COMPUTER AND NETWORK
SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION
CIS 5406-01
Syllabus - Spring 2006

 

Times, People and Places

Instructor:

Randolph Langley, langley@cs.fsu.edu 644-4290.

Time and place:

Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:30 PM until 1:45 PM in room 016 Love Building. Spring break is the week of March 6-10.

Office hours:

Tuesday 4:30 PM – 5:45 PM in 120 MCH

Thursday 4:30 PM – 5:45 PM in 120 MCH

Class home page: http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~langley/CIS5406-2006-Spring

Course Description

Computer and Network System Administration is an increasingly complex and essential field. The last four years have seen an upturn in the number of system administrators with the upturn in the economy:

2001: 227,840   (http://www.bls.gov/oes/2001/oes151071.htm)

2002: 232,560   (http://www.bls.gov/oes/2002/oes151071.htm)
May 2003: 237,980   (http://www.bls.gov/oes/2003/may/oes151071.htm)
November 2003: 244,610   (http://www.bls.gov/oes/2003/november/oes151071.htm)
May 2004: 259,320  (http://www.bls.gov/oes/2004/may/oes151071.htm)
November 2004: 262,930 (http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151071.htm)

The field has matured to the stage where professional bodies are being formed and institutions are being asked to provide courses in System Administration. This course is an attempt to provide a professional approach to the field, as well as an introduction to current technology.

Prerequisites

The following courses and skills are required prerequisite knowledge for this class.

• Undergraduate Operating Systems (COP 4610);

Although not required, you will likely do better in this class if you have

• Taken undergraduate computer architecture;
• Taken advanced UNIX/network programming;
• Skill in C programming;
• Skill as an advanced UNIX user, including the ability to program effectively in the Unix environment;
• Skill as an advanced Windows user; and
• Familiarity with networking concepts and applications.

Aims

To produce students who are capable of managing a multi-user networked computer system. This will include providing students with practical experience in

• Designing, installing, maintaining, and extending interconnected servers;
• Development of policy and procedures for users, administrators, and for regulatory requirements;
• Advanced UNIX management;
• Windows NT/2000 “commands” and management;
• Networking and communication; and
• Emphasis on independent problem solving skills.

Required Texts

UNIX Systems Administration Handbook, Third Edition, by Nemeth et al, Prentice Hall, 2001 (the purple book).

Mastering Windows 2003 Server, by Minasi et al, Sybex, 2003.

Assessment

ITEM	POINTS
Midterm (given on Tuesday, February 28th from 12:30 to 13:45)	25
Final Exam (given on Tuesday, April 25th, 10:00 to 12:00)	25
Problem Solving Assignments (Team Assignments)	20
Occasional quizzes, Take-home Question Sets	20
Final Paper (due on the last Tuesday of regular class, April 18th)	10

 

Class Topics

• Introduction to the profession
• Installing & booting multiuser operating systems
• Rebooting issues
• Clustering
• Drive layout and treatment
• Storage
• System Administrator's view of the operating systems
• Local and remote file systems
• Three layer architectures
• Computer hardware operating system-specific nomenclature
• Network hardware and protocols
• Directory Services
• System Administration tools
• Resource management and performance analysis
• Security
• Know your physical environment
• BCP, DR, COOP
• Structural and off-site backups
• Storage
• Change Management
• Clustering
• Drive Layout and Treatment
• Policies and Procedures and Exception Management
• System Design: Redundancy
  

Class Policies

Problem Solving Assignments

Notice that 20% of your grade is determined by the work done in the assignments. Due to the nature of the projects they must be done within the space provided in the Networking/SysAdmin lab (LOV 016). Since there are a limited number of computers, you will be placed in a team. The teams must consist of three or less people. The assignments are to be done by the team, and each member of the team will turn in an assignment writeup.

Guidelines for assignment writeup:

• State the assignment objectives.
• Provide, in a diary/journal format, the steps you took to do the assignment. Be sure to be brief in your explanation and judicious in your choice of including copy and pastes from interactive sessions.
• Mention lessons learned, especially those that come from making, finding and correcting mistakes. I am more interested in having you describe your learning process than having you detail every jot and tittle of the assignment.
• The writeups will be graded based on the correctness of content, clean layout, and use of proper spelling and grammar. Systems Administrators need to be able to relay written information in a concise, technical and accurate fashion.
• The writeups should be no more than two pages when printed on standard 8 ½ by 11 paper.
• You will need to apportion the work among individual team members.

Please turn in assignments on time. There will be a 20% per day (or part thereof) deduction for late submissions (all days, including weekends and holidays, count as days). Assignments can be turned in via email, in an appropriate format (it can be simple text, or a document in a common application format, such as Word, TeX, Excel, HTML, etc.).

Academic Dishonesty

Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated. Do not turn in other people's work as your own; this includes, but is not limited to, copying from web pages, other students' work, books, journals, or broadcast media. Citations and clear delineation of cited material from your own original work is mandatory. The Florida State University academic honor policy is at http://www.fsu.edu/~dof/forms/honorpolicy.pdf

Attendance

Attendance at all class meetings is expected. Although it will not be recorded, attendance and participation will have a strong indirect effect on your grade for the course. Please extend courtesy in class by arriving on time, staying until dismissed, and refraining from food and drink. You are responsible for all information explained in class, some of which may not be available in written or electronic form. I will not feel obligated to repeat announcements of future exams, assignments, schedule changes, question sets, pop quizzes, or hints on assignments. If you are forced to miss a class, it is also your responsibility to get class notes from a friend and check with me for handouts. I will use email and the class home page extensively to give out assignments and general class information.

 

Communication

You are required to check your electronic mail frequently for information about this course, as well as the class home page. Some assignments will require that you send me email, such as take home question sets. You are also encouraged to use email to ask questions and report problems.

Please advise me at your earliest convenience (within one week) if you have a disability that will require a reasonable accommodation for the successful completion of this course. Also, you should register with the and provide documentation to the Student Disability Resource Center, and provide me a letter indicating the need for accommodation and indicating what type.

If you are experiencing difficulty or are concerned about your progress, please speak with me immediately.

The above schedule and procedures in this class are subject to change
in the event of extenuating circumstances.