From the SAGE President

by Barbara Dijker
<barb@usenix.org>

Barbara Dijker is currently SAGE president. She's been sysadminning for about 12 years and runs a couple of ISPs.

In the past few months several projects and plans have started to come together. As a result, SAGE is coming of age — leaving behind its awkward adolescence and finding its own road.

In SAGE'S early years, there were many ideas and little focus. Over time, important projects were knocked off — those with the most broad support and someone dedicated enough to see them to completion. They include the SAGE section of this publication, the jobs-descriptions booklet, LISA-NT, the policy booklet, code of ethics, etc. Then there came time and need for reflection, focus, and strategy.

Within the membership there is probably still not a unanimous view as to whether system administration is a "profession," a "trade," or just a collection of programmers more interested in solving problems than cranking out code. However, despite not being formally adopted until 1997, the published stated purpose of SAGE has always been to "advance the status of computer system administration as a profession." As a result, SAGE has built a membership that is aligned with that purpose, to further the profession of system administration. Growing interest in efforts such as certification is an example of this.

Whether it is just time or a self-fulfilling prophecy, the end result is the same. SAGE is now in a position to really make headway in accomplishing the original stated goal. Aside from certification, there are other irons in the fire along these lines.

Education of system administrators will be getting a boost this year. We have the occupational-analysis research to support educational work. Thanks to Steve Johnson and the USENIX board, system administration is on the program for the CRA (<http://www.cra.org>) conference this July. The CRA conference is a unique opportunity to address academics about incorporating system administration into computer-science curricula. David Parter is coordinating that presentation.

Both education and certification are large projects. Add to them our long-standing jobs-descriptions document and the work Geoff Halprin has been doing on taxonomy. There is potential for these efforts to diverge as they progress. To prevent that and to gain momentum, there will be a summit before summer on those four areas of work. The summit will help lay some groundwork and foster communication among these projects.

Recognition is a key factor in "advancing the profession" and making certification viable. As part of a general mode shift, SAGE is engaging in a concerted public-relations and marketing effort. The goal of this effort is to raise the awareness of SAGE as an organization and system administration as a profession. This will support all the SAGE programs and endeavors. As part of this, SAGE acquired the sage.org domain. The SAGE Web site and those of other international SAGE groups can now be reached at <http://www.sage.org>.

The members of our profession are our best advocates. So one of our best means of raising awareness is expanding our reach of members. Thanks to many dedicated volunteers, more local groups and international groups are in the works. This year an effort is being undertaken to finally merge the U.S. and Australia codes of ethics into one common code acceptable to all. If you don't have a local group in your area, now is the time to start one.

Finally, we have some new energy on the executive committee. System administrators in particular tend to be overworked and overcommitted. As a volunteer commitment, unfortunately the SAGE executive committee may be one of the first to go when it is time to shed the load. We welcome Bruce Alan Wynn to the exec to finish out this term.

In addition to all of this, the usual work continues: conferences, surveys, publications, etc. If your job doesn't have you working 80 hours a week already, check the SAGE Web site for projects needing volunteers. As you would expect, everything SAGE does is the result of dedicated volunteers and hardworking staff. Where we are now simply wouldn't have been possible without the hard work of those who have gone before, paving the way.