Differences between system administrators and network administrators

Network Management and System Administration

The aim of the paper is to establish the difference between a system administrator and a network administrator. The paper is thus divided into three sections. The first section deals with the basic definition and responsibilities of a system administrator; the second does the same for a network administrator and the third compares their responsibilities to clearly identify the differences between the two.

System Administrator

The maintenance of computer systems in a company is the sole responsibility of a system administrator. They are responsible for maintaining, upgrading and installing servers. They are also entrusted with the task of checking the security of the server and maintaining its backup as well. They are also involved in programming for automating tasks at the server. For this purpose, they write programs, also known as scripting (Schneider, 2012a).

Education criteria for System Administrators:

With respect to the level of qualification, mostly system administrators do not possess any academic domain or degree which they cans specialize in. Usually they possess a degree or diploma in Information System Management. Apart from technical education, it is also necessary for them to understand the business process, and to learn other skills such as communicating among staff (in technical terms as well as in non-technical terms), etc. Moreover, the understanding of project management is also crucial for a system administrator in order to perform in longer run (Schneider, 2012a).

System Administrator -- Career Path:

The career of a system administrator depends upon his/her own interest. For instance, if he/she has interest in security, then he/she can groom himself/herself in that specific area, and make his/her career accordingly. But when it comes to a senior level position, such as Chief Information Officer (CIO), it is necessary that he/she should possess skills like project management and strategic management, apart from the normal education prerequisite of Information System Management or Computer Science (Schneider, 2012a).

Comparison of a system and network administrator

The job responsibility of a system administrator and a network administrator may include the same elements. But, system administrator responsibilities are a subset of responsibilities of network administrator. Larger enterprises have distinct job designations to cater system and network, however, smaller companies tend to combine all the responsibilities into one designation. Following are some of the distinctions which differentiate network and system administrator functionalities (Morgan, 2010):

Function

A set of network configuration hardware utility is available for access for the network administrators including cables, modems and switches etc. It is their responsibility to keep the network up and running. Basically the system administrators do not excel in working out the hardware of the networks however they specialize in monitoring and configuring them on the software (Morgan, 2010).

Languages

IOS is the software language that network administrators have complete grip over. This language is used in CISCO devices. System administrators have command over other languages including perl, C++, PHP to keep the business support circuit working; the specific language acquisition for them however varies from organization to organization (Morgan, 2010).

Crossover

Both the designations have identical basic skills required but the specialization is the issue that matters. The network administrators specialize in configuring and monitoring IP addresses of computers, nodes and router etc. In a network. A system administrator on the other hand is not specialized in network setups, but can handle the basic structure if need be (Morgan, 2010).

Specialization

According to the organizational requirements, a network administrator will excel in certain areas of applications with a thorough understanding of other vendors, applications and services required to handle products like Juniper, Nokia Siemens. On the other hand, a system administrator covers broader and generalized aspects of management (Morgan, 2010).