The sysadmin day this year was greeted with a good measure of excitement here at Bobcares. Techs were found hanging out during coffee breaks relating tales of tech support adventures. It varied from geeky technical adventures to touchy customer support anecdotes. But regardless of the flavor of the tale, one aspect stood out in all the stories – each one of them were unequivocally proud of their job, and it felt great to be a part of this group of talented sysadmins.

Though most of us seldom realize it, the impact that we make in the world of internet is significant. Through the 24 hour vigil on servers, through the patient chat and phone sessions, through the long sessions of hand-holding for a new webmaster, through endless other interactions with the owners and users of web servers, we make the internet a less formidable place for an average dot-com entrepreneur. We make the cyber space a favored destination for profit and pleasure.

At the last count, our tech support center administers about 7% of the internet. This represents e-commerce transactions running into millions of dollars annually. More importantly, it represents a part of the life of millions of internet users. Through a simple act of running update patches on time, we ensure their websites remain online – the websites they love, and have come to rely on. Each day, every day, through the endless fine tuning done on the servers, we give confidence to millions of these internet users that their favorite sites are here to stay, to be a part of their life for as long as they wish.

The sysadmin appreciation day was invented to give an occasion for the users to express their gratitude to their sysadmins. But I’m sure by the end of the day, after all of us here recounted the tales of how each of us were able to make a difference, we had a more important realization:

It was how each one of our seemingly insignificant actions on our servers translated to events of great significance to millions of internet users, for whom internet has come to be as real as the sky or the stars – always present, always available, 100% reliable.

And today, we silently renewed our pledge to be the guardian angels of this vast network of networks as long as the realm exists.

To our brethren across the cyber space, here is a belated Happy Sysadmin Day from the folks at Bobcares!