The Intranet, more commonly known as Ion, Webmail, Cluster, Signage Monitors, Linux Workstations and Proxies, these unique services are all maintained by students, not the staff, making it a special experience for Jefferson students.
The Student System Administrators, or Sysadmins, are a team of 16 students responsible for maintaining the computer equipment and services in Jefferson’s Computer Systems Lab. The Sysadmins run services that power the entire school’s operations—most notably Ion—along with over 30 servers and 60 student workstations powered by open source software, two high-performance computing clusters and the Jefferson email system. These services are more complicated than they may seem.
“There’s actually a lot more involved in maintaining these systems than people are aware,” senior lead Sysadmin Alan Zhu said. “Just maintaining all the networking in there [and] maintaining all the servers [is a lot]. We have a lot of virtual machines running our program [and] virtual servers within servers.”
Managing these services is not only complex, but also time-consuming. Each service requires constant monitoring and quick responses to unexpected issues. The Sysadmins often have to work outside of school hours to troubleshoot updates, respond to specific requests from students and staff and maintain the systems, especially when Ion or other services get shut down.
“It takes a decent chunk of my time. [However], I’m trying to kind of balance it out,” Zhu said.
The email system is a service that allows protected communication between staff and students. It operates with two servers that back each other up. Having two servers allows them to shut down one so they can test an implementation or fix one of them, while still allowing the other to run. The Sysadmins have to use two main software to run email: Postfix and Dovecot. Postfix is the system that retrieves the email from person to person, and Dovecot is the system that ensures that email is legitimate and from inside the school network.
“With mail, you have to run [it] and hope it doesn’t break. That’s how fragile it is. So, we try not to touch it a lot,” senior lead Sysadmin Sami Elsayed said. “In very rare cases, if we have to, we take down one of the two mail servers to play around with [it]. If it works well with [one] server, we start pushing it to the other one and resume operations.”
Ion is the Sysadmins’ most prominent service. Ion and its physical servers were created by students and are currently managed by the team. While not as complex as some of the other services, Ion still has multiple parts and aspects that the Sysadmins have to monitor.
“Ion is our most visible [service], but it’s actually one of the easier services that we run,” Zhu said. “There [are] several layers that [the code] goes through for people to actually access Ion. We’ve organized a series of web servers to connect to our web application at the back end.”
Keeping these systems running smoothly requires more than just student expertise and time, it also needs funding. Although the Sysadmins manage the systems themselves, the servers, software and other expenses rely on funding to stay updated and reliable. This support comes primarily from donations, as well as school funds. For example, a company known as Yext donated $100,000.
“We’re grateful to all these programs [for] funding us. It does cost a lot of money to run. We have millions of dollars in equipment,” Zhu said.
With such a high level of responsibility, managing Jefferson’s technological infrastructure could easily be a role dedicated to staff. However, at Jefferson, these roles are given to students.
“The Sysadmin program goes back to around the 1990s, when the school first set up the Computer Systems Lab,” Zhu said. “The lab directors back then had a few students helping them with the stuff in the labs.”
While at first, only a few students helped the lab directors with relatively basic tasks, now the Sysadmins manage almost all of the services. The Sysadmin program offers a very rare opportunity for students to gain hands-on experience managing complex systems. The program also gives students a chance to experience what it’s like to work in the tech industry.
“Over time, students started taking a more hands-on role, actually running their own services and building their own services. Over time, it became more and more significant. I’ve kept building on what other students have done. [Then], we train younger students,” Zhu said. “I think we understand the newer tech better than the staff do right now. Since we are able to learn newer technologies that the staff don’t have time to look at.”
The learning experience is also unique because of the level of responsibility. Unlike most high school programs, the Sysadmins have full control over the technology they manage, with the exception of Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) regulations.
“There’s a lot of decision making and solving problems. The team usually has to learn quickly on the job,” Zhu said. “We aren’t just following instructions. If something like Ion goes down, I have to prioritize that.”
The Sysadmin program is more than just a club, it is a vital part of Jefferson’s. The team of students who run it provide essential services, but they also learn valuable skills that could help them in their future careers.
“Having this experience as a high school student is just something you can’t find anywhere else,” Elsayed said. “It’s a privilege to have something like this. For students who are really interested in computer science and engineering, this is like heaven to them.”