It Was Never About Ops • Hacker News Board

Re: It Was Never About Ops

#31

Post by stonogo » Wed, Nov 30, 2016, 3:02 AM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #27

stonogo wrote: post #2

It's fun to watch people learn the systems administration trade, but it's a little disheartening to watch them conclude -- incorrectly -- that proper systems administration is some kind of software engineering job. Is this why Silicon Valley is allergic to the phrase 'systems administrator'? Ops, Devops, SRE... so many phrases to describe various jobs which all, when executed successfully, converge upon the same set…

> Is this why Silicon Valley is allergic to the phrase 'systems administrator' There is no need for 'systems administrator' in the Silicon Valley. The systems administrators are the guys who buy the desktop computers, setup windows, and kinda manage the active directory. DevOps/SRE names exist because the tech scene had to stop the confusion between the hardcore linux admins who can code and the dude who can setup yo…

> DevOps/SRE names exist because the tech scene had to stop the confusion between the hardcore linux admins who can code and the dude who can setup your desktop computer.

If that confusion existed in any otherwise-competent organization, it was only in the valley. I was a systems administrator before any of "SRE," "DevOps," or "linux" came to be, and I don't think anyone has ever confused me for tech support.

Re: It Was Never About Ops

#32

Post by tayo42 » Wed, Nov 30, 2016, 3:03 AM UTC

rhizome wrote: post #29

user5994461 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is this why Silicon Valley is allergic to the phrase 'systems administrator' There is no need for 'systems administrator' in the Silicon Valley. The systems administrators are the guys who buy the desktop computers, setup windows, and kinda manage the active directory. DevOps/SRE names exist because the tech scene had to stop the confusion between the hardcore linux admins who can code and the dude who can setup yo…

The people who take care of internal user systems are IT. IT may have sysadmins, but a sysadmin is not necessarily IT.

That's his point I think? That there is a way to differentiate the different skill sets of different admins.

Re: It Was Never About Ops

#33

Post by stonogo » Wed, Nov 30, 2016, 3:03 AM UTC

unethical_ban wrote: post #17

stonogo wrote: post #2

It's fun to watch people learn the systems administration trade, but it's a little disheartening to watch them conclude -- incorrectly -- that proper systems administration is some kind of software engineering job. Is this why Silicon Valley is allergic to the phrase 'systems administrator'? Ops, Devops, SRE... so many phrases to describe various jobs which all, when executed successfully, converge upon the same set…

Being a good sysadmin in 2016 requires a skill in programming. The ability to write apps and services that interact with your infrastructure's APIs is necessary to automate all the toil we've done since the beginning. (See google's SRE book) As I have more control over hiring decisions on my team, an inability to use any programming language effectively (bash, python, perl, /anything/) would disqualify someone from a…

> Being a good sysadmin in 2016 requires a skill in programming.

This condition has held true as long as there have been systems to administer. Only the names have changed; that's what I'm curious about.

Re: It Was Never About Ops

#34

Post by nickpsecurity » Wed, Nov 30, 2016, 3:04 AM UTC

flukus wrote: post #30

user5994461 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is this why Silicon Valley is allergic to the phrase 'systems administrator' There is no need for 'systems administrator' in the Silicon Valley. The systems administrators are the guys who buy the desktop computers, setup windows, and kinda manage the active directory. DevOps/SRE names exist because the tech scene had to stop the confusion between the hardcore linux admins who can code and the dude who can setup yo…

Since when was the dude who can setup your desktop a sys admin? That would be tech support.

A major, Fortune 100-500 firm in my area had many of their Win7 machines rolled out over the network by a guy that knows nothing about networking, can't tell cache from RAM unless explicitly marked, and calls me for basic, tech support on occasion. That it worked out fine with basic automation in place supports your assertion. ;)

Re: It Was Never About Ops

#35

Post by smitty1110 » Wed, Nov 30, 2016, 3:18 AM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #27

stonogo wrote: post #2

It's fun to watch people learn the systems administration trade, but it's a little disheartening to watch them conclude -- incorrectly -- that proper systems administration is some kind of software engineering job. Is this why Silicon Valley is allergic to the phrase 'systems administrator'? Ops, Devops, SRE... so many phrases to describe various jobs which all, when executed successfully, converge upon the same set…

> Is this why Silicon Valley is allergic to the phrase 'systems administrator' There is no need for 'systems administrator' in the Silicon Valley. The systems administrators are the guys who buy the desktop computers, setup windows, and kinda manage the active directory. DevOps/SRE names exist because the tech scene had to stop the confusion between the hardcore linux admins who can code and the dude who can setup yo…

The guy that sets up your laptop is an IT tech, not an SA. The SA is the hardcore linux admin who can code. From my perspective, and SRE is a SE that focuses entirely on back end performance and reliability, in order to support the SAs. DevOps is a term used by management to justify cost-savings by avoiding hiring someone to ensure system reliability, consistency, safety, and integrity.

