LEARNING MODULE SURIGAO STATE COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY – DEL CARMEN CAMPUS

Course Code/Description : ITE - 412 – System Administration and Maintenance Instructor : Mr. Argie E. Libay
Program : BS Information Technology - IV Term : First Semester, AY 2021-2022
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I - TITLE : Systems Administration and Maintenance

II - TOPIC : Introduction to System Administration

III - TIME FRAME :

IV - INTRODUCTION
This module will let the students to understand the importance of Systems Administration
and Maintenance. It will also help the readers to determine the roles of Systems Administrator and
demonstrate the differences of Systems Administrator with Network, Database and Security
Administrator. This module will also help the readers to understand the criteria’s of having a good
system design.

V - OBJECTIVES : At the end of this module, you will be able to:

 Learn on how to perform Windows installation

 Learn different ways on how to manage a user’s account
 Describe the role relationship of Systems administrator with
 network, database and security administrator
 Use the different type of monitoring tools and techniques in Systems
Administration
 Distinguish a proper deployment plan based on real-life scenarios.
VI - PRE-TEST
True or False
Directions: Write T if the statement is True and F if the statement is false.
______1. System administration is the field of work in which someone manages one or more
systems, be they software, hardware, servers or workstations
______2. A large part of a sys admins job involves troubleshooting and problem solving.
______3. In smaller organizations, IT/computing specialties are less often discerned in detail.
______4. System administrator is responsible for documenting the configuration of the system.
______5. System administrator is responsible for Answering technical queries

VII - LEARNING ACTIVITIES : (to include content/discussion of the topic)

Lesson1. What is Systems Administration?

Lesson 1 Objectives

At the end of this module, you will be able to:

 Define what is a systems administration

 Identify the responsibility of systems administrator

The duties of a system administrator are wide-ranging, and vary from one organization to another.

 System administrators are usually charged with installing,

supporting, and maintaining servers or other computer
systems, and planning for and responding to service
outages and other problems.

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 Other duties may include scripting or light programming, project management for
systems-related projects, supervising or training computer operators, and being the
equivalent of a handyman for computer problems beyond the knowledge of technical
support staff.
 It is common for systems administrators
and systems analysts charged with
developing and maintaining computer
processes to identify operational and
developmental systems.
 This is done to provide maximum reliability
and availability on mission-critical systems
used within the organization's processes
by generic users to accomplish routine work while providing developmental resources to
computer process development or research teams augmenting existing or developing
new processes for the organization.

1. System administration is the field of work in which someone manages one or more systems, be
they software, hardware, servers or workstations
2. Its goal is ensuring the systems are running efficiently and effectively.
3. System administration is typically done by information technology experts for or within an
organization. Their job is to ensure that all related computer systems and services keep working.
4. A system administrator, or sysadmin, is a person responsible to maintain and operate a computer
system or network for a company or other organization. System administrators are often
members of an information technology department.

Lesson 2. Duties of a system administrator

Lesson Objectives:

At the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

• Expectations of organization from a systems administrator
• Clearly understand the duties of a systems administrator in a multinational company and SME.
• Differentiate the role of systems administrator in a larger and smaller organization

A system administrator's responsibilities typically include:

• Morning checks of systems/software.
• Performing backups of data.
• Applying operating system updates, and
configuration changes.
• Installing and configuring new hardware/software.
• Adding/deleting/creating/modifying user account
information, resetting passwords, etc.
• Answering technical queries. Responsibility for
security.
• Responsibility for documenting the configuration of
the system.
• Troubleshooting any reported problem or reported
problems.
• System performance tuning.
• Keeping the network up and running.

Duties of a system administrator – smaller org

In smaller organizations, a system administrator can also perform any number of duties elsewhere associated with other
fields like:

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 LEARNING MODULE SURIGAO STATE COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY – DEL CARMEN CAMPUS

• Technical support
• Database administration (DBA)
• Network administration/analyst and specialist
• Application analyst
• Security administration
• Programming

Duties of a system administrator – larger vs smaller org

• System administrators, in larger organizations, also tend not to be system architects,

system engineers, or system designers, however, like many roles in this field,
demarcations between systems administration and these other roles are often not well
defined in smaller organizations.
• However, even in larger organizations, senior systems administrators often have skills in these
other areas as a result of their working experience
• In smaller organizations, IT/computing specialties are less often discerned in detail, and the term
"system administrator" is used in a rather generic way — they are the people who know how the
computer systems work and can respond when something fails.

Lesson 3. Goal of System Administrator

Lesson Objectives:

At the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

• Expectations of organization from a systems administrator
• Clearly understand the duties of a systems administrator in a multinational company and SME.
• Differentiate the role of systems administrator in a larger and smaller organization

• The primary goal of being a system administrator is to be as lazy as

possible. Not lazy in the sense that you do no work, but lazy in the
sense that you get the computer to do the hard and repetitive jobs,
and you do the thinking jobs

• The next goal of system administration is customer satisfaction.

While "having a warm and fuzzy feeling" is a laudable goal, we
want to fulfill measurable goals.

• Measuring things like server availability, time to problem resolution,

network availability and error rates will help to measure satisfaction.

