Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!emory!utkcs2!de5
From: de5@de5.ctd.ornl.gov (Sill D E)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.large
Subject: Re: Difference between "operator" and "system administrator"?
Message-ID: <1990Oct26.160226.29754@cs.utk.edu>
Date: 26 Oct 90 16:02:26 GMT
References: <680@dynasys.UUCP>
Sender: news@cs.utk.edu (USENET News System)
Reply-To: Dave Sill <de5@ornl.gov>
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Lines: 31

In article <680@dynasys.UUCP>, jessea@dynasys.UUCP (Jesse W. Asher) writes:
>The question was:  What
>is the difference between a system administrator and an operator?

A system administrator knows what he's doing?  Oh, you mean it's not a
joke?  :-)

Seriously, the system administrator is the one that tells the operator
what to do and when to do it.  In a short seminar I gave recently on
workstation system administration, I defined system administration as:

    "The set of scheduled, unplanned, one-time, and periodic tasks
     that must be performed in order to provide a secure, reliable,
     and available computing environment for a group of users."

This definition includes everything from procurement of hardware,
software, and maintenance, to performing backups, installing and
configuring, and troubleshooting.

The operator is a tool of the system administrator--if he's lucky
enough to have one.  Operators are generally responsible for
day-to-day operations such as backups/restores, adding/removing users,
etc.

In short, the system administrator is the "brains" and the operator
is the "braun".

-- 
Dave Sill (de5@ornl.gov)
Martin Marietta Energy Systems
Workstation Support