The System Administrator and the Power User

Simple Network Management

The focus of this series on technology management is not solely to educate aspiring technology professionals, but to create a better understanding of technology issues from various points of view.

I've heard the complaints over the years, and I've read many articles complaining about company IT departments that lock down workstations so users can't install software. The articles are usually written by disgruntled users wondering why they have the latest and greatest applications at home, but work for companies that force employees to use clunky programs at work.

Hopefully the information and opinions presented helps business professionals to better understand technology management in a business network, as well as give the average network user an appreciation of the reasons behind the decisions made in managing the business network.

The Role of the Systems Administrator

On a small to mid size network there may be little, if any, distinction between a Systems Administrator and a Network Administrator, and the tasks may all be the responsibility of a single post. As the size of the network grows, the distinction between the areas will become more well defined.

In larger organizations the administrator level technology personnel typically are not the first line of support that works with end users, but rather only work on break and fix issues that could not be resolved at the lower levels.

Network administrators are responsible for making sure computer hardware and the network infrastructure itself is maintained properly. The typical Systems Administrator, or sysadmin, leans towards the software and NOS (Network Operating System) side of things.  Systems Administrators install software releases, upgrades, and patches, resolve software related problems and performs system backups and recovery.

The Power User

A power user is typically someone who has above average experience with computers and utilizes many advanced features of applications. They may also have experience with multiple computer platforms as well such as Linux or Mac.  Individuals who are tech savvy often become frustrated when forced to use computers or applications at work that are slower and older than the computers they use at home.

Don't confuse the term power user here with the "Power Users" group on older versions of Microsoft Windows, which attempted to define a system that gives more permissions than a normal restricted user, but stops short of Administrator permissions.  The windows power user group has been dropped in more recent versions of Windows. I guess even Microsoft realized that trying to put a definition on power user was a difficult proposition.

Can You See the Forest for the Trees?

The power user sees the tree. They focus on how much can they do with a single computer. Power users will often compare the speed of using their Mac or Linux based computer at home, and wonder why they can't use their personal computers at work.

The system administration sees the forest. They focus on how well the computers work together as a system. An application that works well at home on your personal computer has to work well as part of a team of computers, communicating, sharing files between a large number of users.

The Answer to Simple Network Management is Not the Most Popular

System administrators are often under management pressure to contain costs. While many users wonder what is the harm in installing free software, cutting costs does not always mean replacing expensive software with open source software or freeware.  Compatibility problems constantly pop up,  and problems with having untrained users sharing files between types of software can create time consuming training issues.

System administrators are often limited in terms of time and resources. Sysadmins need to understand the behavior of software and tasks performed by the software in order to deploy it and to troubleshoot problems.  Often a business uses a core piece of software that dictates or limits what operating system can be used, and at times prevents upgrades to more modern operating systems.

As a systems engineer I worked with various software tools to automate routine tasks to increase the efficiency of the sysadmin.  These automated processes included automatic installations and updates to software.  The more types of software, and more versions of software you have, the more time consuming managing the network becomes. 

The answer to simple network management is to identify what tasks are required to be done, and if at all possible, have one application, and one version of that application, approved for each task. It is unfortunate that there is often tension between workers and IT departments, and the systems administrator is demonized for unpopular choices in workplace technology beyond their control.