Network admin versus system admin. So what's the difference? Stay tuned in this video we discuss these two career paths. Welcome to Joshua's Tech Tips.
So in this video I'm going to give you an overview of what exactly is a network admin and a system admin. So perhaps you are in the IT industry and you're looking to specialize in a particular area. and you were looking at these two parts this video would give you an overview of what exactly are the responsibilities for these two specific job roles so starting first with network administrator so a network admin primarily is responsible for the organization's net infrastructure. So network infrastructure would comprise of switches, routers, firewalls, IP telephony, etc. So typically the network administrator would be responsible for configuring the these switches ensuring that the proper VLAN are configured on these switches also if you're dealing with routers in your organization ensuring that the proper routing protocols are set up on these routers whether it's OSPF or whether it's BGP if you're ISP also with firewalls ensuring that the proper security policies are in place the necessary access lists are configured the necessary ports are open in your firewalls are low traffic in and out from your organization.
And if you're dealing with IP telephony, ensuring that the PBX system is set up properly, your call manager, call tracking, you know, all these different things are configured properly. Some additional responsibilities of a network administrator would also include running of cable, whether it's Cat5, Cat6 cable, dealing with the patch panels in your organization, your comms room, you know, ensuring that all these things are managed properly. Even in the networking field, there's a lot of different areas that you could specialize in. So there are some people who just specialize in routing and switching, you know, especially in ISP environments.
You know, they specialize in BGP, MPLS, you know, OSPF. They just specialize in routing and switching. There are others who specialize specifically in voice.
You know, so they specialize in voice infrastructure and voice design and voice technologies. Also, there are others who specialize in voice technology. who just specialize in security they specialize in firewall implementation and design you know so it's a very interesting field you can never get bored in this field so moving on to system administrators so these are the individuals who are responsible for your server infrastructure in your organization so your server infrastructure would comprise of servers virtualization such as hyper-v or um vmware as well as storage such as SANs and network attack storage as well.
The server administrators are the ones who will deal with these different elements in your IT infrastructure. System administrators will also be responsible for active directory, administering active directory. You know, creating group policy, ensuring that the necessary policies apply to the different users. Also, if you have a Microsoft system center or SCCM in your organization, these are the people who are typically... be responsible for administering these systems.
Also ensuring that the organization software has the latest patches installed. You know making sure that if you're running Windows 10 or Windows 7, Windows 7 is end of life right now but if you're running Windows 10 ensuring that you have the latest patches for your operating systems and your antivirus in your organization. These are the functions of the system administrator. The both network admins and system admins will closely together and they're both part of the infrastructure team so both of these job roles work very closely together see now what they do could have a direct impact on each other so for instance if a network administrator you know he makes some changes to the firewall he adds a new access list so he closes a port this might directly impact a server that probably is using that port you know requires that port for communication similarly if a system admin needs to bring up a new server on the network or maybe they have a new network attached storage and they need to bring up they may need a different vlan configured on the switch or they may need a specific ip address or specific port open on the firewall you know and in that instance they will need to communicate with the network administrator you know to do these things to facilitate these things for them so which career path is right for you so i would advise you to probably if possible get your feet wet in both of them you know it's good to have a bit of knowledge and Both aspects.
For instance, myself, I was fortunate enough to have experience in both network and system administration. So I could do both, you know, I'm certified in both as well. I'm certified by Cisco and Microsoft.
in organizations before we you have to actually function in more than one rule where you have to do both network and system admin so for instance you have to be responsible for configuring the switches the routers etc as well as you'd be responsible for Active Directory, creating user accounts, doing Microsoft Exchange, email accounts, you know, all these different things. Whereas I've also worked in other organizations where if you're doing network administration, that's all you're doing. You're not going to be doing system administration or you're not going to be interfering with the firewall, you know. So different jobs, you know, require different things of, you know, the same job role at times, right?
But ideally, I would advise you. you try out both fields and at the end of the day which one you like you know because both of them are interesting career paths you can never really get bored you know but I would advise you to try out the both probably do your CCNA do your MCSE get certified in both get a better understanding of the technologies involved in both career paths and then make a decision so whereas it is good to be well-rounded and have an idea of both fields the real career development and you know whether the real big box size when you actually specialize in a particular area you know once you could find that niche and you specialize in it that's where you'll be able to elevate your career at a different level alright guys so that brings us to the end of this video if you like the content I've been creating be sure to LIKE and share this video as well as consider subscribing to my youtube channel and click on the notification bell to be notified once a new video is released. Thanks again for viewing, see you soon.