System Admin vs. Network Admin

[Renegade8888]

Hi All,

I'm reaching a point in my career where I want to decide on a specialization within the industry, I have been working in IT Support for a couple of years now.

I have narrowed it down to these two options as career paths I would like to go down and I was wondering if anyone here who has already chosen one of these or has experience in these general areas could tell me the pros and cons of each and more importantly what options they would leave me with later in life.

As far as I know the best ways into each would be certifications from either MS or Cisco, e.g. CCNA/CCNP Routing and Switching for Networking or MCSA/MCSE Server Infrastructure for System Admin work, but I'm not ruling out Unix yet. Are there any other options worth considering?

Both seem to be good choices in terms of always being necessities, so if I'm suddenly without a job in my 50's I will still be in a line of work that's in demand, I know there will be a challenge in always adapting to new technologies/techniques but I can handle that. What are your thoughts?

 

[Lexluethar]

Do what you love and you can't go wrong. Do what makes you happy.

You are on the right track for the certifications. CCNA / CCNP would generally be Network Admin and MCSA / MCSE would be System Admin. Anothing thing to consider is virtualization, look into VMWares VCP if you are wanting to do system administration. It does depend on the company, but a LOT of companies virtualize using VMWare and a VCP (VMWare Certified Professional) holds a lot of weight. It is kinda a crap shoot though, b/c if you interview or work for a company that doesn't use VMWare it's worthless.

Another thing to note - you'll find from company to company the titles really mean nothing except within the company you are working for. A system admin at my company may do something completely different at your company. My title for a while was Network Admin but i did NOTHING with networking, i was a system admin. It's just a title, but wanted to point out the title and job duties will vary depending on the company.

 

[DistraughtSysop]

Hi All,
I have narrowed it down to these two options as career paths I would like to go down and I was wondering if anyone here who has already chosen one of these or has experience in these general areas could tell me the pros and cons of each and more importantly what options they would leave me with later in life.

MSP network guy here. If you're going to get into networking then be prepared for people blaming all their problems on the network. Can't get to a website? The network's down. Application running slow? There's something wrong with the "network servers." Didn't get an email? The network's clogged. Spouse cheating on you? It's the network. I spend a lot of time proving that problems are not due to any faults or failures in the network.

I like being able to work remotely/from home. If management didn't want warm bodies in the seats then I wouldn't need to be in the office 90% of the time. As it is, if I'm sick or I had a late night then I can stay home and do everything from there. I know more experienced guys who never have to go into the office at all. I also like not having to deal with end users. If someone can't get connected to the wifi then help desk handles that. For the most part I'm dealing with admins/engineers and managers who have their own end users to handle, so everything is a lot more professional. I don't have people screaming at me over the phone because they don't know how to use their email, or anything like that.

Generally speaking, I think that most IT fields lead to pretty much the same places in that, once you reach a certain level, you move into management/consulting or you make a jump into a different but related discipline that pays more. Personally, I want to move into security at some point and continue on in that field. I don't like the idea of being in management but I might feel differently about it when I'm older.

Oh yeah - whatever you end up doing, knowing Unix/Linux will help.

Another thing to note - you'll find from company to company the titles really mean nothing except within the company you are working for. A system admin at my company may do something completely different at your company. My title for a while was Network Admin but i did NOTHING with networking, i was a system admin. It's just a title, but wanted to point out the title and job duties will vary depending on the company.

I just wanted to add to this and say that, in my experience, netadmin and sysadmin tend to mean the same thing. Network engineer/architect is usually a lot less ambiguous (and even then there are exceptions) and that's where you're working with routers and switches and getting them all to talk to each other.

Titles are a funny thing. I know one company where the IT director manages all of help desk and systems, and another company where the IT director is the lone jack-of-all-trades IT guy.

 

[1etherer]

MSP network guy here. If you're going to get into networking then be prepared for people blaming all their problems on the network. Can't get to a website? The network's down. Application running slow? There's something wrong with the "network servers." Didn't get an email? The network's clogged. Spouse cheating on you? It's the network. I spend a lot of time proving that problems are not due to any faults or failures in the network.

I like being able to work remotely/from home. If management didn't want warm bodies in the seats then I wouldn't need to be in the office 90% of the time. As it is, if I'm sick or I had a late night then I can stay home and do everything from there. I know more experienced guys who never have to go into the office at all. I also like not having to deal with end users. If someone can't get connected to the wifi then help desk handles that. For the most part I'm dealing with admins/engineers and managers who have their own end users to handle, so everything is a lot more professional. I don't have people screaming at me over the phone because they don't know how to use their email, or anything like that.

Generally speaking, I think that most IT fields lead to pretty much the same places in that, once you reach a certain level, you move into management/consulting or you make a jump into a different but related discipline that pays more. Personally, I want to move into security at some point and continue on in that field. I don't like the idea of being in management but I might feel differently about it when I'm older.

Oh yeah - whatever you end up doing, knowing Unix/Linux will help.



I just wanted to add to this and say that, in my experience, netadmin and sysadmin tend to mean the same thing. Network engineer/architect is usually a lot less ambiguous (and even then there are exceptions) and that's where you're working with routers and switches and getting them all to talk to each other.

Titles are a funny thing. I know one company where the IT director manages all of help desk and systems, and another company where the IT director is the lone jack-of-all-trades IT guy.

You make some very good points in the network side, we now need an experienced sys admin to do the same!

I too am interested in this..