Does system administration have a good future?

I was wondering if system administration is going to have a good future(as well as system engineering), since that is the route I would like to take? There are way more jobs in NY for system administration and engineering then network administration and engineering. With the cloud and all will responsibilities of the cloud shift to system administrators and engineers or how is that going to work?

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N7Valiant

Wouldn't that just condense server administration to a single centralized location rather than every business having their own? I'm looking towards sys admin, but only as a stepping stone to try and get into pen testing.

gkca

Long term - probably not a good outlook as many systems administration tasks are routine and easily automated and if the hype is true, then the future is serverless cloud managed by AI.
On the other hand we've seen many predictions over the last few decades and most of them were wrong, so who knows.

SteveLavoie

I think the future lie into technology integration with business. Even if you use cloud, you need to understand and apply the good product to create value to the business.

NetworkingStudent

denis92 wrote: »

I was wondering if system administration is going to have a good future(as well as system engineering), since that is the route I would like to take? There are way more jobs in NY for system administration and engineering then network administration and engineering. With the cloud and all will responsibilities of the cloud shift to system administrators and engineers or how is that going to work?

Good question

I heard system administration is going towards devo ops. DEV OPS=Administration+ automation. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

volfkhat

It's future is Not as bright as it used to be.

AWS has been consolidating/eliminating SA positions for several years now.

I don't expect this trend to slow...

denis92

volfkhat wrote: »

It's future is Not as bright as it used to be.

AWS has been consolidating/eliminating SA positions for several years now.

I don't expect this trend to slow...

What about devops and system engineering? same fate?

jibtech

Even with the trend towards cloud environments, and with the changes in technology, system administration isn't going anywhere.

As we move toward a more automated environment, the need for sysadmins will be less. At large enterprise, it may well disappear. But, the majority of businesses aren't large enterprises who are optimizing on AWS, and embracing DevOps. At those companies, I am completely comfortable saying there will be a demand for sysadmins for the next 15-20 years.

N7Valiant

I think there are still businesses out there who, despite assurances, might not be comfortable with leaving proprietary information in the hands of another.

I'm not that worried. Regularly studying for certs makes you more able to pick up and learn new skills IMO. If push comes to shove, just learn AWS.

volfkhat

jibtech wrote: »

As we move toward a more automated environment, the need for sysadmins will be less. At large enterprise, it may well disappear. But, the majority of businesses aren't large enterprises who are optimizing on AWS, and embracing DevOps. At those companies, I am completely comfortable saying there will be a demand for sysadmins for the next 15-20 years.

N7Valiant wrote: »

I think there are still businesses out there who, despite assurances, might not be comfortable with leaving proprietary information in the hands of another.

I'm not that worried. Regularly studying for certs makes you more able to pick up and learn new skills IMO.

Guys,
you can explain it all you want; but the market is contracting.
Sure there will still be SA positions... but there will be fewer of them.
But are there going to be fewer Candidates??

No.
Expect to see a flood of folks applying/competing for a limited commodity.

Supply vs Demand.
Race to the Bottom.
Contraction.

N7Valiant wrote: »

If push comes to shove, just learn AWS.

True enough;
but you need to get ahead of the trend. don't wait until you've already been squeezed out the market..

N7Valiant

True, but I'm only looking at Sys Admin as a stepping stone to get into a Security Analyst position and then hopefully Penetration Testing. So I might have different considerations than someone who might have been looking to make a career out of it. The problem now is that there's little to no local demand for AWS where I live, and I'm not too sure what the next step after help desk would be if sys admin isn't there.

Basic85

I often worry about automation in IT, therefore eliminating jobs. I'm still studying IT as that's I could see myself doing so hopefully everything turns out good.

MicroSco

Its not going away anytime soon. At least for next 10 years or so, the demand for Sys Admins will be enough to make a career out of it.

N7Valiant

Basic85 wrote: »

I often worry about automation in IT, therefore eliminating jobs. I'm still studying IT as that's I could see myself doing so hopefully everything turns out good.

Eh. There are some things that can't be automated without AI at least. Can't write code for you, even log monitoring isn't foolproof, you'd still need human oversight on security issues. And anything automated needs someone to make, build, and maintain that automation.

dontstop

In my honest opinion System Administration is not going away it's only cutting off the fat from it's boom period (aka the "Good years") where anyone who had a modest skillset could land a job. Similar to how Web Development had a massive influx of workers during the Dotcom boom and then once the bust occurred a lot of disappeared. During that time anyone who could write even the most basic HTML could land a job making websites for companies. Once the industry collapsed you're only left with the most skilled workers, similar to what is happening today. AI, Automation and Devops are for Sysadmins what Dynamic Web was for Web Developers. Those wouldn't couldn't make the transition ended up being left behind from the industry moving forward.

