Skills and qualities that an AS needs to be successful

So far we have discussed the technologies. But what about the skills and qualities that an AS should have?

According to the “IS 2010 Curriculum Guidelines,” a joint study by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Association for Information Systems (AIS), success in IT requires the following “fundamental knowledge and skills”:

Leadership and collaboration

Communication

Negotiation

Analytical and critical thinking

Creativity

Mathematics

Beyond formal education, qualified SAs should also have other skills, including analytical, communication and problem-solving skills. Unlike other IT roles, AS's work ranges from communicating to solving problems with their colleagues, both inside and outside the IT department.

In addition, AS must be able to train its employees, including those who do not work in the IT field. It is for this reason that he must have excellent communication skills. That said, the job of an AS is no longer to sit alone at his desk all day in front of his screen or flip through textbooks. He must also be able to understand the business and be cooperative.

This partly explains why many tech companies hire apprentices.

Prior to the introduction and generalization of the technologies described above, an AS could start their career as an auxiliary operator and learn the ropes as they progress through the ranks. But those days are over. If you look at AS jobs these days, most require 3-5 years of experience in the field skills for admin.

The challenges of next-generation system administrators

We are now in the era of "big data" and data center managers are forced to do more with a budget and reduced equipment. Corporate networks are overloaded as a large flow of data can come from the hardware used by their employees, especially from IoT devices. According to figures provided by McKinsey, the total size of the Internet of Things market will grow to more than 3.3 billion euros in 2020, with an annual growth rate of around 32.6%.

ASs have always been a part of troubleshooting computer hardware, setting up network cables, and monitoring data. Today, they also have to deal with new technologies that did not even exist ten years ago. It is therefore their responsibility to manage the connectivity of teleworkers, BYOD, their company's computer networks, the Internet of Things, Wi-Fi access, not to mention the security of all these access points.

What has changed this is that we are increasingly dependent on data centers in a digital obsessed society. This means that AS will always be of great use for users to enjoy continuous internet access without any network failure and no security breach.

Nowadays, ASs must be able to move, test, administer and above all secure network data in an optimal way. These executives can be considered as one of the links that guarantee the success of their company's strategic plan.

How to deal with these challenges?

The only thing ASs need to remember is that their work continues to evolve. An on-premises host server can currently contain several dozen virtual servers, each of which requires critical functions for several different tenants. Failure of hardware connected to this host server could impact a company's bottom line and reputation.

Many companies currently use the data itself as the heart of their business. Many data centers have also been designed to meet these demands. They adopt very powerful multi-core processors, BladeSystems - a platform and infrastructure and management that accelerate service delivery - and high bandwidth interfaces.

Additionally, today's network administrator faces a variety of regulations such as HIPAA, GDPR, and more. All of this only complicates an already difficult role for AS. To meet these challenges, he must therefore understand the IT ecosystem and continually adjust his skills.

Some ways to alleviate these difficulties

To keep their business running smoothly, to secure customer and employee data, and to comply with applicable regulations, ASs must:

Develop standard protocols that give privileges to each type of user and their roles;

Design machine learning algorithms to maximize data accessibility and security or increase storage capacity when demand is high;

Implement a multi-tier architecture for larger server deployments and adopt data archiving across multiple sites and across multiple formats;

Find ways to standardize the data center in order to streamline the deployment of hardware used by employees. This could include solutions like DNS filtering and the use of IoT sensors.

Establish a team of representatives from the C suite level to align business objectives with data center strategies;

Develop basic structures in order to integrate new technologies and improve the performance and reliability of their business.