First iteration

Posted by Winnie Melda on November 19th, 2018

Plan

In this iteration, I intend to have a brainstorming session with Linux administrators who will help me have a deep understanding of how to improve communication flow, the requirements of improving the Linux system, the objectives of the assessment process and other requirements for the needed enhancement. I plan to have an in-depth knowledge of the types of communication flow in an organization and their distinctive features. I will also understand how vital the communication flow is to an organization, especially concerning the improvement requirements for a Linux system. The purpose of understanding the communication flow in the organization is to determine the way to go in ensuring an improvement in the Linux systems. It will also help to determine the issues that account for the Linux system’s state in the organization.

The other thing I plan to accomplish in this iteration is the requirements for improving the Linux system and the objectives of the assessment process for the improvement of Linux system.  I plan to understand more on how to improve the Linux machine and the process followed as well as the tools for improving performance of the Linux systems. I plan to understand how to set the objectives of the assessment and the improvement task. I plan to learn about using those tools to accomplish this task from the brainstorming session.  The Linux operating system comes with a plethora of features that have many benefits to an organization including the freedom from viruses (Ritchie, 1984). The performance can go down due to continuous usage and overloading of the system with information. The importance of learning about the tools and process is to know how to approach the process in the future.

Action

I had a brainstorming session with five Linux system administrators from the Oracle Corporation, Intellectsoft, Itransition, ScienceSoft Inc, and Iflexion Company. These Linux administrators had a long experience working with the Linux systems, and they understood well how the communication process should take place as well as the improvement of Linux systems performance. They helped me know about the types of communication in an organization including downward, upward, lateral, diagonal and external communication. They help me understand how I can improve organizational communication along those five communication directions. I learned that it is imperative to use the best communication technique in conveying a message to the receiver (Reddy & Sinha, 1991).  They helped me learn that laying down the purpose of communication and using the right approach are useful points towards the organizational communication improvement.

Those Linux systems’ administrators also talked about how to come up with the objectives for Linux systems improvement and the tools used in accomplishing the improvement of performance of the Linux systems. I learned that Linux machines can become sluggish after the installation of a bunch of programs. They aided my understanding that the way to go about solving that problem was by looking at the list of startup applications. In Ubuntu, the users can access the startup applications by opening up the Dash and then typing “startup.” Un-checking those programs that need not be run will help improve performance regarding the sluggishness of the machine. That is just an example of many things that can make the Linux system not work as required.  They also talked about the various tools available for Linux system improvements such as the KDE system monitor, the Dstat, the Sysstat Auite, the Ifstat, and the Sysctl.

Observation

I observed that the downward communication in an organization was used by the executives or managers to communicate with the workers at the lower cadres of administration.  It helps to provide the workers with the feedback on their performance, the tasks the employees should accomplish, the communication of the organization’s mission and the highlighting of the areas to which employees should pay attention (Miller, 2014). I also observed that the upward communication is the opposite of downward communication and is used to air complaints, views, or dissatisfaction of employees.  The researcher also observed that the lateral communication takes place at a similar level of the hierarchy. I observed that the diagonal communication occurs between a manager and the workers of another workgroup while external communication is the one that occurs between a manager and the external groups like the suppliers. Improving communication requires one to look at all those levels and how they affect the Linux systems.

According to my observation, Linux runs fine for many uses. I also observed that is one wants to fine tune or ferret the performance issues, there are more than enough tools for measuring and tweaking the Linux system performance (Brockmeie, 2010).  I observed that the KDE system monitor is very useful for getting a quick visual representation of the system state.  The Ksysguard package is the alternative for the KDE system monitor. I also observed that the Dstat tool is much similar to the KDE system monitor and is useful for profiling system. It is one of the most vital system improvement tools in that it encompasses all the bases: shows the CPU load, the log data in real-time, network receive/send, disk I/O, among other functions (Adelstein & Lubanovic, 2007). I also observed that an actual performance tuning at the kernel level one needs to use the Sysctl tool.

Reflection

The brainstorming session on how to improve the communication process in an organization was very important as it enriched me with much vital information that would be useful in my future career as a Linux systems administrator. I learned that the knowledge of the communication process in an organization was of paramount importance as the Linux system administrator would be conversant on how to use those systems to accomplish the administration tasks. That is because the communication channels can greatly impact the system performance. The session also helped me understand more on the Linux performance improvement tools. I came to learn that there exist five common tools for improving Linux system performance. I could achieve my objectives easily due to the use of well-trained resource persons. The knowledge on those tools would help during the execution of my duties in the future as a Linux administrator professional.

Although the researcher made us of the resource person that were well-versed with the Linux administration requirements, they were not enough to teach on everything concerning the Linux system performance and administration. In improving the communication process, I should have included the human resource personnel and a public relations officer. The Linux administrators may be lacking some specific knowledge regarding the organizational communication process. I also did not make use of the Internet despite the fact that it contains much information on every field. In the future, I will have a broad research for the purpose of understanding and ensuring more improved performance.  I will use a verity of resource person that have knowledge and skills on Linux operating system and the related technologies.

References

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Top of Form

Adelstein, T., & Lubanovic, B. (2007). Linux system administration. Sebastopol, Calif: O'Reilly.

Miller, K. (2014). Organizational communication: Approaches and processes (7^th Ed.) Stamford, Connecticut : Cengage Learning/Wadsworth.

Reddy, M. N., & Sinha, B. P. (1991). Organizational communication: A structural and functional analysis (1^st Ed.). New Delhi: Mittal Publications.

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in research paper writing help 24 hours if you need a similar paper you can place your order for essay writing services.