Case studies: Systems administrator: Mike

Mike did a degree in internet engineering and is now a systems administrator with a company that hosts and supports websites, internet applications and email servers and provides security and storage services.

I first started using computers when I was five or six years old, mainly playing games, but then I became interested in all aspects of the computer.

After A-levels, I went to Brunel University to study internet engineering. I really enjoyed the course, but at that stage I wasn't sure whether I wanted to do programming or support. In my third year, I had a year in industry and worked in an IT Desktop support role.

After graduating I had a contracting job for a few months doing network install, and system updates during the night for McDonalds. I then took a role as an infrastructure analyst - fixing printers, supporting servers running several ecommerce sites through to supporting a telephone call centre. I developed my skills here because of the variety of the work and an excellent team.

I then moved to my present job with a company that offers hosting with managed support. The company prides itself on providing the best support and the company catch phrase is 'Fanatical Support'.

I'm currently working as a level 1 systems administrator and work in Team Zero, covering intensive support. We proactively monitor our customers' servers 24 hours a day and often respond to alerts before a customer is aware of a problem. We process problems through a system of tickets, which can either be generated automatically via our monitoring systems, or created by our customers or by ourselves. We ensure that all hardware has been configured correctly for the customer and that the operating systems and correct software are installed and then kept up to date.

All our work is remote. If there's a problem with a website, we immediately decide on the priority of the issue, and then resolve or escalate this to another department if it's outside our skill set. Our customers are always kept informed of ticket status. Work does fluctuate, for example when Microsoft releases their patches on a weekly basis, we can be very busy if some servers then won't restart. Although there are shifts, I generally work from 11am to 8pm, but we're a team, and if we're short we cover each other's areas.

Career progression is good and I'll work towards a level 2 administrator post, working on more complex IT problems and then move to a level 3 - a specialist within a particular technology. Training is also excellent as we have two full-time Microsoft trainers and you are then encouraged to sit the Microsoft exams.

My advice for any graduate seeking a career in IT support is that you need to really enjoy IT. If you're not interested, you won't do well. You're learning all the time so it's important to have that motivation. Key skills include trouble shooting and being able to research things off your own bat. Communication skills are also really important, as well as excellent customer service skills. If you have these, you'll do well.