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Joe St Sauver, Ph.D.
Director, User Services and Network Applications
joe@uoregon.edu
Occasionally, however, something goes awry and users (or even the institution as a whole) are negatively impacted. What can we, as a campus community, do to improve the overall quality of server administration? Are there things we should be doing systematically, but which we perhaps have overlooked or forgotten?
To help UO users take a structured look at this issue, the Computing Center has prepared a brief "Server Administration Self Assessment Scorecard" (SASAS). You can get a copy of the SASAS at http://cc.uoregon.edu/serveradmin.htm
The 37-item SASAS will systematically guide you through thinking about a host of areas that could impact the stability and availability of your server, including items relating to its hardware, operating system, accounts/passwords, application software, networking. staffing, and operational practices.
We encourage you to download a copy of the SASAS and review each of your servers at your earliest convenience. Because this is a tool for your self-assessment, we urge you to complete the SASAS candidly and self-critically, and to work toward remediating any deficiencies it may help you to identify.
What if you've completed the SASAS and your server's in fine shape according to the checklist? Does that mean you can rest on your laurels? Well, not entirely. Although it's great to learn that your server had a tip-top score, the SASAS is really just a starting point, an outline of areas worth thinking about. It is not meant to be a comprehensive replacement for a professional, detailed risk assessment or operational review.
Once the basics are out of the way, you may want to review a copy of The Practice of System and Network Administration by Thomas A. Limoncelli and Christine Hogan (Addison-Wesley, Boston 2002, ISBN 0-201-70271-1). This 774-page book does an excellent job of treating both technical and non-technical aspects of professional server administration practice in much more detail than is possible in a brief scorecard-type format.