Lecture 1: NETWORK ADMINISTRATION: SCOPE, GOALS & PHILOSOPHY
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Network and distribution processing systems are of critical and growing importance in
business, government and other organizations. Therefore, networks must be managed for
effectiveness and efficiency. This lecture discusses fundamental aspects of network
administration.
2.0 OBJECTIVES
At the end of this lecture, you should be also to:
Define network administration
Know the scope of network administration
State the goals of system administration
Understand the challenges of system administration
State the Meta principles of system administration
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 What is network and system administration?
Network and system administration is a branch of engineering that concerns the operational
management of human-computer systems. It is about putting together a network of computers
(workstations, PCs and supercomputers), getting them running and then keeping them running
in spite of the activities of users who tend to cause the systems to fail.
A system administrator works for users, so that they can use the system to produce work.
However, a system administrator should not just cater for one or two selfish needs, but also
work for the benefit of a whole community. Today, that community is a global community of
machines and organizations, which spans every niche of human society and culture, thanks to
the Internet. It is often a difficult balancing act to determine the best policy, which accounts for
the different needs of everyone with a stake in a system. Once a computer is attached to the
Internet, we have to consider the consequences of being directly connected to all the other
computers in the world.
In the future, improvements in technology might render system administration a somewhat
easier task – one of pure resource administration – but, today, system administration is not just
an administrative job, it is an extremely demanding engineer’s job. It’s about hardware,
software, user support, diagnosis, repair and prevention. System administrators need to know a
bit of everything: the skills are technical, administrative and socio-psychological.
The terms network administration and system administration exist separately and are used both
variously and inconsistently by industry and by academics.
1
, System administration is the term used traditionally by mainframe and Unix engineers to
describe the management of computers whether they are coupled by a network or not. To this
community, network administration means the management of network infrastructure devices
(routers and switches). The world of personal computers (PCs) has no tradition of managing
individual computers and their subsystems, and thus does not speak of system administration,
per se. To this community, network administration is the management of PCs in a network. In
this material, we shall take the first view, since this is more precise.
Network and system administration are increasingly challenging. The complexity of computer
systems is increasing all the time. Even a single PC today, running Windows NT, and attached
to a network, approaches the level of complexity that mainframe computers had ten years ago.
We are now forced to think systems not just computers.
3.2 Scope of Network administration
The management of a network, usually called network administration, consists of procedures
and services that keep the network running properly. An important part of network management
entails making sure that the network is available (or up and running as IT professionals say)
when employees and managers need it. Other admin activities are:
- Monitoring the network capacity to ensure that all transmission requirements can be met.
- Adding capacity to the network by increasing band width interconnecting additional modes,
or creating and interconnecting additional networks.
- Training people to use the network effectively
- Assisting IT professionals in organizational applications that will make good use of the
network’s capabilities.
- Backing up the network software and data regularly to protect against the failure of
network or any of its components
- Putting security procedures in place to make certain that only authorized users have access
to the network and ensuring that all security procedures are followed
- Making sure the network personnel can respond quickly and effectively in the event of a
network operational or security failure.
- Diagnosing and troubleshooting problems on the network and determining the best course
of action to take to solve them.
3.3 The goal of Network administration
The goal is to keep the network running properly and configuring and managing services that
are provided over the network.
There are many services that we use regularly. There are some which work in the background
enabling other services to run smoothly.
3.4 The challenges of system administration
System administration is not just about installing operating systems. It is about planning and
designing an efficient community of computers so that real users will be able to get their jobs
done. That means:
2
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Network and distribution processing systems are of critical and growing importance in
business, government and other organizations. Therefore, networks must be managed for
effectiveness and efficiency. This lecture discusses fundamental aspects of network
administration.
2.0 OBJECTIVES
At the end of this lecture, you should be also to:
Define network administration
Know the scope of network administration
State the goals of system administration
Understand the challenges of system administration
State the Meta principles of system administration
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 What is network and system administration?
Network and system administration is a branch of engineering that concerns the operational
management of human-computer systems. It is about putting together a network of computers
(workstations, PCs and supercomputers), getting them running and then keeping them running
in spite of the activities of users who tend to cause the systems to fail.
A system administrator works for users, so that they can use the system to produce work.
However, a system administrator should not just cater for one or two selfish needs, but also
work for the benefit of a whole community. Today, that community is a global community of
machines and organizations, which spans every niche of human society and culture, thanks to
the Internet. It is often a difficult balancing act to determine the best policy, which accounts for
the different needs of everyone with a stake in a system. Once a computer is attached to the
Internet, we have to consider the consequences of being directly connected to all the other
computers in the world.
In the future, improvements in technology might render system administration a somewhat
easier task – one of pure resource administration – but, today, system administration is not just
an administrative job, it is an extremely demanding engineer’s job. It’s about hardware,
software, user support, diagnosis, repair and prevention. System administrators need to know a
bit of everything: the skills are technical, administrative and socio-psychological.
The terms network administration and system administration exist separately and are used both
variously and inconsistently by industry and by academics.
1
, System administration is the term used traditionally by mainframe and Unix engineers to
describe the management of computers whether they are coupled by a network or not. To this
community, network administration means the management of network infrastructure devices
(routers and switches). The world of personal computers (PCs) has no tradition of managing
individual computers and their subsystems, and thus does not speak of system administration,
per se. To this community, network administration is the management of PCs in a network. In
this material, we shall take the first view, since this is more precise.
Network and system administration are increasingly challenging. The complexity of computer
systems is increasing all the time. Even a single PC today, running Windows NT, and attached
to a network, approaches the level of complexity that mainframe computers had ten years ago.
We are now forced to think systems not just computers.
3.2 Scope of Network administration
The management of a network, usually called network administration, consists of procedures
and services that keep the network running properly. An important part of network management
entails making sure that the network is available (or up and running as IT professionals say)
when employees and managers need it. Other admin activities are:
- Monitoring the network capacity to ensure that all transmission requirements can be met.
- Adding capacity to the network by increasing band width interconnecting additional modes,
or creating and interconnecting additional networks.
- Training people to use the network effectively
- Assisting IT professionals in organizational applications that will make good use of the
network’s capabilities.
- Backing up the network software and data regularly to protect against the failure of
network or any of its components
- Putting security procedures in place to make certain that only authorized users have access
to the network and ensuring that all security procedures are followed
- Making sure the network personnel can respond quickly and effectively in the event of a
network operational or security failure.
- Diagnosing and troubleshooting problems on the network and determining the best course
of action to take to solve them.
3.3 The goal of Network administration
The goal is to keep the network running properly and configuring and managing services that
are provided over the network.
There are many services that we use regularly. There are some which work in the background
enabling other services to run smoothly.
3.4 The challenges of system administration
System administration is not just about installing operating systems. It is about planning and
designing an efficient community of computers so that real users will be able to get their jobs
done. That means:
2
