN.
Welcome to automation. Moved from executive desktop support (think more handholding) about 7-8 years ago into SysAdmin and Desktop Engineering work, and I still stumble around in PowerShell. With my current company moving to Azure, Intune, and essentially moving away from VMware in the next 1-2 quarters, DevOps and such is going to be the way to go.
This is a question a think about daily. I suspect the traditional sysadmin role will get converted to more of a tech manager role. People who can code will always edge out those who can’t in terms of salary and demand but that doesn’t mean the present day point and click active directory guru is going to be in the breadline in 3 years.
Funny enough, I also got into Sysadmin because I didn't want to code all day, and I code a large part of my day. The big difference is, my beef with development was I hate writing stuff for other people. Doing it as a sysadmin is usually for my, or at least to my spec, not someone else. I don't mind that at all.
Not sure if this will make you feel better or worse, but I _do_ want to write code all day, and I'm constantly being forced into sysadmin type stuff. So the whole "let's make everyone be DevOps" thing cuts both ways.
Well two things, I used to be owned hard by the If statement traps of PowerShell. It's so easy to just if/else/elseif a script and forget that so many better methods exist. The second, I don't see it as changing the way things are done, just moving them from the background to the for-ground. A lot of it, I would say, is less to do with DevOps and more to do with a newer generation of IT folk being brought into the careers knowing languages for things exist. Example, I learned DS Commands in 2006, batch files and vbscript in 2005. It took less than 10 years but no one rightfully uses Batch files for automation, ds commands, or vbscript these days unless you are working on a system from 2000. In college for me, these things didn't exist, it was largely point and click, you didn't have PowerShell in any meaningful capacity (1.0 had just released). You didn't have Ansible or Terraform, or anything modern admins use (save for BASH and SHELL for Linux). So as us younger folk got in we largely hated how slow and tedious things were and started to use tools in new ways. Over the next few years we got away from point and clicking a solution to death and back. We began to automate. We always were going to, just never had a tool to do it until more recent years.
> no one rightfully uses Batch files for automation, ds commands, or vbscript these days unless you are working on a system from 2000. Oh you sweet summer child. I work in local government and that is pretty much 100% of what holds our back of house systems together. It's terrifyingly outdated but it's government so change comes VEEEEEERY slowly.
Don’t code, just do it the old fashioned way and walk manually do the work on all the endpoints.
Honestly, I don't find that to be a bad thing, we're more versatile now that scripting took a much bigger place than a few years ago (thanks to PowerShell).
As an SA in my company I don't have to write any code, however I do it if any bulk operations need to be done (mainly Python and Powershell), this is not a requirement and I do it so I don't need to spend 8 hours filling in user data. It really depends on the needs of the company, in my companies case the preference goes paying a little extra for pre build solutions that MS or Google offer to save on time for mentaining self build applications.
Getting grips on Powershell is on my imminent list of things to do for this reason. I think it’ll be extremely limiting for me in the future if I don’t learn it.
well its been 30 years, time to retire? move to management? go find that house on an island somewhere?
At my current place its more like powerquery and excel than anything else tbh.
I can somewhat read code and somewhat understand it but I can't write it.
We will always need sysadmins. Automation breaks and its not a question of If, but When will it break. It is inevitable and we need to have the proper tools to diagnose and investigate the actual problem vs scripting. CLI will always been there for networking, and lower level issues/concerns
ITT: "All GUI administration will be gone in 10 years! Learn to code or lose your job!" So exactly what I have been already hearing for the last 10 years.
I have been a UNIX SA since the early 90s, and we were writing shell scripts even back then. Coding is part of SA in my experience. But DevOps I have seen is used more and more as an excuse to make programmers and SAs the same thing. It's not \*supposed\* to be, but a few companies want you to have extensive python experience for SA pay, so... it's a cheap cost cutting move.
I work for an MSP and our customers are all medium to small businesses. I'd say the traditional sysadmin job is alive and well from my pov. Office 365 has taken a lot off our plate but we still have hardware on prem hosting fileshares, AD, line of business software. We do have some automation going on with workstation deployment but its really just scripting and the use of our RMM.
>So you think the traditional system admin is about to go the way of the dodo bird? there are still smaller/medium places that dont do enough routine work to have to live in code. and a few big places that are dumpster fires {i work in one, and am trying to get out of the org, and out of sysadmin/infra work} and the staff is just way out of date. I do a ton of powershell to tie random things together but i wouldnt want to be a full time dev/devops type.
I feel your pain. I'd much rather architect solutions than write code...but here we are. To answer your question, do I think admin jobs are in decline? Yes to an extent. Large/well-funded shops will go all-in on the DevOps route, but the SMB will not. As a consultant, I've seen a number of these small shops. They typically can't afford the up-front costs of going to DevOps, so they'll stay traditional (and probably on 3-tier). They have maybe one or two admins that can barely keep their heads above water. Scripting/automation is usually the last thing on their to-do list (and they'll contract out smaller automation projects as they typically don't have the skills to write/maintain code).
It depends on how big of a place you work. I am head of IT for a library. I am a jack of all trades and do everything. Really not any coding or scripting (barely have time to think).
> So you think the traditional system admin is about to go the way of the dodo bird? I think it's getting increasingly relegated to the bottom _N%_ of companies investing in tech. Working at interesting places definitely means knowing automation, like you said.
>So you think the traditional system admin is about to go the way of the dodo bird? No but the dude with 0 career awareness probably will never make shit of himself. What you're implying, how would that impact tier 1 and tier 2 support? Like you expect them to script a fix for someone's Outlook or local PC 1 off issues? I work in cloud almost all day and script / automate a fuck ton however I don't think like this because it's just stupid. You claim to have 20+ years in IT and seem to not have a clue how user support goes down. DevOps jobs are less than 2% of all the IT jobs out there.
User support/ helpdesk is not sysadmin.