• Remember there are at least two customer types in any sys admins job -- other employees,
who are consuming the computer/server/network services, and the management (one of
whom is the sys admins boss), who are paying the system administrator to steer their computer
resources in a reliable and trouble free direction

• Balancing and satisfying both customers is important in the long term. Most important, of
course, is consistently providing product to end-users.

Resolving problems and troubleshooting

• A large part of a sys admins job involves troubleshooting and problem solving.
• Many problems are user driven, and different users have different levels of competency and
understanding of technology. Users are often frustrated over the problem, and sometimes need
to vent.

But the user is often the best source of information on the cause of an issue.
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• While there isn't a simple guide to every situation, there are a few steps which can help.
• Isolate the problem as much as possible.
• Look for recent changes
• Check all of the obvious things (cables plugged in and so on)
• Ensure each piece of equipment is working before moving on to the next.

NOTE: Don't make assumptions.

• Develop detailed specific information to communicate to specialized troubleshooters brought

to assist with specific repairs or system augmentations.

Planning and Routines

• Establish a routine and try to stick to it. If you schedule deliveries of new computer equipment
only on Tuesday, then you don't have to worry about matching equipment to orders while trying
to get the mail server that failed over the weekend back up.
• Estimate how long tasks will take and measure how long they actually do. (Document them
both in terms of "hours of actual work" and "clock time". It might take only 20 minutes to get a
new machine set up in terms of "actual work", but it may take the better part of a day for all of
the hardware and software to get installed.)

Manage and fulfill expectations

• People want to know when they are going to see results, so try and think in terms of what your
clients are seeing. If the server will arrive in 5 days, but it will take 2 days of setup and 2 days of
testing, that is approx. 2 weeks of work, if all goes according to schedule.
• Don't say "it'll be here in a week", because your client will expect it to be working in 1 week and
1 day then.
• Don't tell people what you think they want to hear.
• Be realistic and honest in your estimates, but under-promise and over-delivery. There are always
a couple of things that are unforeseen, and under promising allows you real time to work on
those items.
• Over-delivering means either be dead on, or early in completing tasks. If you are early, make
sure you explain that you had some good luck (and avoided those couple unforeseen issues)
and were able to deliver faster than you expected.

Larger projects - Blocking your time

• There are always a few projects that will take either most of a day or even a few days, but they
need concentration and few interruptions to complete in the best way possible. What do you
do if your job is to answer end-user questions when they happen, and they usually happen a
few times an hour?
• The best way is to block your time. Most sys admins work in teams, and this is the best way to
block your time. Simply ask your team mate to take over all of the interruption type questions
you usually deal with for the time you need, and you will do the same for him/her when they
need to do a larger project.

Create a process and stick to it

• Many companies have support hotlines and e-mail areas where users can get support for their
questions. Often, however, sys admins complain that users ask those questions in person or call
them directly to get around these processes. If you have a formal system, first make sure it's
integrated

• That means that any question, be it e-mail, phone or in person has to be "entered" into the
system. No one should get answers without a ticket number, which should be used by both your
users and your sys admins to refer to a request. Each request should be triaged, and the
requestor should get an estimated time to resolve.

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• The system shouldn't build a moat around the sys-admins, though. The idea is that formal
questions go through a formal process, and if this is stuck to, then all users should receive a
consistent answer in a timely manner. It should also dissuade "queue jumpers" from phoning
certain people direct to work around the process.

• These types of processes exist in guidelines such as ITIL. It can be difficult, especially in smaller
companies, to convince end users of the benefits of calling a hotline, when they have to wait
for the actual sysadmins to respond, instead of calling them directly.

VIII - SELF EVALUATION

Direction: Answer the following questions briefly and convincingly.

1. What do you have learned in creating bootable media using the given software?
2. What are the advantages of using a flash drive as an installer compared to a bootable
CD/DVD?

IX - REVIEW OF CONCEPT

• In system administration, it's important to create a documentation trail so you know what was
done, when, and by whom. This can be something as simple as short log entries (date
time/username/action), or formal guides. It is especially critical when you are debugging or
doing emergency troubleshooting to keep these entries, as changes can affect security, stability
or availability of resources.

• The best system is one that collects configuration changes made into a central location. Often
a version tracking tool, such as CVS or SVN can be used to accomplish this, with the added
benefit that you get automatic backups of any such configuration.

X - POST TEST

I - Essay
Direction: Give an explanation on how you understand the subject. (10pts each)

1. In your own words, how do you define system administrator?

2. What are the roles of systems administrator that you think is the most critical and should be
always possess by a system administrator?
3. In a small organization environment, which role do you think should not be part of the system
administrator role?

XI - REFERENCES

- Igor Ljubuncic, Tom Litterer System Administration Ethics: Ten Commandments for Security and
Compliance in A Modern Cyber World
- Trey Feagle et al. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.0 (RH294) - Red Hat System Administration III. 3
- Fiona Allen et al. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.0 (RH134) - Red Hat System Administration II. 2
- Zacker, Craig Planning and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows server 2003 Network Infrastructure
- Fiona Allen et al. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.0 (RH124) - Red Hat System Administration I.1
- 3G Elearning FZ LLC Network Administration

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