Technology Toolkit

A number of people use the terms ‘Network administration’ and ‘System administration’ interchangeably. However, there is a subtle difference between network administration and system administration. While network administration is more to do with the administration of devices, software and hardware that form the network; system administration deals with devices / computers that are connected to the network. So, you will have routers, switches, modems under network administration while computer systems, database servers, mails servers and other servers will be under system administration. But then, what do we mean when we say administration of networks and systems? Let’s take a quick look…

System administration activities include things like installing software or software updates/patches on computers and servers, planning outages, pro-actively responding to security threats, providing solutions related to the users’ problems etc (e.g. problems related to mail servers, databases etc). But here, it is important to state that system administration activities don’t include application development or programming which is more characteristic of a software engineer’s profile. However, the system administrators are expected to have in-depth knowledge of all the applications, software and hardware from the perspective of their installations, configurations, known-problems and trouble-shooting.

Network administrators are expected to set-up networks and fix all networking-related problems that the users (that are connected to the network) might face. Network administrators work very closely with system administrators (unless the network administrators themselves are playing the role of system administrators too). Typically, the first thing that a network administrator would do is set-up the network i.e. set up or configure routers and switches and get all the users plugged into a network. They might create a wired network or a wireless network – as per the requirements of the organization. Network administrator will create the security and access policies for networks. So, network administrators will control who is able to access what part of network and using what credentials.

The network administrators also need to be on their toes when it comes to security threats. Proactively preventing attacks on the networks, quickly responding to such attacks and preventing their propagation on the network is the job of network administrator. Setting up firewalls and monitoring them is also part of network administration.

It’s worth noting that besides LAN (local area networks), the network administrators also administer WANs (Wide Area networks) and virtual networks. With the frequent changes in technology, the network administrators have to be up-to-date all the time in order to ensure that the networks are robust and efficient.

However, many small organizations have a single person doing the job of a system administrator as well as network administrator. But then you also have organizations that have full-fledged IT departments with all the roles separated out to form a complete team – database administrators, web administrators, security admin, etc. In that sense, there are specialization and super-specialization areas with the system and network administration field.

So, what is better from a career perspective – system administration or network administration?

The quick answer is – a combination of both would be the best in today’s context. There exist a huge demand for such people who possess a combination of network administration and system administration skills. And, in any case, there is a large overlap between network and system administration; so, it makes a lot of sense (and it will make your job easier) if you know both.