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Sysadmin: A Day in the Life

  • From blasting performance bottlenecks and slashing application downtime to defending against data loss and endlessly having to instruct end users to “turn it off and on again,” system administrators are the grease that keep the wheels of modern businesses turning day in and day out.

    Since 2000, these typically unsung heroes of the enterprise have been recognized in July with System Administrator Appreciation Day. The holiday, celebrated on the last Friday of July, was created by sysadmin Ted Kekatos, who was inspired by a Hewlett-Packard ad for laser printers. The ad showed a sysadmin receiving flowers and gifts from grateful co-workers.

    For SysAdmin Appreciation Day 2017, and to honor sysadmins around the world for all the times they’ve come to rescue, SolarWinds polled its THWACK community of 130,000 IT professionals to caption “A Day in the Life of the sysadmin.” They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so SolarWinds captured the best captions that show the witty and funny side of life as a sysadmin.

    Happy SysAdmin Day 2017!

  • On fire

    “Not that kind of firewall!”

    “My new internet provider is smoking fast!”

    “I knew I shouldn’t have clicked that link.”

    (Image: alphaspirit/iStock)

  • Cable fun

    “Whack-a-Mole, SysAdmin Edition”

    “I think this is the rack I hid my cookies in.”

    “I knew I should have made a wiring map.”

    (ADK-photography/iStock)

  • Coffee mess

    “We’re going to need a bigger bag of rice.”

    “Please install Java®.”

    “It’s probably an issue with the network.”

    (Image: princigalli/iStock)

  • Putting out fires

    “I know they said part of my job description was fighting fires, but I didn't know they meant literally!”

    “The only way to stop the malware from spreading.”

    “When all the nodes are red.”

    (Image: vm/iStock)

  • Data center dilemma

    “I knew I should have labelled those servers.”

    “Which one do I unplug to reboot the WiFi?”

    “Is that noise just from a single drive?”

    (Image: AKodishinghe/iStock)

  • Meditative moment

    “Let’s just give everyone admin access.”

    “Ohhhhmmm. Let your mind become a blank web page. Network Guru is one with the network.”

    “Friday. Friday. Friday.”

    (Image: fizkes/iStock)

  • Troubleshooting

    “Maybe I can find the network error through osmosis.”

    “When a developer blows away their entire data in a table and needs a third database restore.”

    “When the end user says, ‘OK, now how do I reboot my machine?’”

    (Image: grinvalds/iStock)

     

     

  • Pushbutton IT

    “Today on ‘IT Fantasies’…”

    “This button never seems to work!”

    “Just like leprechauns and the Tooth Fairy.”

    (Image: BrianAJackson/iStock)

     

     

  • Mobile trouble

    “OK, who told him the latest iOS update would make it waterproof?”

    “This push technology is harder than I thought”

    “Another alert about a downed service.”

    (Image: benstevens/iStock)