[jimwalsh]

DevOps role is different because it assumes full product ownership. Typical system administrators are focused on just the infrastructure portions. In a DevOps role you are more focused on the things running on that infra, as well as the infra. It's a more encompassing role than the traditional 'sysadmin' role.

[Stranger43]

In the olden days before it became fashionable to outsource everything to "specialist" the sysadmin team often had full product ownership.