Today is Friday, July 27th, 2018.  And that means today is also the 19th annual System Administrator Appreciation Day!

To the majority of the world, today is just another Friday.  But, in the world of IT, today is THE day, System Administrator Appreciation Day!  SysAdmin Day celebrates some of the hardest working, undeniably dedicated employees in the technology field.  Not only do they face an incredible amount of problems head on each day, but they also get assigned lots of "after hour" work that has to get performed in the middle of the night when the rest of us are sleeping.

So remember: Your network is secure, your computer is up and running, and your printer is jam-free.  Why?  Because you've got an awesome sysadmin (or maybe a whole IT department) keeping your business up and running.  

Recognizing the important role that SysAdmins play in their own businesses, industry leaders and vendors across the board are weighing in, reflecting on the importance of SysAdmin work during this 19th Annual event.

Neil Barton, CTO, WhereScape

"Ensuring your IT data infrastructure is maintained and ready to deliver insights and faster time to value is one of the best things a SysAdmin can do for a business. As business needs drive ever increasingly more frequent changes to data infrastructure, the role of the SysAdmin is proving even more crucial, both in the deployment process, and for keeping systems online and operating correctly. With that in mind, as a business, you don't want them to be bogged down trying to prevent roadblocks.

Using automation solutions can help reduce the time, cost and risk of deploying changes to data infrastructure, by getting rid of the near-herculean manual tasks. This will free up SysAdmins to ensure the data infrastructure is delivering results, rather than being trapped in the manual nitty-gritty of deployment tasks."

Alan Conboy, office of the CTO at Scale Computing

"There are many roles in the workplace that can often fall under the radar, and a role that is specifically prone to this is System Administrators. SysAdmins, though, are the foot soldiers of the IT team, standing right on the front line and in doing so protect the organization from downtime, server failures, upgrade issues and capacity problems to name but a few. In doing so, not only does it mean that the organization can continue without being interrupted by an IT meltdown, it also means that other employees don't need to worry about the IT infrastructure at all.

However, when things are going well we don't always remember to thank the SysAdmins for the work they do and instead more often than not we only recognize when a problem arises. So today, organizations should take the time to appreciate the workplace IT foot soldiers, SysAdmins, and thank them for all the time they spend ensuring we don't get taken down by IT challenges as and when they arrive."

Gary Watson, CTO and founder, Nexsan

"In the same way electricity powers a grid without being seen, SysAdmins underpin the smooth running of an organization's IT environment - they're the 'invisible' but crucial backbone of IT. It's no easy job managing and maintaining the IT infrastructure of an organization and when everything is running without a hitch you usually won't hear from them. However, when the pressure turns up and users encounter IT challenges SysAdmins are the first point of contact and ready to help. With IT challenges taken care of, SysAdmins enable employees to focus on their own role without needing to worry should any technological glitches occur. So, although flying under the radar is all part of being a SysAdmin it's still important to acknowledge the work they do and show appreciation for all the SysAdmins out there; they are the reason why IT keeps on ticking."

Gijsbert Janssen van Doorn, technology evangelist, Zerto

"The SysAdmin is directly responsible for the uptime, performance, and security of the systems they manage that the business depends on. It's no mean feat, but the best thing a SysAdmin can do for your business is keep you online - and prevent outages. In some ways, they are the gatekeepers of IT resilience, so it's important to recognize the role they play.

"It's a tough job, and most systems administrators are all too familiar with the middle-of-the-night call to come in and fix things when the systems mysteriously go down. Organizations looking to support their SysAdmins should ensure that they are spending investing enough on resilient infrastructure - across backup, disaster recovery and cloud mobility. This will allow your sysadmins to focus on building and managing systems for always-on and agile services, rather than constantly fighting to get the systems back online."

Ron Herrmann, director of sales engineering, E8 Storage

"System administrators (SysAdmins) play a fundamental role in supporting and maintaining critical IT business operations and performance. The SysAdmin is behind the scenes working on tasks of all sizes - from IT upgrades to more demanding projects, such as accelerating performance, data consolidation and improving data analytics. This work can often go over looked, but upkeeping the system and network is perhaps one of the most central roles in the IT department. In addition, performance and latency can have a profound impact on an organization's bottom line, and with SysAdmins keeping the IT infrastructure running smoothly, organizations can deliver on performance when it matters, to drive the bottom line of the business."

Derrin Rummelt, director of cloud engineering, US Signal

"Keeping pace with constant technology changes and updates is hard enough, but IT staff, specifically System Administrators (SysAdmins), are increasingly expected to keep network strategies on track as well. From migrating your IT infrastructure to a new environment to implementing a comprehensive IT resilience strategy, SysAdmins are behind the scenes, ensuring that networks are secure, up-to-date and efficient. On SysAdmin Day, it's important to take a moment to thank SysAdmins for their hard work, dedication and commitment to keeping the infrastructure powering businesses running smoothly."

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