For years, system administrators have been working in the shadows to ensure the accessibility and services of any company. Over time, their figure has become essential for the good future of any company, as it encompasses different disciplines, including that of preserving information security. However, do we know what their main tasks are?
Monitoring and Alerts
One of the most common tasks is to monitor and alert through its applications and infrastructures. When monitoring you need to focus on network metrics, CPU usage, disk usage, latency or server load, among other things.
To be informed when outliers are reached, you can set up alerts to receive warnings at any time so that you can act as quickly as possible. The fastest possible intervention is key to ensure that your system does not crash.
User permission and administration
Another task is to provide user permissions and administration for each and every application used by the client. Here, user roles can be assigned so that nobody without permission can access certain things. In this way, better security is achieved.
Software installation, updates and maintenance
Keeping all software updated to the latest version is essential to ensure maximum security. Hence, this is one of the most important tasks for any system administrator to perform.
Redundancies, Rollovers and Recovery Plans
System administrators must have effective and up-to-date plans for redundancy, rollover and incident recovery. Through effective monitoring, alerting and cross-functional communication, system administrators must be able to quickly detect any failures and remediate IT incidents.
Security
Security happens to be the most important thing a system administrator must work on. The administrator should take whatever action is necessary to ensure that he or she provides the highest security, whether it is user permissions or the way the computer maintains information. He or she should always look for ways to provide a robust and secure solution.
Incident detection, response and remediation
System administrators cannot simply combine their IT and security environment. They need to build it with visibility and speed in mind. Network managers need to be aware of all these questions to get the most out of their incident management practices.
Organisation and File Management
To ensure the best organisation of data, the system administrator needs to establish a set of policies and procedures for how files are organised and shared within the organisation. These procedures ensure maximum security against all types of external attacks, as well as internal attacks from employees.
In our publication we have discussed some of the most important tasks, but there are many others that a system administrator must carry out.
