Solo Admin to VP of IT? Proposing an new role that doesn't exist at my job.

Hi All,

I’m currently the sole IT person (Title: Network Administrator) at a place with 65 employees. All things need to go through a board of directors, and our CEO/President just stepped down unexpectedly after less than a year.

I’ve been here for a few years, the prior IT person was here for 25 years. There is another employee with an unrelated job noscript, that does 25% of the work that an IT team should be doing (specific job related software). We use a local MSP for most things I cannot handle (Email, O365, Firewall patching, etc.).

Where I'm at: My noscript is becoming a mismatch for what I actually do. I’ve been working with HR to hire a second IT employee to offload the day-to-day tickets, but I want to take it a step further. I just got approval for the budget of a second IT person, but need to align it with a higher role.

I want to propose a VP of Information Technology role for myself to formalize the strategic, budgetary, and compliance work I’m already doing.

EDIT: There are 6 "Vice Presidents" at this job. That's just how the managers of each department are listed.

The Issue: The role doesn't exist. I report to the CEO/Board on things like compliance and risk management, but I'm still the guy people call when a mouse stops working. My boss, the acting CEO (Executive V.P.) has worked here for longer than I've been alive.

What I need advice on: Has anyone successfully "job-crafted" their way into an executive or high-level management role at a small-to-medium org?

Specifically:

- How do I frame the move from "Tech Guy" to "Business Executive" to a Board that might only see me as the IT guy?

- Is it better to ask for the new hire first, or bundle it into a departmental "restructuring" proposal?

I used some statistics to show that 1/65 IT/employee ratio is insane, and that 1:18 is normal for a small organization. Having a helpdesk break/fix, and a second IT admin would be ideal, but I can't really justify that with the MSP contract.


I’m finishing up my MBA in IT Management soon, so I'll have the credentials moving into 2026, but I want to make sure the business case is airtight. Any advice/guidance is appreciated :)

https://redd.it/1q0c68p
@r_systemadmin

Recommended solution that does both Mac and Windows MDM?

Our set up is very fragmented which is annoying, we use about 7 different tools, none of which have remote wiping or MDM capabilities. Are there any solid solutions that look after both systems?

https://redd.it/1q0bwom
@r_systemadmin

Is devops/site reliability engineer, platform engineer and similar jobs, same thing as sys admin? At some websites when you filter by sys admin it shows these jobs. Can you maybe talk about this? Thank you.

I don't really know.

If you can do sys admin jobs would you say you can probably do these jobs as well?

Do you have to read the same kind of code as a full stack or backend developer? Or is it more like noscripting code like powershell or something like that or maybe just python? Thank you.

Edit: I've also seen people on Linkedin go from sys admin to cloud, sre/devops roles. So I guess it seems very common, but I just I just need to hear it from someone to feel okay about it.

https://redd.it/1q0eew7
@r_systemadmin

In charge of a long overdue upgrade to systems - Need some advice from experienced sysadmins

Hello everyone,

I'm in search for wisdom and advice/suggestions.



"Short" version of the story: small IT EU-based company (<50 users) got absorbed by a bigger one (now 170-200 users, still EU-based).

I never had to care about "server modernization" given before me (and a colleague with on-par experience) there was a Senior IT which basically managed everything, leaving only basic tasks to us (internal helpdesk and customer service mostly). Turns out, there was never enough time for Senior IT and DEVs to modernize the systems to keep them "on par" with recent standards.

"Senior IT" went away, leaving mostly no documentation, and there was a certain employee turnover even among DEVs, and it seems they didn't leave anything really documented too.



Management decided to split me and colleague, leaving him to deal with "small company customer issues" and me to deal with "small & big company internal issues".

I landed better than him given at least for the "big company internal issues" part I have a few new colleagues from "big company" that know how to manage most of "their stuff", but cannot really help me comprehend issues I may have on my side.

Now I'm in charge of slowly modernizing our systems, given "bigger company" has higher standards, and some of our systems are "more than legacy" but without a proper documentation I'm a bit at a loss dealing with the mess regarding "server n.1" (there are many to fix).

I'm divided between checking firewall and proxy rules to sort out the various nats and pubblications, literally scavenging each and every webserver to search dependancies and referrals, and venturing into backend to see if all of the presumed referrals are good or there are things that are still there but unused.

Remaining DEV colleagues are no use (either moved to other groups where they have little to no spare time to help me or never apparently knew more than I actually know), new DEVs on those products/projects lack time and experience too and "Senior IT" is mostly unavailable as an external consultant (Management says he's too pricey so I cannot ask for paid help too much).

It's a mess, to say the least, and I feel like in a maze.



The baseline seems to be:

1) I have to be mostly on my own on solving those little issues

2) I cannot really spend money on this

3) Almost forgot: we work mostly on Windows (IIS + MS SQL + .Net )



Do you have any suggestion on how to approach this situation, or useful tools that I can use to "sort things out" or at least make proper documentation regarding newtork diagrams/dependencies and such?



