Administration & much, much more...

Network Administrator seems to be a pretty catch-all phrase these days. Look at the job postings & I see everything from jobs for Help Desk to System Engineering listed under that title. That pretty much describes my job for a small, privately owned company that’s suddenly midsized. I spend long, stressful hours trying to keep the network & it's users under control & headed down the right path.

Budgets, vendors, engineering & more:
I spend a lot of my time now thinking about what we need & setting up new equipment - or modifying existing equipment to meet new needs. New equipment & software seems to be getting worse to set up. Is it just the complexity of the systems, my imagination (ignorance?) or am I really getting beta products? It's a mixed bag, but I intend to write down my opinion on some of those I deal with.

Security:
Threats are getting smarter & so are some users. Too many are still burying their heads in the sand & hoping they don't have know how to operate their magic boxes - that's what tech people are for. We're supposed to make sure they can't make stupid mistakes. Others are quite happy to reconfigure their computer at the drop of a hat.

Administration & Management:
New & terminated user setups are generally done by the Help Desk staff. Are they doing it right? Did they read or fill out the templates on those procedures - have I bothered to update them correctly this year? Last year?

Clairvoyance:
I try to read a lot of articles on what’s hot & figure out what I think the company wants & needs. Not just this year, but over the next few, and then comes the really hard part – getting the suits to go along with it.

It’s all in a day’s work & some days are better than others. Hopefully, I’ll keep track of some of it here.