on call system admin's?
I generally prefer to work for start ups and somehow I end up being the best thing the company has for a system administrator... Which honestly isn't that great, I know how to get a lamp configuration going, manage mysql & apache, and do moderate to advanced maintenance work, but at the cost of how much time I have left to actually write and maintain product software. So it's gotten me to thinking, the last five companies I've worked with usually have linux boxes that mysteriously avoid the roving script kiddy attacks... my all time favorite being my last employer where all the machines were lit up like gigantic neon signs saying "Script kiddy playground!!!" not going into it to much, but it had everything exposed (telnet, echo, finger, snmp, anon. ftp, unpatched bind with text entries , ...). I quit from that company shortly after wards.
Sure some companies like RackSpace do provided "managed" machines, but mostly with working with them over time, unless you've got a lien on your kidney and maybe part of your liver, the most they do is make sure the machine is still serving and not on fire. Every "programming" job I've had for the last three years has mostly consisted of 30%-50% of my time doing file cleaning, manual package management ( I've never really gotten a hang of Red Hat enterprise ). Sure there's time I am screwed like when I have to config. && make a package to add a needed feature or to push emergency security updates.
In a perfect world start up's could afford to have some *nix guru sitting in the corner, but most companies I've dealt with have fought with me on hardware specks... its just the nature of start up's. Still there has to be a decent market out there for freelancer system admin's that do say 12-20 hours a week per 1099 and with the nature of system admin work, really all you need is ssh and a phone to threaten the colocation facility with when ssh doesn't work.
Sure some companies like RackSpace do provided "managed" machines, but mostly with working with them over time, unless you've got a lien on your kidney and maybe part of your liver, the most they do is make sure the machine is still serving and not on fire. Every "programming" job I've had for the last three years has mostly consisted of 30%-50% of my time doing file cleaning, manual package management ( I've never really gotten a hang of Red Hat enterprise ). Sure there's time I am screwed like when I have to config. && make a package to add a needed feature or to push emergency security updates.
In a perfect world start up's could afford to have some *nix guru sitting in the corner, but most companies I've dealt with have fought with me on hardware specks... its just the nature of start up's. Still there has to be a decent market out there for freelancer system admin's that do say 12-20 hours a week per 1099 and with the nature of system admin work, really all you need is ssh and a phone to threaten the colocation facility with when ssh doesn't work.
