8.2 - Systems Administration as a Self-Organizing System: The Professionalization of SA via Interest and Advocacy Groups

Abstract

This chapter describes the nature of systems administration as a self-organizing system. System administration is clearly shown to be a member of the engineering professions by the plethora of sysadmin membership organizations, each focused on particular specialties, credentials, or topics. Surprisingly, there is no overarching organization today that serves the entire system administrator (SA) community. Lacking a single vendor or institution both motivated and powerful enough to provide a structure for collaboration, early Unix system administrators had to build their own structures. The gradual coalescence of a cohesive SA community out of the mish-mash of academic, commercial, and government Unix environments was among the most fruitful of these bootstrapping efforts. Key players in the tiny but growing field of Unix system administration set out to channel their irritation and need for peer communication in a useful direction. Ultimately the strong research orientation of early users of Bell Labs' most viral software release would find expression in the peer-reviewed paper model. The system administration community encompasses a wide range of professional, social, and advocacy groups. The ad-hoc nature of group formation and membership somewhat echoes the self-taught aspects of pioneers in the profession.