Most individuals know that IT stands for information technology. It is a wide-reaching term. It can mean computers, but also the exchange of electronic data and information. It might also involve data storage, processing, and creation.
Because it is such an enormous concept, virtually any company will need to have some kind of IT presence. Think about it: if you have a company website, have some on-prem servers, have an app for your business, etc., you will need IT specialists to help you.
That is where IT admins come in. An IT administrator is someone who’s in charge of your company’s IT. They might have all kinds of duties, depending on what type of information technology resources you have at your disposal.
In this article, we’ll talk about the IT admin toolkit concept for the year 2022. Essentially, this is a list of IT concepts, ideas, or resources that an IT admin should be able to access or learn about this year. IT admins are likely to need most of these, regardless of their company’s particular business model.
IAM
IAM stands for identity and access management. This is a policy and technology framework that any IT admin should know.
An admin will need IAM for the business they represent because, without it, there is no way to be certain that only authorized individuals can access a company’s IT resources. As we mentioned earlier, those resources might be a company’s website to which the employees need to make changes.
IT resources might include a company’s app that sometimes needs refinement and updating. If a company still uses physical servers rather than ones in the cloud, only the right employees should be able to access and maintain them.
There are many different parts of IAM, but any IT admin should have their own bespoke framework that makes sense based on what the company does and its IT resources.
Two-Factor and Multi-Factor Authentication Methodology
An IT admin who wants to implement IAM for a business entity will probably want to look into two-factor authentication, sometimes abbreviated as 2FA. They might also go with multi-factor authentication. Multi-factor authentication is like 2FA, but with three or more factors that determine user identity.
You can regard two-factor or multi-factor authentication as a critical part of the larger IAM concept. Most companies will use two or multi-factor authentication because they want to confirm a user’s identity before they can access their IT resources.
The two, three, or four factors an IT admin might set up for the company’s workers may include any or all of the following: biometric indicators like facial recognition technology or a fingerprint scanner, an iris scanner, a unique user login, a password, a unique numerical combination, or a series of security questions.
You probably know a little about two or multi-factor authentication, even if you are not an IT admin or work in the IT field. You will need to utilize two-factor authentication to access your Android device or iPhone. You’ll use it when you access a social media account like Meta, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.
Most IT admins feel like multi-factor authentication is better than two-factor since that’s yet another security layer a hacker or bad actor would need to get past to access any confidential information. Exactly what factors you’ll set up, and how many, is something you might talk about with the company’s CEO or whoever else is in charge on the ladder’s top rung.
Remote Work Capability
IT used to be all about on-prem, short for on-premises. The concept went like this: a company would buy or rent out a building, probably with cubicles or office spaces. The employees came to work every day at that central location, swiped in at the security desk, and went about their business.
They’d log into a software suite the whole company used. There, they could chat with their coworkers via an online workspace or sometimes meet with them in a conference room. They could use that software suite to instant message each other, share their work if there was project collaboration happening, access their calendars, and so forth.
Some of that still happens, but the pandemic threw a monkey wrench into this business model. Remote work happens more now than ever before, with employees “commuting” from their bedrooms and living rooms all over the country. Some of them even come to work from international locations.
The digital world remote workers use makes it easier on companies in some ways since they no longer have to rent or buy buildings where workers congregate. However, this means that IT admins need to come up with secure solutions regarding how these employees can log in safely, do their work, communicate with each other, etc.
There are definitely ways around these challenges, but IT admins sometimes have to get creative about it. They might communicate with their superiors and the rest of the IT team about cloud solutions, firewalls, antivirus software, and ways to comply with minimum security necessities so they can sell products and offer services. There are always regulatory bodies checking on a company’s IT structure, so there can be no mistakes in this area.
In 2022, a responsible IT admin needs to have a remote work setup that any new or existing employee can easily learn how to use. There should be all kinds of worker identity verification and security safeguards in place.
The admin should also continue learning about existing and emerging technologies that will give them a leg up on the competition. There are almost no companies that operate in a vacuum; there are always competitors, no matter what a business entity sells or makes.
All this goes into an IT admin’s toolkit. Hopefully, whoever is in charge of the company will hire an admin who knows their business and can manage the stress which comes with this vital position. They should also supply them with an operational budget that can accomodate all the resources we’ve mentioned.