Enterprise Applications Administration

The Definitive Guide to Implementation and Operations

Jeremy Faircloth

• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780124078871
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Databases
• Index: Computer Science

Enterprise Applications Administration prepares you for the full breadth of work associated with administering large enterprise applications. This book provides essential information on tasks such as operating systems administration, network design, system architecture, project planning, working within a team, protecting the network, and how to keep applications up and running. The book effectively bridges the gap between what is taught in the technology-specific literature and the real world of enterprise application administrators.

• Provides a general understanding of all key knowledge areas needed by enterprise application administrators
• Bridges the gap between technology-specific literature and the actual work being performed by enterprise application administrators
• Shows how to define and standardize processes and documentation to make enterprise application administration easier and more consistent

Chapter 1

Introduction to Enterprise Applications Administration

Chapter 1 is a crash course into what an enterprise application is and what enterprise applications administrators are and do. This includes an overview covering the purpose of this book and what the author’s intent is in writing it. This chapter defines enterprise applications, their role within corporations, and provides some examples of common enterprise applications. Moving past the enterprise application itself, Chapter 1 discusses the role of enterprise applications administrators and what that term means. This includes clearly defining some of the job roles associated with enterprise applications administrators, identifying services provided by this role, and noting specific tasks that are expected to be done by individuals filling the role. We also briefly touch on the various technical areas which enterprise applications administrators are expected to study, gain experience in, and understand and identify where these are covered in detail throughout the book.

Keywords

Enterprise application; enterprise applications administrator; support; maintenance; production acceptance; production control

Information in This Chapter

Purpose of This Book

Defining Enterprise Applications Administration

Enterprise Applications Administrators

Purpose of This Book

As the information technology (IT) field has grown over the past few decades, there has been a shift in the mind-set of those who work in this field. Early on, any IT professional had to have a solid understanding of electrical engineering, programming, networking, data storage, and all other aspects of the field. This later changed into a trend of specialization where IT professionals learned to be very deep in their knowledge of certain aspects of technology. This gave rise to titles such as “Network Administrator,” “Database Administrator,” “Developer,” and the like. This change toward specialization is identical to what has happened in other fields such as medicine where doctors can specialize in a specific type of medicine rather than be a general practitioner.

This shift toward specialization has its benefits as IT professionals are able to focus on a single aspect of the field, such as relational databases, and become true experts in that technology. However, that level of expertise comes with a cost. As your focus becomes more and more defined on a specific technology, your knowledge of other technical areas naturally tends to reduce over time. Eventually, you can become so specialized that you can no longer work in or understand other areas of IT.

This has become a big problem in the industry today, as there tends to be too few generalists who understand multiple technical areas and an overabundance of specialists who only understand one. At the point that you start to deal with applications across a corporate enterprise, the problem of specialization quickly becomes apparent. It is very common to run into situations where 10 specialists are all working on the same problem, but are unable to communicate amongst each other to actually solve the problem because none of them can speak the technical language of the others.

The growing trend to solve this is the evolution of “enterprise applications administrators” who have a breadth of knowledge across many technical areas and depth of knowledge in one or more. These administrators help to bridge the gap between various technical specialists and provide the knowledge and expertise necessary to facilitate solutions for applications across corporate enterprises. This “new breed” of technical professional brings the older concepts of generalization in the IT field into the present and effectively provides the glue to bond all of the other aspects of IT together.

To Teach

This book focuses on teaching IT professionals the breadth of knowledge and skills that are necessary in order to become an enterprise applications administrator. This involves all of the core technology areas of:

Networking

Servers

Operating Systems

Relational Database Management Systems

Security

Architecture

Process Automation

Monitoring

as well as the softer skills in the areas of:

People and Team Management

Documentation

As we look at each of these areas, we will discuss each at a medium level of technical knowledge. Again, the goal is not to be an expert in all of these areas but knowledgeable in all of them. Should you choose to gain more knowledge in one or more technical areas, that is excellent and will only serve to increase your skills. However, it is important to remember to maintain your knowledge across all of these areas in order to continue to be able to be a competent enterprise applications administrator.

Many longer-term certification programs such as Microsoft’s Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE) program or Cisco’s Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) program require a breadth of knowledge in a number of areas similar to what we will be discussing. These certification programs can absolutely help you in validating your IT knowledge across several areas; however, there are still limitations in their validation due to their vendor-specific focus. For example, you won’t run across many questions related to Linux systems on the Microsoft MCSE exam. It is certainly recommended that as you progress through your enterprise applications administration studies that you take the appropriate certification exams to demonstrate your knowledge, but it’s important to again recognize that breadth of knowledge is critical.

