Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky
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It's not unlike the front wheel drive vs. rear wheel drive problem on snow. Front wheel drive is less likely to get stuck in snow, but will also get you up to dangerous speeds really easily. No one actually struggles with getting a car to move, it's driving it well and not hitting things that is hard.
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@Obsolesce said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
So, what's the flip-side? I feel you only told half the story here.
The flip side is simply that good engineering is needed and people need to put in effort there. But at the end of the day, the needs and responsibilities of engineering is less than that of administration. It's not nothing, good engineering matters and we need people to take it seriously - and we need organizations to actually hold engineering accountable. Since probably effectively never arise until products are in production, it feels natural to hold admins accountable for the mistakes of engineers. Engineers toss the match over their shoulders and get to walk away. Organizations need to spend more time validating in real time what engineers do, not allow them to take the easy was out, and not leave them out of disaster discussions later.
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This thinking kind of excludes roles like SRE where the engineers and admins are the same. The companies where engineers are paid heavily is where that type of thinking exists.
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I think alot of the stuff you are saying is true, but that will always be the case with more senior roles. The contractors building and designing houses dont do the majority of the work. They are responsible, however, for knowing about each task is necessary to build a house. It's also very unlikely that these contractors havent done these jobs themselves before.
It's the same way in IT. Most people will not start in engineering roles or design roles. We never see these positions as entry level with zero experience.
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@scottalanmiller said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
Since probably effectively never arise until products are in production, it feels natural to hold admins accountable for the mistakes of engineers. Engineers toss the match over their shoulders and get to walk away. Organizations need to spend more time validating in real time what engineers do, not allow them to take the easy was out, and not leave them out of disaster discussions later.
Maybe in SMB it's like that. But in the larger places I've seen lately the world revolves around an Agile approach and constant feedback between stakeholders, admins, and engineers. There's thorough testing, test groups, pilots, and business pilots. Nobody is playing the blame game on admins that I've seen, not even a hint. The validation of what engineers are doing is huge from what I've seen. Though, definitely not in the SMB.
Maybe in the SMB you have 2 IT dudes, Engineer 1 and Admin 1.... Engineer 1 implements FreeNAS for the company's new storage solution and it fucks up because nobody knows what they are doing. But I can tell you that shit wouldn't wouldn't even pass as a concept in the Enterprises I've seen and talked to.
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Admin roles are also dying with immutable infrastructure and HA. Designing a system that is immutable and highly available isn't expensive or time consuming on the cloud anymore.
The cloud done right is always cheaper than on premise. The key being "done right" hence the shift towards engineers vs admins.
Admins are generally the ones fighting the cloud, because they could be out of the job.
Troubleshooting severs is completely different these days and done after the fact if you even care. Spin up a new VM and move the snapshot of the old one so you can figure out what happened if you care (most of the time you don't).
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@IRJ said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
It's the same way in IT. Most people will not start in engineering roles or design roles. We never see these positions as entry level with zero experience.
Same with administration, though. Admins require even more experience and knowledge to not be dangerous.
I'm actually saying that we see zero experience engineers everywhere, every day. It's the most common thing to have engineers have zero idea what's going on so much of the time.
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@Obsolesce said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
@scottalanmiller said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
Since probably effectively never arise until products are in production, it feels natural to hold admins accountable for the mistakes of engineers. Engineers toss the match over their shoulders and get to walk away. Organizations need to spend more time validating in real time what engineers do, not allow them to take the easy was out, and not leave them out of disaster discussions later.
Maybe in SMB it's like that. But in the larger places I've seen lately the world revolves around an Agile approach and constant feedback between stakeholders, admins, and engineers. There's thorough testing, test groups, pilots, and business pilots. Nobody is playing the blame game on admins that I've seen, not even a hint. The validation of what engineers are doing is huge from what I've seen. Though, definitely not in the SMB.
Maybe in the SMB you have 2 IT dudes, Engineer 1 and Admin 1.... Engineer 1 implements FreeNAS for the company's new storage solution and it fucks up because nobody knows what they are doing. But I can tell you that shit wouldn't wouldn't even pass as a concept in the Enterprises I've seen and talked to.
SMB "always" makes engineering an afterthought role of an admin. They hire admins, and have them do engineering for the itty bitty bit that is needed. Even a 300 person company might need under one week of engineering time a year. And any remotely qualified admin can do the engineering in their sleep most of the time. So that's what the SMB does.
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@scottalanmiller said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
@IRJ said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
It's the same way in IT. Most people will not start in engineering roles or design roles. We never see these positions as entry level with zero experience.
Same with administration, though. Admins require even more experience and knowledge to not be dangerous.
