Network Adminstrator

[Crunkadelic]

What exactly are Network Adminstrators responsibilities?

[superdave1984]

That probably depends on who you work for, but typically they are in charge of your network infrastructure and hardware as well as PC's, software, printers, etc. Pretty much anything that uses or connects to the network, the admin has to keep tabs on and maintain. If you are under a corporate umbrella, those responsibilities may be drastically different as they may have corporate-wide standards for many things like hardware, software, and they may also not want local admins doing configuration of routers, switches, servers etc.

[gaara]

Yeah, if you work for a large company generally a network administrator will have a number of people working underneath them doing various tasks, and you merely coordinate them so to speak. Obviously a network admin is such a broad term, but a LAN network admin will generally:

-assess needs of the company and acquire the proper hardware/software that the company needs. This includes PC, network equipment, periphirals like printers and such, and software such as operating system and office etc.
-setup and maintain these services, which basically means setting up all the computers to work under the network, make sure they're working properly, and keep them up and running. This means you have to know how to troubleshoot hardware problems, software problems, network problems. You need to be able to make cat5e cables rather readily.
-data backup, most corporate networks will use a client server where all info is stored so it's basically your responsibility to ensure minimal downtime and make regular data backups and whatnot
-possibly also experimenting with cracking/hacking into the network through external means, to find exploits or security holes in the network so they can be fixed

So basically I guess you can summarize it as basic maintenence and security procedures. It's really a few hundred smaller tasks if you want to get technical

[mikesgroovin]

For a rather large company, I was in charge of a couple of cities only (Seattle and Portland).

My responsibilities were:

1) Weekly maintenance of the servers: Backups, Viruses, Defragmentation, Cleaning, etc.

2) Wireless client setup: Basically anytime a new client or laptop was added I had to instruct the user how to use different profiles for the cisco wireless cards we handed out.

3) Router and Managed Switch Replacement/Maintenance: Anytime corporate instructed me to do something with them...I would....otherwise I wouldn't bother with them.

4) Interact with Corporate when new Viruses enter the WAN (Worldwide)

5) Make sure images of all machines in LAN (Seattle only) were up to date.

6) Cable runs: New and Re-Runs... This happened from time to time because I'm a little anal and the offices were a mess when I started.

7) General computer support for end-users in both offices: I tried to perform this as remote as possible simply because people ask too many questions when they are looking over your shoulder....and I can't help but chit-chat.

8) Constantly make PDFs on how to do certain things so that if an end-user emailed me with a question, I could easily reply with a link to the PDF I made instead of re-inventing the wheel.

9) Add to the weekly office meetings with updated input..etc.

10) Test equipment CONSTANTLY: You never know when your boss is going to ask you "Hey, what do you think about these External backup drives, or this Wireless Gateway for the office.....etc"
So, every week (almost), I would go to Fry's/Best Buy/etc and buy a lot of random equipment. Then after testing, make personal reviews on functionality/cooling/etc.
I didn't "have" to do this, but due to deals we made for restocking fees, I had nothing to lose and did most of this in my free time (Most of this free time was while I was working on the clock )

11) I never really tried hacking or breaking our network. It was pretty vast and in order to get in you would've needed to start across the country and find your way to our office. They had several firewalls, etc and I wasn't too worried about it considering the corporate office's IT staff. But, I did hack/break/stress test our own wireless network. I managed to break it once but it took me about 34 hours to do it. No one in their right mind would've tried that for access to financial spreadsheets and random memos. Even if they would have, I setup our wireless gateway to disconnect everyone from the network every 24 hours. (Unless someone told me that they would've been connected for an extended period of time). This would essentially break or start any brute attack over in it's tracks unless they coupled their log files within the next attack.

12) Make sure that I emailed the local office "Boss" every few days to update him with my jobs/statuses/etc to ensure satisfaction....and to let him know that I was actually working.

[Nick]

it actually looks like quite an interesting job, im pretty poor at networking so probably not for me!

[decrypted]

what degree did you get in college mikesgroovin? or what areas did you study and what not? i'm kinda interested in this also

[Altechie]

For network administrator abilities I would say, Anything that has to do with electronics you should knowhow to fix. It may sound crazy but a friend of mine was always asked to fix phones, televisions, projectors and everything else electronic.

---

Mike,
I must ask. As you had to deal with Cisco routers and the various. In everything you have seen. Is Cisco the most used in networks?

I had to drop out of my Networking Course but the only course I missed was Cisco and I am in question weither I should put down 2000$ and do Cisco till CCIE

[mikesgroovin]

Originally Posted by decrypted

what degree did you get in college mikesgroovin? or what areas did you study and what not? i'm kinda interested in this also

Wow... just saw this today .... meanwhile 5 months later.....

I didn't go to college. Just Cisco Academy.

[mikesgroovin]

Originally Posted by Altechie

I must ask. As you had to deal with Cisco routers and the various. In everything you have seen. Is Cisco the most used in networks?

I had to drop out of my Networking Course but the only course I missed was Cisco and I am in question weither I should put down 2000$ and do Cisco till CCIE

It really depends on the network... So, take all of your small businesses and pile them up with all the equipment from larger or more profitable companies (ones that can afford Cisco gear and/or have the need for it) I would say given the amount of small businesses I've worked with.. the answer would be No. Cisco was in about 25% of the networks that I have worked on... and this is simply because smaller companies/home businesses just don't need to place certain technologies into their business. The price really can't be justified.

Long term though, Cisco is not going downhill any time soon. So yes, I would invest time/money into them.