Network Administration

Network Administration

I have worked as a computer network administrator for over 5 years. I

have worked mostly with networks in a mixed Microsoft Windows NT and

Novell Netware environment. I am a Novell Certified Novell Engineer

(CNE) and I am a certified Novell GroupWise Administrator. I have

taken classes in configuration of Cisco routers. In this essay, I will

discuss the definition of a network administrator, the tasks and

responsibilities of a network administrator and share a day in the

life of a network administrator. For documentation on my credentials,

I am including my certification certificates.

What is a Network Administrator?

A network administrator is one who maintains and troubleshoots your

computer systems. Depending on the size of your organization and the

complexity of your technology, a network administrator's job can range

from ten hours per week to full time. There are some obvious network

administration tasks, such as installing or upgrading system software

and managing user accounts and disks space, so you probably have some

idea of what an administrator does. The International

Telecommunications Union (ITU) is a consortium of telecommunications

companies worldwide who have, among other things, defined a series of

recommendations that describe how a telecommunications management

network (TMN) should be operated. The ITU members have adopted a model

of management functions that I think is of interest to us because it

provides a framework that we can use to understand the role of the

network administrator. This function model is often referred to as the

FCAPS model after the initials of each of the major functions it

describes.

TMN function Naive description

Fault Management: Fixing what is broken.

Configuration Management: Controlling the operational parameters of

something so it works the way you want.

Accounting Management: Knowing who is using how much of what, and

maybe billing them for it.

Performance Management: Making sure it all works acceptably quickly.

Security Management: Controlling who can do what.

The idea is that just about any network management task can be said to

belong to one of those management functions. For example, plugging a

patch-lead back in after it has fallen out is fault management,

introducing a firewall onto your network is a security management

t...

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...workstation can be put

back in service elsewhere, the administrator would possibly format the

drives (effectively erasing all the previous data) and reassign the

workstation in a position that is less demanding than the previous

one. I have found that installation of new workstations not only makes

the end user more productive, but generally the task of administering

the workstation is easier because of the improvement in technology

i.e. newer operating system. Some administrators have found it useful

to sue a procedure called "ghosting" to speed up the process of

setting up multiple new workstations. When this process, a workstation

is configured with general setting sufficient for most users. Special

software is used to "copy" an image of that configuration. When a new

workstation or workstations is needed to be configured the imaged is

then copied to the hard drive. For this procedure to work, the

workstation must have the same or very similar hardware as the

original workstation the image was copies from. Otherwise there will

be multiple errors and the administrator will spend time more

correcting errors than he/she would have doing the configuration

manually.