Network Administration
Maintaining all the technology behind the scenes that makes an organization run is no small feat. IT needs fluctuate, change, and need constant monitoring and tweaking to stay at peak performance, which means it’s crucial to have a seasoned network administrator. This professional can ensure all these components—servers, data storage, Internet connections, user accounts, security protocols, email providers, firewalls, and more—are working in harmony like a well-oiled machine.
A network is your business’s lifeblood; when it goes down, so does your ability to be productive and provide a service to your customers. Ideally, you want a network that’s optimized to do what you need when you need it, with minimal downtime—and a network administrator is the professional trained to maintain that architecture for you.
“A system administrator is an essential member of a well-functioning company. System administrators ensure that all IT assets of a business work effectively, serving company employees best and streamlining company operations.” – System Administrator, A Secret Weapon to Keep a Software Company Organized
Businesses of all sizes need the help of a network admin at one point or another to maintain or expand their networks. And as businesses grow and change, so do requirements from their networks. While there are day-to-day tasks and incident response needs associated with network administration, you may need a dedicated network administrator for specific scenarios, whether that’s to help you scale up, overhaul, or switch services.
No matter what level of help you need, hiring a freelance network administrator is a cost-effective way to generate stability within your organization and help you develop confidence that the core of your business communication and data sharing will be reliable in times of high use and stress. Here’s a quick overview of what a network admin does and some tips for writing a job description that helps you find the best one for your needs.
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What does a network administrator do?
Network administration specialists are highly trained computer information technologists with plenty of experience in maintaining, securing and diagnosing business networks.
A network administrator can provide your organization or business with a variety of services, whether they’re day-to-day, incident-based, or general improvements. What you need from a network admin will depend on the current phase of your network’s life cycle, whether it’s scaling up to meet new bandwidth requirements or in response to a recent security breach. They can include:
- Network maintenance, and expansion
- On-site server management and/or servers deployed in the cloud
- Regular updates and maintenance to software, security systems, and software licenses
- Security—which can include firewalls, email filters, vulnerability and penetration testing, installing and updating security systems, training users on best practices, etc.
- System monitoring (for performance, security breaches, and data management practices)
- Setting up users, email accounts, security protocols, endpoint security, etc.
- Specific server operating systems (e.g., Windows, Cisco, etc.)
- Wireless network implementation and communication protocols
- Router management
- Hardware updates and implementation, if required
Many organizations use an incident tracking system to flag, prioritize, and delegate network issues that need resolving. Depending on the size of the organization, network administration can be a sole person’s responsibility or can be divided up between people and teams.
A note about certifications
There are a number of industry-recognized certifications for systems/network administration that make it easier to note the skill level of a potential professional such as CompTIA certifications, Cisco certifications, and Microsoft Certified Solutions certifications. A good network admin won’t need to have all of these, but having up-to-date ones is a good indicator they’ve got current skills and will be able to help you set up a future-proof network, not one that will be outdated and prone to failure, requiring you to hire another network admin to make fixes behind them.
Defining your network administrator project
The first thing you should nail down is what you need the network admin to do. As mentioned above, what you need from a network administrator is going to largely depend on the size of your network and where yit is in its life cycle. Do you have an existing network but are experiencing some performance issues? If so, you’ll want a network administrator to run an audit that assesses the health of your system and to then provide a plan for upgrading, augmenting, and expanding your hardware and software to beef up bandwidth. You might just need a network pro to troubleshoot some issues, or update a few systems. Or, do you need a network admin to handle day-to-day support tickets?
Provide a full list of all of the hardware, systems, software and security measures you currently have in place. If possible, generate a report about network traffic, performance, and how many servers, offices, and end users you have. Give as much detail as you can (e.g., is your system LAN?); this will paint a picture of what the network admin will be working with, and provide context around your project description. Finally, briefly explain your goals. What do you need their help accomplishing? What are your end goals—better performance, better security, more bandwidth?
Finally, you’ll probably want to specify for certifications to make sure they’re qualified and their skills are up to date. Good ones to look for include Cisco CCIE, Cisco CCNP, and CompTIA Network+. While not mandatory, these help ensure you’re getting a network admin who’s using the newest best practices. If you’re setting up a new network from scratch, filtering out the “old dogs with old tricks” will ensure your network is future proofed—not merely a functional but outdated network that’s likely prone to failure.
Writing a network administrator project description
Now that you’ve clearly defined your project deliverables, it’s time to write your network administrator project description. The description will determine the quality of the system administrator you’ll attract, so be sure to include as much context and detail as possible.
Be clear and succinct in your title and include any relevant technology they should know in order to work within your system. If you have enough information to provide a set list of deliverables, include those with any hard and fast deadlines you may have. Also, provide information about how you’ll give the professional access to your systems.
Note: For security reasons, you may choose to be vague or open-ended when describing your project, which is fine—just be sure to provide enough context so the candidate knows if he or she is a good fit up front, and can respond with a detailed enough proposal.
Sample Project Description
Below is a sample of how a project description may look. Keep in mind that many people use the term “job description,” but a full job description is only needed for employees. When engaging a freelancer as an independent contractor, you typically just need a statement of work, job post, or any other document that describes the work.
Title: [Certified] Network Administrator Needed to Help Expand and Integrate Existing Network & Overhaul/Upgrade Security Protocols for Merger
Description:
We are a medium-sized (~115) advertising and PR agency that recently acquired a small pharmaceutical ad agency to ramp up our existing healthcare expertise and offerings. Our existing network is at capacity for users and data and has experienced some lags in performance lately. With our new acquisition, we’re looking to add more servers, expand our bandwidth, onboard the new users and integrate their data into our system. Most importantly, we’ll need to implement some new, tighter security measures to protect the sensitive data and communications of our new pharma clients.
Project Scope & Deliverables:
We need an assessment of our current system, a detailed plan for an overhaul of our architecture, and detailed suggestions for a new system. The merger will be finalized EOY ‘17 so we’d like to have an actionable plan in place and assistance with day-of migration of their systems to ours.
Additional: If phase one goes well, we’d love help with planning and implementing an employee training program on email, internet, device and data security best practices as we onboard new talent.
About Us:
We are Paddock Partners, a medium-sized PR and advertising firm with a growing specialty in healthcare and pharmaceutical advertising. Our recent acquisition of HealthStar Marketing will make us a fully equipped healthcare marketing agency able to take on high-profile drug and pharma clients with education, launch, OPDP approval, and more.