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10 Ultimate Rules for Effective System Administration

Submitted by spp on Tue, 2008-08-05 14:04.Operating System | Process

I saw on one of the news sites (Slashdot or OSNews, forget which exactly) a story about the following 10 Essential Rules for System Administrators. These are mostly pretty basic and many of them are not really SA specific. I'm not certain that "backup regularly" and "test your backups regularly" are deserving of being two separate rules; I consider that testing backups is part of the overall backup process.

One thing I thought was kind of interesting was the timing of this coming out with the number one rule being "Keep it Simple" and my first Black Belt System Administration topic "A punch is just a punch", which is not specifically about system design but about sticking with the basics. I've actually got a different entry planned for keeping it simple, but they are still similar topics.

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regular backups and having fun
Submitted by MrAdventure on Wed, 2008-08-06 13:12.

I definitely think we should keep Rule 2 (backups) and 3 (verify your backups) separate. I've been seriously burned by the lack of good backups. OK, it wasn't me personally, but it was the company I worked for that managed client websites. It happened when a one-in-a-million chance failure mode of a storage array occurred, where the whole unit failed and all the arrays were lost. The best backups attainable were several months old, and the client whose data was lost did not keep backup copies of their own. It took a week of several admins' time to scan the available backups and find the ones that were good and could be used.

SO, I think it's important enough to warrant having its own line item.

Aside from that, I don't know about any of you, but I'm going back to a "computer free" weeknight, where, for one night during the work week, I don't turn on the computer once I've gotten home. If you're not on call, this is a good way to free your mind and forget about the issues of the job, if only for a few hours. Naturally, it's a little easier to do on the weekends (and should be mandatory), but if you do it also between Monday-Friday, it can really help. If you're not so sure about this, think of this: If it's important enough, they'll call!

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Computer free nights
Submitted by spp on Fri, 2008-08-08 12:45.

I agree 100%, MrAdventure. Everyone needs to get away from the computers for some period of time. I think more importantly than just getting away from the computer is to do something that is a) physical and b) involves other people. TKD has been wonderful for me on many levels, including dropping about 25 pounds and about 15% body fat so far this year.

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Re: 10 essential rules
Submitted by doug on Wed, 2008-08-06 10:51.

as a corrolary to #1, I'd have added "use the right tool for the job". There is often a temptation to use a tool because one knows it. Sometimes this is the right thing (reduces time to implement and results in general user satisfaction at speed of resolution), but sometimes you need to step back and say "Is this the right tool for the job?". Perl, Python, Ruby, C, Java et. al. are all useful in their own way. Using one exclusively is often just as bad as trying to use them all.
Should you use Python when a simple shell script will do? maybe
What if you can solve it elegantly in a few lines?

Sometimes we let dogmatism get in the way.

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