Today marks System Administration Appreciation Day 2020, which means it is time to celebrate all the hard and rigorous work of SysAdmins.
But of course, this year is a little different. Entire businesses are now running remotely, and the pandemic was probably one of the biggest fire drills for IT professionals since Y2K. Business environments had to be completely overhauled, some uprooted, to maintain business continuity. Hardware had to be bought at a premium stripping precious budgets from IT, and formerly on-premise systems had to be taken entirely to the cloud in some fashion.
So to celebrate all you hard working SysAdmins out there during trying times, let's sit back relax and get some laughs in because laughter is one of the best ways to relieve stress and gain perspective. And if you're an end-user, take some time to say thanks to the wonderful IT people at your company that makes sure that you're up and running, regardless of the circumstances.
1st Reason We Love SysAdmins – Recovering Lost Passwords
The neverending tickets about forgotten passwords have reached new levels in the pandemic. Security is top of mind for many businesses, especially when employees are working from their home offices and personal devices. More users are now using password management services like LastPass. However, that also means an endless array of helpdesk tickets when passwords aren't remembered or stored correctly in these services.
2nd Reason We Love SysAdmins – Getting Access to the VPN
VPNs are a necessary privacy service, especially when employees are working remotely. They add an extra layer of security for employees accessing servers and business apps when on public networks or on home networks. But many times VPN services don't always tell you what type of data they log on the server-side of things, and it's sometimes hard to tell what the security implications are of using an untested service. Then there are the bandwidth issues that VPNs can cause, leaving many end-users opting to avoid using the company VPN altogether. I'm sure many of you SysAdmins out there have gotten sick of the tickets about slow VPN services.
3rd Reason We Love SysAdmins – Buying Hardware for Remote Employees While On A Strict IT Budget
Hardware, such as laptops, PCs, and servers, were very hard to come by at a reasonable price once the pandemic was full swing. IT teams had to get creative to provide remote employees with the equipment they needed to get their job done at home. This caused a lot of stress because the prices skyrocketed. The burden of maintaining business continuity a few months ago means you should buy your SysAdmin a virtual beer.
4th Reason We Love SysAdmins – Their Ability to Maintain Sanity When Zoom Tickets Come In
Video conferencing has become more popular than cheeseburgers in the pandemic. That primarily has caused the Internet to slow down. But when the Internet breaks, IT is the first to hear about it. Today, let's avoid sending needless helpdesk tickets and instead send your SysAdmins a pizza.
5th Reason We Love SysAdmins – They Are Unsung Heroes
Lastly, today is the day to tell your SysAdmin thanks for all that they do. They don't get much praise in the company meetings, even though they are the ones facilitating the backend for those very meetings. They do more work than most end-users would give them credit, sifting through the endless tasks all marked high priority, even though most of those issues can be resolved quickly and don't impede their job.
If your SysAdmin has ever responded quickly to a task for you or has spent the time to help fix your issue in a patient and cool way, make sure you let them know that they saved the day for you and that you appreciate them.
Happy SysAdmin Day 2020!
Greg Mooney
Greg is a technologist and data geek with over 10 years in tech. He has worked in a variety of industries as an IT manager and software tester. Greg is an avid writer on everything IT related, from cyber security to troubleshooting.