On 11-01-04 08:00 AM, Derek J. Balling wrote: > > On Jan 4, 2011, at 9:32 AM, Michael C Tiernan wrote: >> >> When something happens such as a server/data breach being noticed by the >> news system, it is then that we can piss-n-moan to each other about who's >> right, wrong, idiots, or saviors but then this person will produce a "Press >> Release" representing *all of us* in which the *roles of the system >> administrators* is discussed and clarified for the unknowing public. > > A common problem with this sentence is the "representing all of us" sentiment. > There's precious few topics which any position could be said to represent "all > of us". >
To me *this* is the problem. Period. We rarely come into agreement on anything, we do not have even the most basic set of best practices. If we did, then we could go to go to the press and say "in this particular case, what we see is a consequence of the sysadmins not following the best practices supported by our organisation." If we could say something like that, the press would be happy to talk to us. The press loves press-releases, as we provide them with 90% of the information, all they have to do is verify the information, and found counterpoints to it. I think part of the issue is that system administration is closer to an art than a hard science. There are no double blind study that proves that there will be adverse effects if you administrate a machine one way or another. Maybe what we should do is start to formally review what has been published so far, the books from Frisch, Hogan, Limoncelli etc... publications from vendors such as some IBM RedBooks and SUN Blueprints, and the very few academic paper written on the subject, and give them our approval. It could be the whole book, or specific chapters. We'd then keep track of that, and review on a regular basis for material that gets outdated. This approach would give a base to talk to the press and the public, but also to stand up to other sysadmins, managers, and auditors, possibly defend a fellow sysadmin or one of his victims in a court case and hopefully encourage more academics and professional to write good material. -- Yves. http://www.SollerS.ca/ http://images.SollerS.ca/ xmpp:[email protected] _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