I'm actually saying that we see zero experience engineers everywhere, every day. It's the most common thing to have engineers have zero idea what's going on so much of the time.
I have never seen a true engineering position that says zero experience required before. I frequent LinkedIn, glassdoor, and other job boards.
Have any you care to share?
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@IRJ said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
Admin roles are also dying with immutable infrastructure and HA. Designing a system that is immutable and highly available isn't expensive or time consuming on the cloud anymore.
That's not really a thing yet. People talk about it, but it's not out there impacting people in practice. And when you make things too immutable, you just shift the roles around and it all starts over again. Cloud really isn't here or there, it just shifts the names of things. But someone is still designing the initial system and someone (maybe the same person) is managing it.
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@IRJ said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
@scottalanmiller said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
@IRJ said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
It's the same way in IT. Most people will not start in engineering roles or design roles. We never see these positions as entry level with zero experience.
Same with administration, though. Admins require even more experience and knowledge to not be dangerous.
I'm actually saying that we see zero experience engineers everywhere, every day. It's the most common thing to have engineers have zero idea what's going on so much of the time.
I have never seen a true engineering position that says zero experience required before. I frequent LinkedIn, glassdoor, and other job boards.
Have any you care to share?
Sure you have. You see them every day. No one CALLS it engineering, but I already gave examples. For example... literally every FreeNAS ever deployed.
What would job boards tell you about this? You are using companies "titles" as a reference to their "roles". The two are rarely related.
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@scottalanmiller said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
@IRJ said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
Admin roles are also dying with immutable infrastructure and HA. Designing a system that is immutable and highly available isn't expensive or time consuming on the cloud anymore.But someone is still designing the initial system and someone (maybe the same person) is managing it.
Yeah so you don't have an admin here as you admit. You have an engineer designing the system and replacing the system if there is issues. It's all design and no maintenance. Maintenance is automated during build.
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Every system that exists has been engineered. Every one. Most companies don't have a single engineering titled person, yet every one has someone that did their engineering. Almost all of those use either a zero experience engineer and/or they have nearly full time admins doing engineering on the side as an afterthought. Those two approaches account for almost the entire market.
The market for full time, professionally trained, skilled system engineers represents probably only 1-5% of the entire engineering in IT effort that exists. If your company has an engineering role, then it's already an outlier statistically within the field.
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@IRJ said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
@scottalanmiller said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
@IRJ said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
Admin roles are also dying with immutable infrastructure and HA. Designing a system that is immutable and highly available isn't expensive or time consuming on the cloud anymore.But someone is still designing the initial system and someone (maybe the same person) is managing it.
Yeah so you don't have an admin here as you admit. You have an engineer designing the system and replacing the system if there is issues. It's all design and no maintenance. Maintenance is automated during build.
Not in the real world. That's a nice theory, but applies to effectively no one anywhere. In the real world, engineering almost always is a trivial effort that involves almost no time, skill or planning, and all the effort goes into years of administration that deals with that haphazard system.
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@scottalanmiller said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
@Obsolesce said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
@scottalanmiller said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
Since probably effectively never arise until products are in production, it feels natural to hold admins accountable for the mistakes of engineers. Engineers toss the match over their shoulders and get to walk away. Organizations need to spend more time validating in real time what engineers do, not allow them to take the easy was out, and not leave them out of disaster discussions later.
Maybe in SMB it's like that. But in the larger places I've seen lately the world revolves around an Agile approach and constant feedback between stakeholders, admins, and engineers. There's thorough testing, test groups, pilots, and business pilots. Nobody is playing the blame game on admins that I've seen, not even a hint. The validation of what engineers are doing is huge from what I've seen. Though, definitely not in the SMB.
Maybe in the SMB you have 2 IT dudes, Engineer 1 and Admin 1.... Engineer 1 implements FreeNAS for the company's new storage solution and it fucks up because nobody knows what they are doing. But I can tell you that shit wouldn't wouldn't even pass as a concept in the Enterprises I've seen and talked to.
SMB "always" makes engineering an afterthought role of an admin. They hire admins, and have them do engineering for the itty bitty bit that is needed. Even a 300 person company might need under one week of engineering time a year. And any remotely qualified admin can do the engineering in their sleep most of the time. So that's what the SMB does.
OKay, so the SMB only has "admins", who are designing their systems, administering them, and then taking the heat? Well yeah, can't blame the engineer if there isn't one, when it was the Admin who did set it all up.
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@scottalanmiller said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
@IRJ said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
@scottalanmiller said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
@IRJ said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
Admin roles are also dying with immutable infrastructure and HA. Designing a system that is immutable and highly available isn't expensive or time consuming on the cloud anymore.But someone is still designing the initial system and someone (maybe the same person) is managing it.
