New Sys Admin job...Where do I begin?

I'm looking for some general advice here. I've decided to take my first job in a lead sys admin position...I don't start until next month, but in the meantime I'd like to prepare for the position.

For those of you that have walked into this role at some point in your career, what were your primary objectives on Day 1?

The end users for the company use a mixture of 4-5 different distros of Linux in addition to both Windows and Mac. This is obviously a cumbersome environment to support so I'll likely see if I can limit the users to a single distro of Linux, in addition to Windows which will have setups controlled by AD, and all Macs configured on a single version.

Ensuring they have a good backup solution in place is where I think I'm most likely to concentrate my efforts immediately. After that though, I'm not sure what the most important objectives should be. What do you guys think?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I'm surprised that there are so many jaded answers here. Here's my $0.02.

• First, relax. You're in your first more senior gig and have all sorts of new challenges.
• Second, buy and read Limoncelli's The Practice of System and Network Administration
• When you start, remember that you're an outsider looking in. That's cool because you're coming with no baggage -- you can assess and observe to learn about the environment. Just remember that you don't know everything, and act that way. Don't be a "soup nazi".

When I did something similar at a small company, here's what I did:

• Observed and dug into everything for a couple of weeks.
• Identified and started stabilizing applications/systems that were going to be troublesome soon. In my case, our main database had a critical issue that would have completely crashed it.
• Started a "security audit" to cover most everything IT. I ended up finding all sorts of interesting stuff, including a modem bank that was being used by former employees as an ISP. (This was back in 2000.)
• Assigned various tasks to the folks on the team as "deliverables" and started learning about how they worked.

Start by not changing anything. STart documenting at least for yourself and think about changes. Give it a month, then slowly propose changes. But do not jump in head start. How high up the food chain will you be?

The end users for the company use a mixture of 4-5 different distros of Linux in addition to both Windows and Mac. This is a like to support so I think I will limit the users to a single distro of Linux, in addition to Windows which will have setups controlled by WSUS, and then the damn Macs will be on the same build.

WSUS does nmot control setup ;) Sorry - do you know what you talk about?

That said - the number of lnux distros for USERS (i.e. does not even take servers into account) is too high. Consider getting rid of Linux altogether if it makes financial sense (Windows is not that expensive). Same for Macs, long term - especially Macs. There is a reason mac has a small corporate market share.

That said, Windows - check licencing. Do they buy bulk (SELECT PLUS) or blue boxes in stores (which surprising amounts of stupid sysadmins do)?

I also think ensuring a good backup system is in place is an absolute necessity. I'm not sure how exactly they have the backups being performed now, but that will be a necessity to get taken care of.

Consider NOT doing backups for users. I have done so in a couple of companies. Important stuff belongs on a server. Point. Documents folder in windows redirected etc. So the user workstation is pretty irrelevant (fast setup anyway). No need to back it up.

The company's IT operations seem a bit unorganized so I know I will need to work to setup processes..

I suspect the first thing you may need to do is try to avoid making assumptions about what you may believe they need and instead try and figure out why things got to the point it is.

For example if they hired you as a senior system administrator, are you sure there is even an expectation that you will start doing desktop support tasks?

I suspect I would start by putting out fires as needed.

But as your first project work on making sure any documentation is up to date. Get to a point where you have a thorough understanding of the way things are currently working. Without a good understanding of how things are currently working how could you possibly start proposing major changes and know if what you are suggesting will be an improvement?

• If they don't a wiki or something for network documentation set one up.
• Select some kind of tool for logging changes you make.
• Try and start collecting baseline performance data for any critical system or servers.
• Figure out if they have good monitoring system(s), and set that up.
• If they don't have a issue management system put that into place immediately, even if it is as simple as mailbox where requests will be sent.
• As you mentioned learning how the backups work and improving that is a pretty safe project. It will be a very good thing to know you have something to restore from before you start making lots of changes.

I don't agree that you should try to get rid of Mac/Linux. Unless those OS choices are negatively affecting those users productivity, it would make more sense to allow them to use the OS that grants the most productivity which in turn leads to higher profits, which makes your boss and the company happy.

I do agree that you should go in, document, diagram, assess before making any changes. Based on the question, if you were going to work for me as a Sr. anything and I saw you asking Jr. questions like this, you probably would have your offer letter rescinded.