Therefore, one of the primary purposes of this book is to teach you not only the basic knowledge for each of the subject areas mentioned above but also to expand on each so that you can develop a better understanding of the technology and how each area relates to each other. The level of knowledge that we discuss may not be sufficient to pass a vendor-specific certification exam, but it should help you on your way to becoming a good enterprise applications administrator.

To Refine

It is expected that many of you reading this already specialize in at least one IT knowledge area and are looking to expand on what you already know. With that in mind, this book is organized into sections based on each technology area. Where it makes sense, you may find it valuable to skim the areas where you’re already an expert and focus more heavily on those areas that are new to you. However, it is recommended that you do at least skim the areas where you already feel comfortable, as we will be discussing how each technical area interacts with the others.

Through better understanding how each technical area interacts with others, you will be able to refine the skills that you already have and learn how to use them in new ways. In many instances, you can take your technical expertise in one area and apply the same troubleshooting or analysis skills into another. This cross-functional use of technical knowledge is one of the things that make enterprise applications administrators a highly sought-after technical resource.

If you already have a strong knowledge across all of the technical areas that are discussed in this book, you will probably still find value in our discussions on the softer skills required to perform enterprise applications administration. Whether it’s working with people, building a team, or putting together good documentation, these soft skills are absolutely necessary in the enterprise applications administrator role. Most technical books do provide a great deal of focus on the technical area that they’re addressing, but few show how that technical area bleeds into other parts of the role. Understanding those additional skill areas will help you to further refine what you already know and put it into practice in new ways.

To Standardize

We will also put focus into standardization throughout this book. This affects multiple areas of knowledge and is critical to becoming an enterprise applications administrator. In most cases, it is desirable that actions taken be consistent, repeatable, and reliable. For this to happen, all activities must be standardized as much as possible and precedent set to rely on those standards so that the process can be repeated. However, there are other standards that must be in place in order for standardized processes to even be possible. These include standardization of both terminology and documentation.

Terminology

As we look at standardization, we will focus on the three areas of terminology, documentation, and processes. Each chapter will not only include a deep dive into its topic area but also call out specific standardized terminology that will be used throughout the book. Part of the goal of an enterprise applications administrator is to be able to successfully communicate across other specialized teams. In order to do this, the same language must be used. Therefore, it is critical that as much attention is paid to the terminology used in a technology as is paid to the technology itself.

Just as in the medical or legal fields, IT has its own language, and many “dictionaries” exist which attempt to document this language. They are mostly successful as many terms do work across all areas in IT; however, what is often not noticed is that each specialty area in IT has its own distinct dialect of language as well. For example, “locking” to a database administrator would indicate that a record is blocked from access whereas to a system administrator, it would indicate a system hang.

As we discuss each topic throughout this book, specific terminology that relates to that topic will be used so that you can gain a general understanding of the terminology within that context. Where there is potential terminology confusion, this will be called out so that you can be aware of the term and its different meanings.

In addition to technology-specific terminology, there is also a need to standardize on general IT terminology. Many frameworks such as the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) exist primarily to help IT professionals align on a standardized way of communicating and referring to various functions and events. For example, the ITIL framework goes to great lengths to define the differences between an “incident” and a “problem.” While this may seem excessive, it’s actually quite necessary to have standardized terminology explicitly defined in this manner so that we can be 100% certain that we’re referring to the same concepts when having IT discussions.

This also aids us in being able to assign objective measurements to IT functions. For example, if you are attempting to justify the cost of additional headcount for an IT area, it can be incredibly helpful to be able to measure the value of filling that role. However, that measurement must be as objective as possible so that the need can be justified to groups outside of the one requesting the headcount. Being able to express that by filling a specific role, incident response time will decrease by 30% while being able to increase volume by another 20% can be more effective than simply stating that the team “can respond faster and handle more work.”

Processes

As previously mentioned, being able to repeat a set of actions consistently and achieve the same results is a key part of enterprise applications administration. In order to successfully achieve this, the actions must become part of a standardized process. When the actions are performed in the same way every time, the expectation can be set that there is less likelihood of an error occurring in the execution of this pr...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Chapter 1. Introduction to Enterprise Applications Administration
• Chapter 2. Networks
• Chapter 3. Servers
• Chapter 4. Databases
• Chapter 5. Information Security
• Chapter 6. Architecture
• Chapter 7. Enterprise Applications Administration Teams
• Chapter 8. Automation and Monitoring
• Chapter 9. Documentation
• Index