The document provides an introduction to system administration, including defining system administration as the management of computers, hardware, software, operating systems, applications, networks, and users within an organization. It describes the duties of a system administrator such as applying updates, installing/configuring hardware/software, managing user accounts, performing backups and security audits. The document also differentiates between types of administrators like database, network, security and web administrators. Finally, it provides a brief history of commonly used operating systems for administration like Windows and Unix variants.