TLDR; I'm alone trying to move "legacy products/projects" on more modern OSs with no documentation or knowledge-base from DEVs; trying to do some scavenging to find out how everything seems to work; I need tips and tools to survive the mess ahead.




Thank you in advance.

https://redd.it/1q0g1vb
@r_systemadmin

Finally got budget to implement an MDM

Capex budgets haven't been officially approved yet, but the implementation costs for an MDM have made it through all the rounds of approvals and I am STOKED.

We have around 150 mobile devices (mostly iPhones, some android phones/tablets) and it is an absolute NIGHTMARE managing them considering it's just my boss and me, and I mainly manage the phones. We've also got around 200 laptops that I'm hoping we can add to it next year, but at least we have an RMM for those that helps.

I've been asking for budget for budget for MDM for almost 2 years now, I know it's gonna be a ton of work to implement but we have an MSP to help with the legwork and it'll be so much less of my time wasted on stupid shit that an MDM can do automatically.

If folks have any suggestions for solutions you really like I'd love quick reviews - something that supports both android and apple, and if it can support windows laptops even better (we're unsure if we wanna go 3rd party or Intune). We've been trialing Vantage and it's super clunky, though my boss liked the super cheap price.

My top pick right now is MaaS360, and our SP recommended also looking at Ivanti, but I'm trying to identify a third one to demo and compare and there's... So much info to sift through online. (I've been back in the sysasmin world for about 3 years now after almost a decade career curve in telecom... Everything is a paid/sponsored ad nowadays and it feels so much more difficult to find actual useful info.)

https://redd.it/1q0i9or
@r_systemadmin

Personal Device

Curious how many tech workers use android devices vs apple for personal use. Mostly been an apple person having gotten the “free” with phone service but find myself leaning back to android now with Apple feeling pretty stagnant.

https://redd.it/1q0he3k
@r_systemadmin

"We're not allowed to copy files"

Just thought this was funny, in a kind of sad way. We have a third-party "technician" who's installed an updated version of their application on a few new servers I built for them. Disconnected herself from one of the servers when she disabled TLS 1.2 and 1.3 and enabled 1.0/1.1 (Sentinel One took the server offline due to perceived malicious activity). We managed to work that out after I explained HTTPS and certificates, so no harm, no foul.

But this is the same woman who previously had me copy 3.5Tb of files from an old server on our network to the new server (also on our network) for her, even though she has admin access on both, because she's "not allowed to copy files."


EDIT: btw, my heartache wasn't the "my company doesn't allow me to copy files" thing. I get that, even if I think it's excessive. It's the juxtaposition with disabling TLS 1.2 and 1.3 and enabling TLS 1.0/1.1 that was the what the actual F**K are you doing? reaction from me.

https://redd.it/1q0lrt4
@r_systemadmin

Happy 2026!

May no one test in prod and may our environments enjoy long uptimes!

https://redd.it/1q0mzca
@r_systemadmin

Where do “temporary” systems go to die and how do you stop them from becoming permanent?

I'm curious how other sysadmins deal with "temporary" systems that somehow live forever.

You know the ones: a quick file share spun up for a project, a noscript someone wrote to bridge a gap, a VM meant to last a quarter that's still quietly running years later. No owner, minimal documentation, and everyone's afraid to touch it because *something* depends on it.. but nobody knows what.

In my experience, these are often the hardest things to unwind, not because they're complex, but because no one remembers why they exist or who's using them.

How do you all prevent this from happening in the first place?

Expiration dates or auto-shutdown policies? Mandatory ownership tags and periodic access reviews? Something cultural that actually works?

And when you inherit a pile of these "temporary" systems, what's worked to clean them up without breaking the business or triggering a surprise 3 a.m. page?

https://redd.it/1q0ldny
@r_systemadmin

Any gotchas for removing DFS-R?

We currently have two file servers running DFS-R (yuck); an old VM connected to the old SAN, and a new one with a new SAN. It served it's purpose for migrating data and getting the entire company using DFS-N, but now it's time to decommission the old one. It seems pretty simple to disable membership of the old server for each replication group it's a part of, then turning off DFS-R on both servers, and then shutting down the old server. But are there any tips or issues you have had when doing this? And cheers to 2026!

https://redd.it/1q0lnyg
@r_systemadmin

IT IS NOT A COST CENTER

Please please please bring this into the new year and internalize/externalize it.

If your business uses computers, IT is not overhead. It is the operating system of the company.

No email. No identity. No access. No data. No backups. No security. No uptime. Nothing moves without IT. unless your entire business is a cash register and a pad of receipts.

Accounting gets a seat because money matters. HR gets a seat because people matter. Management gets a seat because coordination matters.

IT makes all of that possible.

Well run IT is not a cost. It is a multiplier. Every department is faster, safer, and more effective because systems work.

Bad IT is expensive. Good IT disappears. That does not mean it has no value. It means it is doing its job.

Internalize and externalize it. Stop apologizing for budgets. Stop framing yourself as “support.”

We make the business run.

Act like it this year.

https://redd.it/1q0rlqb
@r_systemadmin