How to become a system administrator

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System administrator: Job description

A system administrator’s job is unglamorous but essential to keeping IT operations running smoothly, so this involves being the real nuts and bolts of the business.

The role may include some mundane tasks, but each one is essential for the continued running of IT operations, to prevent problems and to improve systems’ performance. The system administrator is there to keep the company’s network safe and running efficiently.

Depending on the size of the organisation you may have a jack-of-all-trades within a smaller company, whereas a larger enterprise may have several systems administrators all focused on different areas. They are usually the first point-of-contact for users when they experience problems with the network. The system administrator will then gather information to define and fix the issue, by trouble shooting hardware and software and liaising with vendors if needed for more information.

System administrators typically install, upgrade and monitor software and hardware. They may also be involved in data backup and recovery. They usually maintain the essentials such as operating systems, business applications, security tools, web-servers, email, PCs, local and wide area networking both hardware and software and mid-range server hardware.

Being responsible for so many aspects of a company’s IT systems means the system administrator is required to keep up to date on new developments in the technology industry, in case changes within the company have an impact on the business.

This slideshow is an overview of a system administrator’s job role and what is required to become one.

The next slide reveals the necessary skills needed to become a system administrator.

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