LEXINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--In honor of today’s 15th annual System Administrator Appreciation Day, or SysAdmin Day, Ipswitch® has released the findings of its second annual “Red Shirt Survey” taken last week by more than 250 systems administrators from across the United States. The survey results indicate that there’s a lot more that can be done to appreciate, motivate and collaborate with IT professionals.
A simple thank you or reboot can make a big difference
When asked what would make them happier at work, SysAdmin survey respondents shared the following:
- More than 42 percent would like more appreciation for his or her hard work from colleagues (aka users) they work hard to support all year, up five percent over last year’s survey
- Just over a third (36 percent) want users to reboot their machines before asking for help, up three percent over last year
- Twelve percent get blurry eyed by Shadow IT and just want to know what applications users have downloaded on their work laptops
- One in ten respondents (10 percent) are frustrated with BYOD and want employees to share what personal devices they have synced to their company’s wireless network
Way too much time spent reacting to problems on their IT networks
- One out of every two SysAdmins (50 percent) spend between 40-60 percent of their time reacting to network or user problems, an increase of more than 10 percent from last year
- Nearly one in six (17 percent) spend a whopping 60-80 percent of their time dealing with frustrations on their networks
Empowerment through recognition (and x-ray vision)
- The survey showed that more than a third (36 percent) of SysAdmins simply want the recognition of having a tough job. Very notably, this has nearly doubled since last year’s survey
- In addition, 34 percent would like x-ray vision to figure out the source of a problem on a network, up six percent from last year
“Today we need to recognize the dedicated SysAdmins and other IT professionals who work night and day to keep our networks and applications humming along. These IT heroes need to equip their colleagues with the technology and support they need to innovate, collaborate and do their jobs and that’s a lot of pressure to work under. So when you see one of your SysAdmin colleagues today, a simple ‘thank you for everything you do’ would go over well. Treating your IT folks to pizza and ice cream wouldn’t hurt, either,” explained Ennio Carboni, Executive Vice President, Customer Solutions, Ipswitch.
Chill out with the streaming, please
- One in two SysAdmins (50 percent) noted that video platforms like YouTube or Vimeo are the biggest culprits when it comes to bandwidth hoarding on wireless IT networks
- Almost one in four (24 percent) must face the music with platforms like Pandora and Spotify wreaking havoc with application performance problems
How network monitoring can make a SysAdmin’s work life a lot happier
SysAdmins can take control of their networks with a comprehensive, automated network monitoring solution run from a single dashboard. Empowered with this technology, IT professionals can:
- Respond to network problems before users notice, and keep application performance steady
- Discover and map an IT infrastructure (at Layer 2/3)
- Receive network alerts when unauthorized changes are uncovered or when performance falls below set levels
Additional resources
- Infographic: http://www.whatsupgold.com/resources/press-releases/sysadmin-survey-2014/infographic_US.pdf
- Full Survey Results: http://www.whatsupgold.com/resources/press-releases/sysadmin-survey-2014/survey_results_US.pdf
Survey Methodology
- The Ipswitch Red Shirt Survey was conducted July 1-9, 2014. Ipswitch received 257 of its completed surveys from systems administrators located across the United States.
About Ipswitch
Ipswitch helps solve complex IT problems with simple solutions. The company’s software is trusted by millions of people worldwide to transfer files between systems, business partners and customers; and to monitor networks, applications and servers. Ipswitch was founded in 1991 and is based in Lexington, Massachusetts with offices throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.ipswitch.com.
