Back when cloud services were a new trend, many IT professionals resisted their implementation. A few traditional techies had a perception of relinquishing control if they moved services away from the usual comfort zone of an on-premise model; citing concerns about security and reliability.

Kevin Downham is the IT manager at MacDermid, a UK-based speciality chemical services firm. The infrastructure Kevin presides over is an accurate reflection of a modern SME IT department. He single-handedly manages around 80 PCs spread primarily across two locations, with a selection of mobile remote users spread across the world.

What are some of the most important issues facing sys admins today? Is it ‘the cloud’? Or is it ‘Advanced Persistent Threat’? Maybe it’s the surge in BYOD and the commoditization of IT? What other buzzwords do you hear thrown around by managers? Are any of those the most important issues facing sys admins? No. […]

Working in IT administration is a stressful endeavour. Granted, there’s no comparison with brain surgery or air traffic control; but it is a field that few people understand from the outside looking in. Non-technical people don’t really get what an IT guy does every day, so they can’t understand the level of stress they bear.

Internal IT teams that spend their lives fire-fighting problems have to endure an unnecessarily stressful existence. Much has been written about the benefits of providing proactive support, but some IT departments still struggle with putting this into practice. Here are five suggestions for sys admins that may help to instill “proactive working” as a key […]

IT is nothing like it once was. Ten years ago, staff would usually work in the office on desktop PCs. Laptops were typically the exclusive preserve of senior management and mobile salespeople. As for iPads – um, well, they hadn’t even been invented. Today’s IT department has plenty of work to do to keep control […]