There is a guy who is a sysadmin at Google, and he wrote a short bit about what it's like. In short, it's awesome. Read closely. http://everythingsysadmin.com/2010/09/sysadmin-at-google.html
He also posted three excellent ideas on secure logins to SSH into your server. Just read it; if you have a server, then you have security worries. If you have security worries, this will rock your socks. http://everythingsysadmin.com/2010/09/the-most-simple-ssh-backdoor-i.html