Yeah so you don't have an admin here as you admit. You have an engineer designing the system and replacing the system if there is issues. It's all design and no maintenance. Maintenance is automated during build.
Not in the real world. That's a nice theory, but applies to effectively no one anywhere. In the real world, engineering almost always is a trivial effort that involves almost no time, skill or planning, and all the effort goes into years of administration that deals with that haphazard system.
That's completely false. Engineering is almost always a trivial effort......
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@Obsolesce said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
@scottalanmiller said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
@Obsolesce said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
@scottalanmiller said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
Since probably effectively never arise until products are in production, it feels natural to hold admins accountable for the mistakes of engineers. Engineers toss the match over their shoulders and get to walk away. Organizations need to spend more time validating in real time what engineers do, not allow them to take the easy was out, and not leave them out of disaster discussions later.
Maybe in SMB it's like that. But in the larger places I've seen lately the world revolves around an Agile approach and constant feedback between stakeholders, admins, and engineers. There's thorough testing, test groups, pilots, and business pilots. Nobody is playing the blame game on admins that I've seen, not even a hint. The validation of what engineers are doing is huge from what I've seen. Though, definitely not in the SMB.
Maybe in the SMB you have 2 IT dudes, Engineer 1 and Admin 1.... Engineer 1 implements FreeNAS for the company's new storage solution and it fucks up because nobody knows what they are doing. But I can tell you that shit wouldn't wouldn't even pass as a concept in the Enterprises I've seen and talked to.
SMB "always" makes engineering an afterthought role of an admin. They hire admins, and have them do engineering for the itty bitty bit that is needed. Even a 300 person company might need under one week of engineering time a year. And any remotely qualified admin can do the engineering in their sleep most of the time. So that's what the SMB does.
OKay, so the SMB only has "admins", who are designing their systems, administering them, and then taking the heat? Well yeah, can't blame the engineer if there isn't one, when it was the Admin who did set it all up.
No one was about blaming them. The point being - it's not being treated as a discipline. It's treated as "well he's an admin, so he can just engineer, too" because generally everyone sees it as a trivial "tack on" to administration. They don't think about the fact that it's the engineering role, they just think of engineering overall as something not worth thinking about. That's the point - it's overlooked because people generally think of it as trivial and unimportant and easy.
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@stacksofplates said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
@scottalanmiller said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
@IRJ said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
@scottalanmiller said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
@IRJ said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
Admin roles are also dying with immutable infrastructure and HA. Designing a system that is immutable and highly available isn't expensive or time consuming on the cloud anymore.But someone is still designing the initial system and someone (maybe the same person) is managing it.
Yeah so you don't have an admin here as you admit. You have an engineer designing the system and replacing the system if there is issues. It's all design and no maintenance. Maintenance is automated during build.
Not in the real world. That's a nice theory, but applies to effectively no one anywhere. In the real world, engineering almost always is a trivial effort that involves almost no time, skill or planning, and all the effort goes into years of administration that deals with that haphazard system.
That's completely false. Engineering is almost always a trivial effort......
It's completely true and I've given example after example. In the real world, engineering is generally done without planning or resources and it works enough for people to accept it. Then all the effort is hoisted onto administration. You can argue, but you can't deny that this is what 95%+ of the market does.
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@scottalanmiller said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
@IRJ said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
@scottalanmiller said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
@IRJ said in Engineering vs Administration - That's what makes Windows and FreeNAS so risky:
Admin roles are also dying with immutable infrastructure and HA. Designing a system that is immutable and highly available isn't expensive or time consuming on the cloud anymore.But someone is still designing the initial system and someone (maybe the same person) is managing it.
Yeah so you don't have an admin here as you admit. You have an engineer designing the system and replacing the system if there is issues. It's all design and no maintenance. Maintenance is automated during build.
Not in the real world. That's a nice theory, but applies to effectively no one anywhere. In the real world, engineering almost always is a trivial effort that involves almost no time, skill or planning, and all the effort goes into years of administration that deals with that haphazard system.
Its definitely how SaaS providers work nowadays. We'd lose our shirts if we spent money paying people to do busy work admin tasks.
It's expensive and unnecessary in modern IT. I do agree that alot of places aren't doing it right today, but that's rapidly changing. The job market shows this and it's undeniable
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I'm flaborgasted that you guys thing that this isn't the most obvious thing ever, once it's been said. You all have been on this forum and others, you know that this is how the entire MSP market works, the entire SMB market, most larger companies. Engineering isn't given real respect, people with engineering titles are often not even engineers (tons of places use it as a rank rather than a role - the titles are actually backwards from reality) and almost no thought is put into it at all... to the point that almost no one even knows that an engineering would do versus an admin.
