Image located via google image search. I have no idea who owns it, but it does sum it all up.

This Friday (tomorrow, July 27, 2012) is System Administrator Appreciation Day (SAAD acronym). While not a well recognized event outside of the community, it’s our day and we should celebrate. I sent a note to the mailing list for an informal get together after work on Friday and it looks like a few people will be there. The venue is not set in stone yet, so contribute if you plan on attending. The decision will be made by noon on Friday. Come on out and bring another sysadmin if you have one handy.

I may have a few FreeBSD stress balls left, so I’ll see about bringing them along for anyone who wants one. If I can locate my “We’ve always done it that way” stickers, I’ll bring a few of them as well. You can never be too blunt about that :)

Wikipedia has a definition for system administrator:

A system administrator, IT systems administrator, systems administrator, or sysadmin is a person employed to maintain and operate a computer system and/or network. System administrators may be members of an information technology (IT) or Electronics and Communication Engineering department.

The duties of a system administrator are wide-ranging, and vary widely from one organization to another. Sysadmins are usually charged with installing, supporting and maintaining servers or other computer systems, and planning for and responding to service outages and other problems. Other duties may include scripting or light programming, project management for systems-related projects, supervising or training computer operators, and being the consultant for computer problems beyond the knowledge of technical support staff. To perform his or her job well, a system administrator must demonstrate a blend of technical skills and responsibility.

According to the SysAdmin Day website,

A sysadmin is a professional, with complex skills, ethical challenges, and a daunting job. Many, if not most, people find computers difficult to use, and sometimes they’re unreliable. Being a sysadmin doesn’t absolve someone of dealing with unreliable computers. Oh, one can dream of such a day, but the opposite is true; no one sees more dead computers in a day than a sysadmin. No one sees them doing truly baffling things, and no one has more stories of computers failing, acting possessed, or even catching on fire.

I’m sure we could come up with a few definitions of our own that would be funny, irreverent and dead on. Any takers?

Here are a few SysAdmin Day related links:

• ADMIN Magazine and Splunk are offering an ebook version of their IPv6 special edition
• Spideroak has a 5GB offering if you solve their puzzle
• Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie created a song for the event
• Solar Winds has a community site with free tools and information
• Dell created an infographic for 2011, I haven’t heard of anything for 2012 yet. It’s a long image, so be prepared to scroll.
• There are many more items out there, just do a search on sysadmin day and you may find something useful.

We don’t have a website set up for sysadmin day in Canada, as someone registered it and has not done anything with it. It also appears to be registered using the domain privacy, so no way to find out who owns it.