There are many types of individuals who will perform the oh so glamorous role of team foundation administrator. Who are these individuals who seek such fame and fortune? What are their primary issues and concerns? For team foundation, I have defined three administrator types. Are you one of these people? Do these descriptions ring true to you? What am I missing?
-Brian
• ToolSmith (part-time, part of a software development team)
– Examples: Visual Source Safe, ClearCase Administrator
– Responsibilities: Build mgmt, Integration Mgmt, Informal tool support
– Concerns: migration support (tools to convert data, SCM process/terminology mapping, training users)
– Want: easy deployment, low administrative overhead
– Knowledge: no IIS/SQL knowledge, deep application knowledge
• Group/Department IT (full-time, part of a software development organization)
– Examples: Lab administrators, tools groups, ClearQuest Administrators
– Responsibilities: Maintaining hardware and software systems that support a software development team, formal tools support, internal helpdesk
– Concerns: Server sizing, performance, security model (typically do not have control over the network, domain users/groups, e-mail, internet infrastructure), backup and restore
– Want: low administrative overhead, good performance, control of security independent of corporate IT
– Knowledge: basic IIS/SQL knowledge, basic application knowledge
• Enterprise/Datacenter IT (full-time, part of a corporate IT organization)
– Examples: Corporate IT
– Responsibilities: Maintaining corporate infrastructure, e-mail, network, user accounts
– Concerns: Reliability, availability, performance
– Want: Conformance to existing disaster recovery procedures, conformance to security and software requirements, support for sophisticated deployments (e.g. high availability)
– Knowledge: deep IIS/SQL knowledge, limited application knowledge
