A day in the life of a network admin

ajchas

I was wondering what the average day for a network admin was like. I was hired for a desktop support position but I soon ended up doing stuff that should be the network admin's job. I really don't consider myself as the network admin but I seem to be doing more and more of his job (with little help form him) I hope to have my network certification soon and start looking for a admin job and I was wondering what other admin's days were like?

Darril

Welcome to the forum. In my experience, it's tough to describe a typical job for a network admin because so many organizations are different. In a smaller organization, a network admin may do everything related to IT and in a larger organization a network admin may do nothing but manage and administer switches and routers. With computers almost always connected to a network, troubleshooting network problems is an important part of a desktop support role. Sounds like you're in a great place to learn more, especially since the network admin is taking the time to assist you learn more.

Best of luck on the pursuit of your network certification.

Darril Gibson
Security+ blog
Security+ Tip Of Day

Forsaken_GA

ajchas wrote: »

I was wondering what other admin's days were like?

My typical day consists of finding other people to do my work for me, of course.

In all seriousness.. there's a distinction between network admin and network engineer. Our network admins tend to take care of network based services, and looks suspiciously like a sysadmin to most other folks.

With network engineering, I spent alot of time going over log files, netflow captures, and looking at graphs to gauge where, if any, our performance bottlenecks are, and determing where we can improve service if it's network related. I spend alot of time evaluating requested changes and reconciling those requests with our security posture and company policy. I spend a good amount of time chasing down complaints, most of which end up being server problems instead of network issues (yes, I understand that the flibberwidget service is slow, it's not the network, it's the fact that the flibberwidget server is short on memory or doing a crapton of disk I/O). A few times a month I perform maintenances, some of which aren't impacting and folks never know there was a maint unless they looked at the schedule, others severely impacting, requiring a failover to the DR site before we begin. And occasionally (very occasionally these days) I fix a fault condition because sometimes the problem really is the network.

Tackle

Network admin at my work = System admin.

I get to do everything from replacing mice/keyboards for users to configuring Switches/Routers to setting up/maintaining servers.

My actual title at work is "Network Engineer", but there is no way I'd qualify at a big company for a "Network Engineer" job.

eserfeliz

As a "Network Analyst", on a day to day basis I can be found in a number of places.

- Talking shop with the Security Admin.
- Wiring network jacks underneath a detective's desk. They assume I'm placing a bug on their phones, naturally.
- Swapping out broken/busted mobile devices (read: air cards and cell phones).
- Maintaining our network device inventory, port counts, EOL spreadsheets.
- Bawling out service providers that are not providing service.
- Performing site surveys for new offices.

I've only been in my position for three months now, but I've had to learn to wear a great many hats very quickly. I'm excited to hear that you're in an environment where the network administrator allows you the freedom to learn so many tasks and operate independently. In my opinion, you'd be well served to continue to learn and do as much as possible. In the future, you should be able to compile your knowledge into a few lines on your resume and receive compensation for the things you've learned how to do.

I wish you nothing but luck.

showbo

For me my day is like this:

Looking for bottlenecks
Solving problems my other techs can't/training and teaching
Taking calls from the higher ups because they don't like to call the other techs (training and teaching come in to play so I can build confidence in the other techs)
Managing my VMware hosts/VM machines
Planning, Planning, Planning (anywhere from desktop installations to servers, to new branches/buildings)
Maintaining log files, probably one of the most important things I do
Plus other items, too many to list

And just like another person stated, too many organizations run things differently. A network admin with 50 techs in the department will be doing different things than a Network Admin with 5 techs in the department.