Re: It Was Never About Ops

#36

Post by sk5t » Wed, Nov 30, 2016, 3:44 AM UTC

stonogo wrote: post #31

user5994461 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is this why Silicon Valley is allergic to the phrase 'systems administrator' There is no need for 'systems administrator' in the Silicon Valley. The systems administrators are the guys who buy the desktop computers, setup windows, and kinda manage the active directory. DevOps/SRE names exist because the tech scene had to stop the confusion between the hardcore linux admins who can code and the dude who can setup yo…

> DevOps/SRE names exist because the tech scene had to stop the confusion between the hardcore linux admins who can code and the dude who can setup your desktop computer. If that confusion existed in any otherwise-competent organization, it was only in the valley. I was a systems administrator before any of "SRE," "DevOps," or "linux" came to be, and I don't think anyone has ever confused me for tech support.

Most of the working Windows system administrators I have met could not code their way out of a wet paper bag (but a majority could code their way into one). If you've been unlucky enough to work on a "managed" workstation, their near-total unawareness of optimization, state, and exception handling is why your Windows login script takes 10 minutes to crunch away.

Re: It Was Never About Ops

#37

Post by lisivka » Wed, Nov 30, 2016, 3:49 AM UTC

jvehent wrote: post #18

unethical_ban wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a good sysadmin in 2016 requires a skill in programming. The ability to write apps and services that interact with your infrastructure's APIs is necessary to automate all the toil we've done since the beginning. (See google's SRE book) As I have more control over hiring decisions on my team, an inability to use any programming language effectively (bash, python, perl, /anything/) would disqualify someone from a…

Being a good sysadmin in 1996 and 2006 also required skills in programming. Sysadmins who don't code have always been limited in their career evolution. The same is true for developers who don't know anything about operations. The focus on automation, and it being called DevOps, is simply an evolution of the work of sysadmins. The same way devs evolved toward TDD and other modern programming techniques.

DevOps is not about automation of Ops work. DevOps is about replacement of Ops with code.

Re: It Was Never About Ops

#38

Post by lisivka » Wed, Nov 30, 2016, 4:05 AM UTC

stonogo wrote: post #2

It's fun to watch people learn the systems administration trade, but it's a little disheartening to watch them conclude -- incorrectly -- that proper systems administration is some kind of software engineering job. Is this why Silicon Valley is allergic to the phrase 'systems administrator'? Ops, Devops, SRE... so many phrases to describe various jobs which all, when executed successfully, converge upon the same set…

DevOps is not a Ops at all.

DevOps is a developer, who writes code to do tasks which are often done manually by Ops team. E.g. installation, configuration, assigning, recovery from failure, upgrade, migration to new version of database, etc.

Re: It Was Never About Ops

#39

Post by flukus » Wed, Nov 30, 2016, 4:06 AM UTC

sk5t wrote: post #36

stonogo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> DevOps/SRE names exist because the tech scene had to stop the confusion between the hardcore linux admins who can code and the dude who can setup your desktop computer. If that confusion existed in any otherwise-competent organization, it was only in the valley. I was a systems administrator before any of "SRE," "DevOps," or "linux" came to be, and I don't think anyone has ever confused me for tech support.

Most of the working Windows system administrators I have met could not code their way out of a wet paper bag (but a majority could code their way into one). If you've been unlucky enough to work on a "managed" workstation, their near-total unawareness of optimization, state, and exception handling is why your Windows login script takes 10 minutes to crunch away.

To be fair, windows scripting is pretty limited. Then you have powershell which is way to bloated for quick and dirty things.

Re: It Was Never About Ops

#40

Post by Others » Wed, Nov 30, 2016, 4:10 AM UTC

lisivka wrote: post #37

jvehent wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a good sysadmin in 1996 and 2006 also required skills in programming. Sysadmins who don't code have always been limited in their career evolution. The same is true for developers who don't know anything about operations. The focus on automation, and it being called DevOps, is simply an evolution of the work of sysadmins. The same way devs evolved toward TDD and other modern programming techniques.

DevOps is not about automation of Ops work. DevOps is about replacement of Ops with code.

Can you clarify the difference between your first and second statement? Isn't replacing Ops with code just automating Ops work?