As far as my concern as a administrator, I prefer Perl as my pet

Becaz, Perl is the language created by a administrator 'Larry Wall' for administrators

If u familiar with Perl, it will help all sort of administrative (System / Network / Security / Web ) taks.

My next choice is Visual Basic.

If your network is hetrogenous or *nix based then Perl is the best programming / scripting language for Administrators.

It your network is M$ based, then Visual Basic is your programming / scripting choice.