The responsibilities of the
primary system administrator are defined in the current job description for the
position. However, in this section we will
outline the major areas of responsibility, as well as, some of the necessary
daily responsibilities borne by the primary system administrator.
The primary system
administrator of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology (CCB) LAN is
ostensibly the “owner” of the CCB LAN.
The primary system administrator takes ownership and responsibility for
all technical, planning, operational and security issues concerning the
LAN. This includes, but is not limited
to the servers, workstations, network cabling and network hardware. The primary system administrator is also the
primary contact for account holders on the CCB LAN who are in need of technical
support.
It is the
responsibility of the primary system administrator to maintain the LAN in
“state of the art” condition. Toward
that end, the primary system administrator is routinely expected to assess the
quality and reliability of existing hardware, software, operating systems and
network components that comprise the LAN, and make recommendations for upgrade
or replacement where necessary.
The
primary system administrator has a myriad of responsibilities that must be
attended to on a regular basis. The
following are some of the more critical items:
·
Server backups – The primary
system administrator is responsible for conducting and verifying the validity
of daily tape backups of the servers.
This process is described in more detail in the section entitled “Tape
Backup Procedures”.
·
Electronic Mail – The primary
system administrator is to ensure that the electronic mail capabilities of the
server are operational at peak performance at all times.
·
User Support – The primary
system administrator represents the “first line of support” for account holders
on the CCB LAN. In situations where the
primary system administrator cannot readily answer technical questions or solve
technical problems, it is his/her responsibility to use all available technical
resources to discover and relate a solution back to the user.
·
Network Monitoring – The
primary system administrator is responsible for monitoring the state of the
network and general network throughput.
Any serious degradation in performance of the network should be diagnosed
to the extent possible. All unresolved
network problems should be reported immediately to the RUCS-TD Network
Operation Center at (732) 445-2351.
·
Security – The primary system
administrator also acts as the security officer for the CCB LAN. It is his/her responsibility to investigate
and resolve unsuccessful login attempts, intruder detection lockouts and
compromised passwords.