One of the significant achievement of cloud hosting and the software-defined network is the junction of the system administrator and network administrator roles. Their union left us to wonder the possibilities of the tools in the respective fields have yet to come.

Before we dig deeper, let’s discuss the distinction between network vs system administrator. Looking back, the actual differentiation between the two roles happened at the RJ-45 socket on NIC. Anything related to cables, switches, routers, etc. is not the headache of system admins. If the light blinking on NIC, things happening inside to make it blink do not matter to the network admins.

This has been the traditional way of how these two roles have been put for years now. The fact that sysadmins understand the network flow, including DHCP, DNS, and IP routing, helps in diagnosing server and application problems. Similarly, network admins that have an understanding of traffic flow through wires and switches will enjoy fine networks.

With that out of the way, consider the reliability of applications on the network. These days clouds are not just about saving a file on the server. Instead, complete application infrastructures are relying on network operations.

System admins should be aware of network operations and tools. On the other hand, network admins trying to achieve a well-behaved network should be aware of the traffic flows and designing of the network for better data flow.

These days, not adapting technologies is not feasible for the IT people trying to make their place in the industry in the next few years. The roles are merging, specifically for Cloud Hosting providers. They might be known just as “cloud administrators” in the future.

With that established, let’s dive in. The future of traditional tool sets of systems and network admin and compare them to where we are going with all the merging roles.

In the early days, the OS of a system needed a sysadmin with adequate knowledge in the command line. Whether CICS, VMS, UNIX, or even MS-DOS, command line ruled them. Then came Windows with the idea of GUI for admin activities and tasks. It revolutionized the way sysadmins interacted with their Windows-based servers.

However, for network admins, command line survived for longer than that for sysadmins. There were few exceptions to the case with few web-based admin tools. Many network admins still cease to exist outside of command line.

So the question we are left with: With the cloud hosting roles merging, what tools can be expected? Can we expect a new GUI-based cloud hosting tools to rule the modern era? Or will the command take the throne for itself supporting PowerShell interfaces? Or maybe they both will coexist?

Let us know your thoughts down below.