A network administrator is
|“||[a] person who manages a network within an organization. Responsibilities include network security, installing new applications, distributing software upgrades, monitoring daily activity, enforcing licensing agreements, developing a storage management program, and providing for routine backups.||”|
The network administrator is usually the highest level of technical/network staff in an organization and will rarely be involved with direct user support. The network administrator will concentrate on the overall health of the network, server deployment, security, ensuring network connectivity throughout a company's LAN/WAN infrastructure, and all other technical considerations at the network level of an organization's technical hierarchy.
Depending on the company, the network administrator may also design and deploy networks.
The actual role of the network administrator will vary from company to company, but will commonly include activities and tasks such as network address assignment, assignment of routing protocols and routing table configuration as well as configuration of authentication and authorization — directory services. It often includes maintenance of network facilities in individual machines, such as drivers and settings of personal computers as well as printers and such. It sometimes also includes maintenance of certain network servers: file servers, VPN gateways, intrusion detection systems, etc.
The administrator is responsible for the security of the network and for assigning IP addresses to the devices connected to the networks. Assigning IP addresses gives the subnet administrator some control over the professional who connects to the subnet. It also helps to ensure that the administrator knows each system that is connected and who personally is responsible for the system.
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