>From the clammy paws of Richard Stanford <richards@herald.net>
> We currently have a level five systems administrator working for our
First, be sure that you have a true level 5 sysadmin. Some vendors are
repackaging old level 1 and 2 admins as 5s using ResumePad v1.2 -- this
can cause you problems down the road.
> company. However, due to the very limited built-in documentation, we are
> not completely sure of what its capabilities are.
Several of these are self-documenting to some degree .. there are two standard
access methods.
1) cat coffee > sysadmin < idle-questions
2) echo "Write up your own performance evaluation" | sysadmin
The problem with number one is that you have to manually ask about each
specification, and the sysadmin won't volunteer information about other
facilities that it posesses (unless they're completely irrelevant). In
number two, you'll get a lot of positive output, but run the risk of the
sysadmin simply putting their name at the top and using it as a resume.
Another option is to sneak a look at their bookshelf, going into their
stack through a backdoor, so to speak. If there's more than one shelf
of O'Reilley books, you're probably onto a good thing. Caution: don't
be misled by unopened shrinkwrapped texts.
> We would like to stress test our level five to find out at what point it
> breaks so that we can avoid breaking it in the future. Does anyone have a
A good start for this would be a restrictive dress code -- suits and ties
really put a load on the average sysadmin.
> good routine to test it out with? I am particularly concerned with
If you're looking for the fastest failure rate, and you don't mind dealing
with a postal (Hi, Jon) and possibly runaway process, you could always place
it on your helpdesk queue.
> latency and io speed, but I also want to maximize throughput.
Latency is an issue when swapping between HomeState and WorkState. We've
got a workaround involving a cellular modem and a laptop, but it's kinda
clunky. We'd really prefer something integrated with the transport
mechanism ... anyone got any ideas?
IO can be a problem. To solve, I'd recommend the brute force method of using
as big an input pipe as possible (dual 21" monitors (nominal 34") make a good
input level).
Throughput generally isn't a big deal, unless you have a ContraryAdmin(tm).
These contain all the logic needed to tell whether a terse or verbose answer
to a question is required, and invariably flip the bit at some point between
solution determination and solution communication.
> Thanks in advance.
You're welcome, in arrears. Er. Well. You know what I mean.
-Richard
> Don't post messages that just say ``me too''.
I agree with this last comment.