I only wish my mother understood this excerpt because it would make my life sooooo much easier.
An excerpt from the book preface of
The Practice of System and Network Administration
What Is an SA?
If you asked six system administrators to define their jobs, you would get seven different answers. The job is difficult to define because system administrators do so many things. An SA looks after computers, networks, and the people who use them. An SA may look after hardware, operating systems, software, configurations, applications, or security. A system administrator
influences how effectively other people can or do use their computers and networks.
A system administrator sometimes needs to be a business-process consultant, corporate visionary, janitor, software engineer, electrical engineer, economist, psychiatrist, mindreader, and, occasionally, a bartender.
As a result, companies calls SAs different names. Sometimes, they are called network administrators, system architects, system engineers, system programmers, operators and so on.
This book is for “all of the above.”
We have a very general definition of system administrator: one who manages computer and network systems on behalf of another, such as an employer or a client. SAs are the people who make things work and keep it all running.
The book "The Practice of Network and System Administration" on Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Administration-Second/dp/product-description/0321492668