Think about the old school *nix admins like from the Unix days, they could program in C and later heavily in Perl and were more Devops than the Sysadmins of today. Now this is coming full circle again, the fat in the industry is always going to be the jobs with the least skill. If you cannot code or are not interested in Cloud technology then you're going to be on the chopping block as companies refine their headcounts. At the end of the day all industries are savage and are always looking to refine, reduce costs and minimize headcounts.

EANx

It seems like every few years, something comes along to make people cry that the sky is falling. The first time I saw it was with directory services with Novell and I'm sure it wasn't the first time. The sky didn't fall then, or with Active Directory or with the web and it's not falling now.

yoba222

I foresee increased automation reducing the need for sys admins, but it will be gradual and there will still be plenty of sysadmin work for the next ten years at least. Perfectly fine career path to start on today.

As far as AI taking over, until computers can really start thinking like humans for all use cases, AI is and will continue to be over-hyped. Imagine Microsoft's Tay trying to administer a cloud service. Humans > AI at being humans. Drones are going to be a way bigger concern, but that's way off topic.

I personally worry about an information security bubble 5 years from now for entry to mid level infosec workers. Seems like every 10 posts on the Internet regarding computer careers are for those who aspire to become ethical hackers someday.

Nisseki

Does network engineering have a good future? Just curious what you guys think.

NetworkNewb

yoba222 wrote: »

I personally worry about an information security bubble 5 years from now for entry to mid level infosec workers. Seems like every 10 posts on the Internet regarding computer careers are for those who aspire to become ethical hackers someday.

The thing about that is those people who want to become hackers don't really know what all encompasses security and most companies don't have those types of positions. If anything, having more people who want to become hackers will keep those who understand security more in demand.

McxRisley

EANx wrote: »

It seems like every few years, something comes along to make people cry that the sky is falling. The first time I saw it was with directory services with Novell and I'm sure it wasn't the first time. The sky didn't fall then, or with Active Directory or with the web and it's not falling now.

This guy knows whats up. Despite the many SA doomsday theories, the SA role is still holding strong in the industry. Hell, we have over 20 SA openings where I work and we cant find anyone that meets the quals to fill them.

Priston

The industry takes time to evolve. While newer technologies might reduce the number of people needed with one skill set, they increase the number of people needed with another skill set.

Either way you have to start somewhere, why not start with the basics, work on building a foundation with your experience and education.

UnixGuy

In my humble opinion, it's really hard to predict. If you want to be a system admin, make sure to stay relevant and learn all the NEW stuff. Be flexible and be prepared to change fields and cross skill quickly.

denis92

UnixGuy wrote: »

In my humble opinion, it's really hard to predict. If you want to be a system admin, make sure to stay relevant and learn all the NEW stuff. Be flexible and be prepared to change fields and cross skill quickly.

What kind of fields can you transition to from sysadmin? I would like to consider my options but I am not sure what my backup plan would be yet in case it sysadmin dies out eventually... haven't seen many cloud jobs

LeBroke

I think for the purpose of this discussion, it makes sense to separate "DevOps" into three separate topics. DevOps itself is more of a philosophy (that is or is not a job title based on who you ask), and deals with optimizing/improving processes to add business value, through things like more reliable infrastructure, faster code deploys, better monitoring, etc.

Then, there's automation. I.e. configuration management, server build outs, provisioning, stuff like CloudFormation and Terraform if you use cloud services. Can be cloud or on-premises. Powershell also falls under this.

Finally, there's the actual cloud (IaaS, PaaS)... which is basically just someone else's servers where hypervisor, provisioning, and most of the infrastructure (i.e. storage, networking) is abstracted away behind an API or a web page.

The first one is IMO mostly a fad, since the end goal is instead of doing DevOps by specialized DevOps people, to bridge the gap between development and operations (i.e. have devs more involved with running infrastructure, and have sysadmins more involved with applications and SDLC). The second one is here to stay, and is probably the most important part. There's functionally little difference between a sysadmin and a DevOps/SRE guy. A sysadmin could just as easily use automation tools in his day job, with the exception of really small shops. The third one is outsourcing your on premises infrastructure to someone else to save you money, time, and effort.

Assuming you learn automation, your job isn't going away (even if your job title might be different).

The third one is mostly going to affect tiny shops. Not because AWS is such a game changer (it is, but for a different set of problems), but because tiny shops don't need an IT guy anymore doing SMB stuff. Honestly, how many 10-people companies even use an MSP these days? Chances are, they use Google Docs, OneDrive, ADP, Office 365, or any combination of similar services. Why spend a lot of money on an in-house Exchange server, hosting your corporate website, having a file server (or even a NAS), if you can just pay a small fee and not have to deal with any of this at all? This is the direction I see a lot of small businesses heading in these days.

