What emerging trends and innovations in system administration are you missing out on?

1 Cloud-native technologies

Cloud computing has become the dominant paradigm for delivering IT services and applications. However, not all applications are designed to take full advantage of the cloud's scalability, availability, and resilience. Cloud-native technologies are those that are built specifically for the cloud, using principles such as microservices, containers, orchestration, serverless, and observability. These technologies enable you to deploy, manage, and monitor your applications in a more agile, flexible, and cost-effective way. You can also leverage the cloud's native features and tools to automate, optimize, and secure your system administration tasks.

3 Infrastructure as code

Infrastructure as code (IaC) is a method of managing and provisioning your IT infrastructure using code and configuration files, rather than manual processes and GUI tools. IaC allows you to automate, standardize, and document your system administration tasks, such as creating, updating, and deleting servers, networks, storage, and other resources. You can also use IaC to enforce policies, compliance, and best practices across your infrastructure. IaC enables you to increase your productivity, efficiency, and consistency, as well as reduce human errors and risks.

4 Artificial intelligence and machine learning

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are technologies that enable machines to carry out tasks usually done by humans, such as reasoning, learning, and decision making. These technologies can be used to enhance your system administration capabilities in a variety of ways, including predicting and preventing failures, anomalies, and threats; optimizing performance, capacity, and resource utilization; automating routine tasks; providing insights and recommendations; and enhancing user experience and satisfaction. You can use existing AI and ML tools and platforms or develop your own solutions to make the most of data and algorithms in order to improve your system administration outcomes.

5 Edge computing

Edge computing is a distributed computing model that brings computation and data storage closer to the end users and devices, instead of relying on centralized servers or clouds. This can help to improve system administration performance, reliability, and security, especially for applications that require low latency, high bandwidth, or real-time processing. Examples of edge computing use cases include IoT and smart devices, AR/VR, autonomous vehicles and drones, gaming and streaming, healthcare and manufacturing. Edge computing can be used to complement or replace your existing infrastructure, depending on your needs and preferences.

6 Remote work and collaboration

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed the way many organizations and employees work, as more people have shifted to remote work and collaboration. This has posed new challenges and opportunities for system administration, such as ensuring the availability, accessibility, and security of IT infrastructure and services for remote workers and customers. Additionally, system administrators must support and troubleshoot devices, networks, and applications of remote workers and customers, while adopting tools and platforms that enable remote work and collaboration. It is also important to develop the skills, mindset, and culture that support remote work and collaboration. Ultimately, you can use remote work and collaboration to enhance system administration efficiency, flexibility, and innovation, as well as your work-life balance and satisfaction.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?