The Essential Checklist for Network Admin Success

You got your foot in the door as a network administrator. Great job! Now, it's time to start learning the ropes. After the excitement of landing your new role wears off, you may realize that your base-level training is only going to get you so far.

Luckily, there are ways to gain a deeper understanding of your organization's IT infrastructure while also helping you stand out as a network admin. These might not be the most enticing or top-of-mind tasks you can think of, but they will definitely get you noticed.

1. Do a Deep-Dive Audit

One of the best ways to understand your organization's network topography is to perform an audit. While you may not have the resources to perform the most comprehensive audit, beginning the process is still a valuable learning experience.

Start your audit by determining the machines and devices connected to the network, including their hardware and whether they're physical or virtual. You may be able to find existing documentation or create it yourself as you go if needed. Note which service pack/patch level applies to each machine and what policies affect them. Document their specs, as well as what user accounts and groups are on each.

Catalog other devices like routers, printers, and anything else that connects to the network. Take a close look at your organization's configurations. You'll likely discover things that you need to understand more or that previous employees overlooked. By identifying opportunities to understand your network better, you can likely make your infrastructure that much more efficient through quick fixes—leading to easy wins for you and your career.

After you've audited the machines on the network, it's time to inventory software. You can manually audit what software is running on each network computer. To be more efficient, you can use an application or run a script to do the job. Determine which services are installed, which are running, and which are not in use.

Once you have performed these audit procedures, you should be well-familiar with your organization's infrastructure, which can help you hit the ground running in your new role.

2. Analyze Audit Results 

Performing an audit is worthwhile in itself. However, taking the time to perform some analysis will help you stand out.

During your audit, you'll glean valuable information about network components that may need to be further checked, fixed, or updated. If you need help determining what should be fixed, start by asking questions. Did you find that any machines were running unauthorized software? Were any patches missing or updates not installed? Are there additional configurations you can remove?

If you discover issues, document them and try to determine what actions you should take. Research potential troubleshooting steps. Think through possible solutions and bring them to your manager or the larger team. You might discover the reasons behind any potential problems you found. Alternatively, you'll surface an issue that indeed needs addressing. Either way, you'll show that you're detail-oriented and focused on problem-solving.

Tools for Auditing

There are several tools at your disposal to make the most of auditing. SolarWinds, Splunk, and Grafana are three excellent tools for auditing. Each one of them serves as a log aggregator, and provides a holistic view of your ecosystem. Let's break down how each of them can be used.

• Solar Winds: SolarWinds is a suite of IT monitoring and management tools. It monitors and audits network configurations and performances. 

• Grafana: Grafana is a data visualization tool that is used with tools like Prometheus and Elastisearch. It doesn't store data itself; instead, it sends alerts and provides a holistic visualization of your ecosystem.

• Splunk: Splunk is designed for log management, analysis, and visualization. It’s widely used for security information and event management. It can handle complex queries to detect security incidents and provide real-time insights. 

3. Create a Maintenance Plan

Your organization may already have a reliable IT service plan. If you discover issues or neglected areas during your audit and post-audit analysis, take it one step further and develop a more thorough maintenance plan yourself.

Your plan will likely look like an elaborate checklist. Start with a list of network elements and determine how often you should check them. Some components will need to be monitored daily, while others can be checked weekly or monthly. These checks may also involve a review of performance or particular security protocols.

How do you know which network components to list and focus on with your plan? The results of your audit should inform the list. Make sure you're addressing acute problem areas. Those are the ones that you've wanted to bring up with your superiors or team to determine solutions.

Focus your maintenance plan on preemptive steps to reduce future network issues and create a solid foundation in case something does go wrong. Everyone in the organization will appreciate your proactive approach.

Tools for Creating a Maintenance Plan 

Plenty of exceptional tools exist to get your maintenance plan up and running. Many of them leverage the latest breakthroughs in ML and AI. One of the most notable is IBM Predictive Maintenance. Predictions Maintenances uses AI, IoT, and ML Analytics to predict maintenance schedules and anticipate equipment failures. It does a great job identifying patterns and anomalies, which enables businesses to optimize maintenance schedule and detect security risks. 

4. Document Everything

Okay, you won't have the time to document everything, but in the early days of your new role, you have the opportunity to record some processes that need it.

If you performed an audit or developed a maintenance plan, you've already been documenting the "what" and "how" of your network. Now, try to document some of the "why" behind how things are set up in your environment.

This process will likely require some investigation into decisions made before you started. If the original decision-maker is still around, see if they're willing to answer questions about the tool or process you're documenting. It's possible that they didn't have time to sit down and document their work, but they would be happy to spend 30 minutes discussing it.

Ask why they chose the tool or process they did, what restrictions or challenges they might've encountered, what alternatives they considered, and so on. Use their answers to write a document or create a diagram and share it with your team. Taking this kind of initiative can make a big impression.

5. Automate. Everything.

If you've performed a network audit and analysis, you should have a pretty good idea of time-consuming processes and common issues that could be automated.

Many tools and applications can help you write scripts or set up automated processes. So, it's not a matter of how to automate but where to focus your efforts. Tedious tasks requiring manual steps are especially good candidates.

Here are some suggestions for what you might automate:

• Restarting devices or services that are laggy

• Logging into applications and generating reports

• Taking regular backups and saving to other locations

• Capturing performance data

• Conducting security scans

There's no limit to things you can automate, but figuring out these is an optimal starting point. The most significant automation benefit is that the resulting time savings allow you and your team to focus on more critical projects. (And no, you won't automate yourself out of a job!) 

Tools for Automation

Network Admins have many tools at their disposal to enhance automation. One of the best in the field is Kubernetes. Kubernetes is known as a container orchestration system. It provides a self-healing property to container images that allows applications to restart automatically. Kubernetes also handles scaling, deployment, and container management. The ability to replicate and self-heal takes a lot of the network admin’s shoulders. 

Another valuable tool is TerraForm. Terraform is a widely used open-source Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool that allows users to define, provision, and manage resources in a declarative language. It provides consistent infrastructure automation by creating and updating infrastructure safely and efficiently. Several service providers, such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, use it.

Final Thoughts

Being a good network admin can be super straightforward—if you want it to be. You may not be required to perform audits, write maintenance plans and documentation, or set up automated processes. 

But taking on these not-so-engaging tasks early in your tenure shows initiative. You'll be saving others time and setting the foundation for future success. You'll work your way up to star admin status in no time.

To be successful as a Network Admin, you'll need ongoing training. Consider pursuing additional certifications like CompTIA Network+, Cisco's CCNA, or AWS Certified Advanced Networking - Speciality. 

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