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This is a share on a great Reddit post I just read that I think just about everyone should read over who expect to change positions or looking to move up the ladder into more technical positions into IT. It’s a point that I’m sure many in the Powershell group here would also agree too…

If you aren’t automating, you’re at risk of getting left behind.

This was posted by u/therealskoopy who expanded on his post here ( Reddit - Dive into anything ) regarding Sys Admin job descriptions and how broad the skills are getting. As many of us know in our day-to-day, we are always being asked by management to get more done with less. Heck, at my last job, the CEO was concerned about my proposal to get some automated vulnerability assessments going with a tool because he didn’t want to hire anyone to keep up with that and the daily IT tasks I had to do. What’s a Sys Admin to do? Automate of course! And with that is growing trend of DevOps!

To solve modern problems back in 2005, Google was developing borg, an orchestration engine to help scale their infrastructure to handle the rapid growth and demand for information and services, and in doing so developed a methodology for handling service development and lifecycle. Today, we call this DevOps. 12 years ago, it had no name and was simply what Google did internally to manage the vast scale of infrastructure they needed. Today (2019) they are practicing what the industry refers to as Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) which is a matured and focused perspective of DevOps practices that covers end to end accountability of services and software... from birth to death.

“Eww, DevOps!” you may be saying. And yes, it’s a over-used buzzword that has stuck, just like “Cloud”, but it isn’t going away, and that’s for a reason.

Agile and Scrum is warm and fuzzy BS
Agile and Scrum are labeled practices much like DevOps that are used to get people to talk their their fucking customers, and stay on time with delivering promised features. Half the people out there don’t practice it correctly, because they don’t understand the big picture of what it’s for. This is not a goldmine, this is common sense.

Automation is here to stay, but you might not be.
Tooling aside (I am not going to get into all the tools that are associated and often mistaken for “DevOps”), each and every one of you needs to be actively learning new things and figuring out how to incorporate automation into your current practices.

The key about this is one of the arguments about the myths of automation that I think sums this shift up quite well.

“Abstract, reduce complexity, automate, and enable yourself and others to work on harder problems instead of doing the same shit over and over. You already identified that your workload isn’t getting lighter. So get ahead of it. There is always a person who needs to maintain the automation and robots. Be that person.”

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/cdlar7/psa_still_not_automating_still_at_risk/

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My issue is I use a lot of technology that can’t be automated. Otherwise I would be all for it.

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For situations like that, there would be other ways to automate. Perhaps the requests for that software, or automating other responsibilities.

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We actually don’t do any repetitive tasks that would benefit from automation. Although, our data processing is pretty much all automated, but it was like that from the time the processes were developed. They ingest data, process it, and pass it along for dissemination.

That’s not to say that the advise isn’t sound; continual improvement is the only way to continue to be relevant… especially in IT. I’ve scripted up a handful of tasks to save myself time, but I honestly do them so infrequently that the time spent on writing them hasn’t even been recouped yet.

Interesting read through and good to know information. I will certainly revisit it later to refresh and read completely.

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It sucks for people who aren’t in an organization where automation and orchestration is necessary or even possible. IT pros in SMB? I mean sure there’s some automation you can create in Powershell, but really, all this enterprise orchestration, config management, etc. is something many IT pros won’t see unless they spin it up in a lab at home. It’s a little disheartening to hear that those folks are going to get “left behind,” though the onus is on them (including myself) to continue self-learning so when the time comes, at least you have SOME hands on knowledge.

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It’s a good point to be made, that automaton only adds so much value, especially for rare requests. It immediately reminded me of the XKCD comic.

automation.png

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Having some exposure and having a few scripts, even if they are basic, will still go a long way to show the interest. After all, job descriptions are wishlists by the company and few can say they 100% match them when they apply, but if you’re able to speak during an interview what experience you do have, it’ll look better than the person who said they haven’t done it.

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I’d be happy to have just ONE thing automated.

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What about automating when a ticket is created, a response is sent.

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I can’t imagine working somewhere where I couldn’t continually improve the environment, workflows, processes and projects by automating things.

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I think if all you’re doing is coming in and automating the daylights out of everything… that isn’t the right answer. I think trying to skirt by nowadays without a working knowledge of automation methods (specifically, PowerShell), though… that’s a huge no-no. If you don’t currently know PowerShell, you should have it on your radar to learn. I’ve noticed some software vendors, namely MICROSOFT, not even bothering to include all of the features in their package because the rest can be done via CLI. So if you’re strictly GUI-based as an admin, you’re going to be in trouble.

Depending on the type and size of your company, there is still a lot of hands on and need for some human interaction. If you’re working for Google though… yea, they just need you to automate something and keep yer spicehole shut.

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Reminds me I need to dive into Powershell more. I think I read a post once about someone automating about 75% of their job. That just allowed them to have more time for learning how to automate the rest of their job. I think if I tried to automate my job I’d just spend time troubleshooting the scripts.

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wanna_see_the_code_2x.jpg
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When you automate, automate well.

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To be brutally honest, I think some folks aren’t looking hard enough. I work for a family owned and run father-&-son manufacturing and retail SMB. These are salt of the earth, metal working people who wouldn’t know a NAS from a terminal server if you put a gun to their heads and our infrastructure is from yesteryear. I am one of two IT people for the entire company and I have automated the SH*T out of everything I could find with PS. I’ve literally written or customized hundreds of scripts in the last year and a half covering everything from a set of massive employee on- and off-boarding scripts, to Exchange management, through networking tools, to automated email-reminders, through minor backups & file manipulation, to Windows imaging, tasking, and cleanup. Some of our systems are so old that there is no way to address them with PowerShell, but that hasn’t stopped me from finding other things to automate.

I’m not trying to insult anyone in any way. I’m really not. But, I think it’s easy to say that there’s no way to do it when, in my admittedly worthless opinion, the problem seems more a lack of interest with many. I came from a programming background before I became a SysAdmin. So, not only is scripting easier for me, I actually do it for fun and to pass the time. For others, programming is, literally, an alien language. I get that. But, I think some folks let themselves get intimidated by the idea too easily when there is no need. PS is very forgiving in many ways, compared to many other languages, and basic yet powerful operations are simple to learn. But, the interest needs to be there. In the modern era, automation of one type or another has always been, and will continue to be, the wave of the future. As stated, if you don’t at least learn the basics now, you’re going to get left behind, eventually.

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Being able to automate tedious, repetitive tasks is an awesome thing that does save a lot of time and provides a great sense of accomplishment. While it can and does take me a bit to get those things working, it is well worth it in the end. Using automation that other folks have done the hard work for and published is awesome too!

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Can we automate the process for dealing with a dead body?

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Someone is on a watchlist now. :stuck_out_tongue:

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You touched on a point for me. I am a HUGE GUI user. Somehow I prefer GUI to a blue screen. That said Dimforest, you are right.I should work harder on my PowerShell abilities. which I have started playing with and trying to comprehend.

@dimforest

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How about an automate for shock therapy button to send to users… lol

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It reminded me of an xkcd comic too … only it was a different one.

is_it_worth_the_time.png(source: xkcd: Is It Worth the Time? )

… and these numbers are based on the time saved over 5 years. If the task you are automating will likely change before that time, you will have to apply an estimated amount of time that it would take to make changes in the automation accordingly in addition to the time it would take to do the initial work to see if it was worth it. Well, either that or just divide these numbers by 5 to just see if it balances over the course of a year instead.

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