Choosing a band name: The Armadillos
In the ongoing crusade to find new band names inspired by concepts related to information technology here at Respond2, let’s talk about Systems Administrators.
There’s a reason why systems administrators have the reputation of being hard-nosed, inflexible jerks who control your company’s information infrastructure. There’s a reason why the cover of O’Reilly’s “Essential System Administration” book has a picture of a well-armored armadillo on it. There’s even a reason for the plethora of amazingly satisfying fiction written about the weird, rage-filled escapades of systems administrators.
Aside from this, system administrators are here to stay. They are our only bridge between our imaginary world of business and the imaginary world of computer engineering. We couldn’t do what we do without them and the incredibly complex sets of systems they maintain. After all, somebody needs to start twitching uncontrollably whenever there’s a hint of a power outage.
To be a good systems administrator, one really does have to resemble something of an armadillo. It takes a very special person to fend off well-intentioned, disastrous suggestions from people in power who don’t have the time to understand the details of their server farm. An iron will is required to patiently explain to the boss what can and can’t be done with limited budgets. A person has to be made of pretty stern, flexible stuff to fight off the misconceptions spread by marketers while seriously considering genuinely new ideas as they come along. Metaphorical plated armor is a must, which means a good system administrator makes a dinosaur-like impression on people who are expecting exciting, neon-lit, techno-geek gadgetry from cool, googley-eyed IT staff.
In honor of all the hard-nosed, inflexible, well-armored, weird, rage-filled, twitchy people who proudly call themselves sysadmins, the band name of the day is The Armadillos.