Actual cloud IaaS/PaaS still has people managing it (some of these people are sysadmins rebranded into DevOps, others are just developers who picked it up), and people working on the back end, at Amazon, Google, Rackspace, etc.

What kind of fields can you transition to from sysadmin? I would like to consider my options but I am not sure what my backup plan would be yet in case it sysadmin dies out eventually... haven't seen many cloud jobs

Search any job site for "cloud," "devops," "SRE," or "site reliability engineer". Unless you live in the boonies, there's going to be dozens of results.

UnixGuy

denis92 wrote: »

What kind of fields can you transition to from sysadmin? I would like to consider my options but I am not sure what my backup plan would be yet in case it sysadmin dies out eventually... haven't seen many cloud jobs

Sales, Pre-Sales, Architecture, Support, Design, Project Management, Management, Risk, Network Security, Cyber security, GRC, ...etc. Anything really, you can build up new skills with your strong foundation as a system admin. Be a well rounded system admin and don't specialise in just one thing.

soccarplayer29

Some great conversation going on here.

denis92 wrote: »

I was wondering if system administration is going to have a good future(as well as system engineering), since that is the route I would like to take? There are way more jobs in NY for system administration and engineering then network administration and engineering. With the cloud and all will responsibilities of the cloud shift to system administrators and engineers or how is that going to work?

Just to clarify we need to breakdown the cloud definitions a bit...the cloud providers offer services (IaaS/PaaS/SaaS/XaaS). With IaaS and PaaS offerings (think AWS, Azure, GCP), they don't manage the guest OS. IaaS providers provide the hardware infrastructure and scalability but does not replace the daily sys admin activities. Companies relying on these cloud services still have to manage the OS and the rest of the stack and therefore sys admins are very much needed. With SaaS the SaaS provider provides the system administration and as companies continue their cloud adoption the sys admin jobs may migrate to the SaaS providers rather than the consumers.

Nisseki wrote: »

Does network engineering have a good future? Just curious what you guys think.

The internet is a network, websites/applications and companies rely on the internet network and I think there will be a need for networking (along with sysadmin) moving forward. Cloud services still rely heavily on networking concepts just modified from on-prem aspects to fit the cloud environment.

Bottom Line: Don't stagnate and keep pursuing knowledge. Stay up to date on current trends and technologies (news, certs, etc.) and be sure to position yourself to pivot your career/skills where the industry is going and where your passion is.

LeBroke

soccarplayer29 wrote: »

Just to clarify we need to breakdown the cloud definitions a bit...the cloud providers offer services (IaaS/PaaS/SaaS/XaaS). With IaaS and PaaS offerings (think AWS, Azure, GCP), they don't manage the guest OS. IaaS providers provide the hardware infrastructure and scalability but does not replace the daily sys admin activities. Companies relying on these cloud services still have to manage the OS and the rest of the stack and therefore sys admins are very much needed. With SaaS the SaaS provider provides the system administration and as companies continue their cloud adoption the sys admin jobs may migrate to the SaaS providers rather than the consumers.

To add to this, probably worth adding a distinction between IaaS (what you described above, like AWS EC2), PaaS (server layer is abstracted, and you're presented with just the application container, like AWS Lambda or Heroku, and SaaS (cloud services). Things like Gmail for business, Dropbox, and ADP (payroll provider) are SaaS, and they provide functionality that would have previously been run on-premises. Might not be super important to large companies that have the infrastructure and resources to run them in-house (or need to do so for compliance reasons), but extremely useful for tiny shops that don't have a lot of resources to spare for IT infra, especially if it's not their main line of business.

Also, I feel like this kind of discussion went on 10-15 years ago when sysadmins were heavily involved in hardware operations as well, and virtualization was just becoming popular. Now most hardware work is relegated to low-level techs who mostly just rack, stack, and connect the server to the network to run PXE boot.

MustafaIT

It's all depend on what you like first and where do you see yourself fit in. My view is that all Tech fields have good future , but you need to get more in depth in one specific field and try to learn everything about it.

beads

My workplace has 4 positions, 1 senior sys admin type (VM, Windows, storage, etc); three DevOps types (Linux, scripting, other development skills as assigned) either in requisition or budget form open for 2017 and 2018 respectively.

The field will always be changing rapidly and its always been a challenge to keep up for everyone to do so. IT careers are rarely planned in terms of decades anymore but in mere years.

Nothing wrong with the above its just a truism. I only do similar work from a couple of years ago than I do today. The tools, procedures, compliance have all morphed into differing directions.

AWS and Java are safe bets.

- b/eads