1.8. Plan Ahead

System administrators that took all this advice to heart and did their best to follow it would be fantastic system administrators — for a day. Eventually, the environment will change, and one day our fantastic administrator would be caught flat-footed. The reason? Our fantastic administrator failed to plan ahead.

Certainly no one can predict the future with 100% accuracy. However, with a bit of awareness it is easy to read the signs of many changes:

Being able to read these signs (and to respond effectively to them) makes life easier for you and your users.