System Administration

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What Does System Administration Mean?

System administration refers to the management of one or more hardware and software systems.

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The task is performed by a system administrator who monitors system health, monitors and allocates system resources like disk space, performs backups, provides user access, manages user accounts, monitors system security and performs many other functions.

Techopedia Explains System Administration

System administration is a job done by IT experts for an organization. The job is to ensure that computer systems and all related services are working well. The duties in system administration are wide ranging and often vary depending on the type of computer systems being maintained, although most of them share some common tasks that may be executed in different ways.

Common tasks include installation of new hardware or software, creating and managing user accounts, maintaining computer systems such as servers and databases, and planning and properly responding to system outages and various other problems. Other responsibilities may include light programing or scripting to make the system workflows easier as well as training computer users and assistants.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.