System Administrators Are the Creators of Your IT Environment

System administrators are the ones who build and reinforce your IT infrastructure. Brick-by-brick, or rather, hardware-by-software. They set up servers, install operating systems and routers, integrate software programs, and more. These components aren’t just whimsically tossed together, either. Your IT infrastructure was custom designed and configured to align with the specific needs of your business operations — all by the master hands of your system administrator.

System Administrators Are Your First-Responders

Between the volatile nature of technology, the widespread tech illiteracy of most workforces, and the unpredictabilities of mother nature, system administrators have no choice but to sleep with one eye open. Rain or shine, day or night, weekday or weekend, holiday or not — they are your first responders when something interferes with the technology that powers your business. When small fires flare up, like an email server crash or a malfunctioning printer, they race to the rescue. If a large-scale outage occurs, they kick into superhero mode. Even in the face of a major weather event or natural disaster, you can bet that your system administrator is on the scene or remotely plugged in, working to keep your business networks and systems up and running.

System Administrators Are Your Gate-Keepers Against Cybercrime

54% of companies experienced one or more successful cyber attacks last year that compromised data and/or their IT infrastructure. Attacks are growing more sophisticated and aggressive. And they’re evolving so fast that it’s a full-time job to stay ahead of them. Cyber attacks are expected to continue increasing. Therefore system administrators are on the front lines fighting this war to protect your assets. They stay on top of cybersecurity news and help develop and manage your organization’s cybersecurity strategy. This includes the implementation of necessary firewalls, access controls, and anti-virus and anti-malware protection.

System administrators are also your watchdogs, closely monitoring these controls, patching security updates, and ensuring that all security measures comply with industry regulations. Should an attack infiltrate your systems, system administrators have a data back-up and data-breach recovery plan with detailed, actionable instructions on how to immediately flush out the intruder, regain control of data, and reinforce security walls (or at least they should, that's why it pays to hire a good one!)

System Administrators Are the Excavators of Your Valuable Data

Data analytics and business intelligence are the blood and backbone of your organization. But these technologies don’t deliver data in an intelligent form. Data must be made intelligent. As the person most familiar with your IT infrastructure, your system administrator is the person who connects software solutions to your data sources and creates the workflow that will be used to aggregate, filter, and organize your data for data scientists to analyze.

System Administrators Are The Key to Your Future

The market is on the brink of experiencing a terrible data scientist shortage. In response, forward-thinking companies are looking within for talented employees with the right skillsets to train as “citizen” data scientists. Enter — your humble system administrator. Among many other potential candidates, your system administrator is keenly aware of all environments that play a part in data aggregation and implementation. They understand your business drivers, data analytics software, and IT infrastructure, making them a valuable resource for data science trainees or a promising candidate for the position.

By now, you should feel immense gratitude for your system administrator if you're lucky enough to have a good one on your team because if you don't, it's time to get one!