Should I Abandon Linux / Unix Sysadmin Work in favour of "the cloud"?

[reddog]

Background: I have worked for many years as a Linux / Unix Sysadmin, more recently I have ended up in roles that could loosely be called "DevOps".

My Question: I have recently skilled up in Cloud and got an AWS Architecture cert, from what I have seen of AWS/The cloud, Linux / Unix Sysadmin work will soon be dying off.

Should I focus all voluntary (i.e. in my own time) effort in expanding my Cloud skills? Is expanding my Sysadmin skills a waste of time?

[NickFitz]

Depends on whether you want to do Cloud Architecture or Linux sysadmin work

Your sysadmin skills presumably still have value, as the majority of servers running in AWS at any given time are Linux servers; they're just in somebody else's data centre.

But there's certainly money to be made in the CA field for the foreseeable future, and I suspect there are better rates there due to the presence of the word "architect" in the job titles.

So definitely keep up to speed on the AWS stuff, but don't abandon your bash skills just yet. Being able to do both will, I suspect, give you an edge over those who're blagging their way through on the strength of having listened to a podcast about CloudFormation

[Lance]

it depends...


HTH....


How the hell is anyone going to know the future with regards to your skills' future demand?
Only you have a chance of that as only you know your own skills.
Maybe your sysadmin skills will be sought after as every other fooker goes to the cloud.
Maybe you'll just be A N Other person who does cloud and cannot get a contract.
Maybe cloud will be the next big Y2K gravy train.

[LondonManc]

Hmm, time for a migration specialist? That would be a bullet proof outside-IR35 gig. Expendable specialist.

[reddog]

thanks for the answers so far - yes I appreciate that no one is psychic.

It is just that I was considering doing the Red Hat RHCE Certification, but I am rapidly coming to the conclusion I should abandon that in favor of Cloud / Docker / A Cloud scripting Language such as Ansible.

Doing the AWS Cert really opened my eyes to the possibility of "Serverless", I am really thinking in the future that we may not be logging to servers directly. Instead we would almost be seeing AWS /Azure / Google Cloud as the Opertaing System and Linux Server (or more likely Docker Containers) would be more like processes. Any thoughts on that?

[Lance]

thanks for the answers so far - yes I appreciate that no one is psychic.

It is just that I was considering doing the Red Hat RHCE Certification, but I am rapidly coming to the conclusion I should abandon that in favor of Cloud / Docker / A Cloud scripting Language such as Ansible.

Doing the AWS Cert really opened my eyes to the possibility of "Serverless", I am really thinking in the future that we may not be logging to servers directly. Instead we would almost be seeing AWS /Azure / Google Cloud as the Opertaing System and Linux Server (or more likely Docker Containers) would be more like processes. Any thoughts on that?

I have a thought. You're describing PaaS. Using more words than necessary.

[northernladuk]

Funnily enough the contractors I've seen that have the chushiest numbers tend to be the ones working on the legacy stuff. Clients chasing them, writing their own cheques, swanning about as they fancy. I seem to think they were more on the apps side though, a billing system for Oil/Gas that they just can't replace is one example I can think of.

They've been in and out of a client for years before I joined and will still probably be doing the same now. Not sure that's true for run of the mill admin stuff but work it right and there is a lot of good money to be made in the legacy world.

Every server room I've ever been in have a stack of kit in the back that are decades old and can't/won't be replaced. Someone has to look after them.

[Lance]

Funnily enough the contractors I've seen that have the chushiest numbers tend to be the ones working on the legacy stuff. Clients chasing them, writing their own cheques, swanning about as they fancy. I seem to think they were more on the apps side though, a billing system for Oil/Gas that they just can't replace is one example I can think of.

They've been in and out of a client for years before I joined and will still probably be doing the same now. Not sure that's true for run of the mill admin stuff but work it right and there is a lot of good money to be made in the legacy world.

Every server room I've ever been in have a stack of kit in the back that are decades old and can't/won't be replaced. Someone has to look after them.

I do quite a bit of legacy stuff, but the contracts are few and far between (for infrastructure anyway). It's all good knowledge to have, but current knowledge is what keeps the cash coming IMO.

[andyg]

Azure & Google Cloud

As an enterprise architect I see lots of legacy kit out there (IBM P series/HP/etc) which still require Unix/Linux skills. I'd suggest skilling up on Azure/Google cloud and then you have the options of cloud-based work and legacy. At the current gig the cloud techies (Azure) do spend time provisioning but not admin as that is done by Microsoft for UK South and UK West.
You can spin-up a tenancy and play around with privisioning new VM's etc