The System Administrators Group is an organization in Japan that helps system administrators of enterprise IT systems to work with enthusiasm and have plentiful opportunities to develop their skills.

Starting in August 2006, this group has promoted System Administrator Appreciation Day, which was instituted in July 2000 by a system administrator in Chicago, USA, as a special day, comparable to Secretary Day, for system administrators (http://www.sysadminday.com/). On this day every year we have held the System Administrator Appreciation Event to thank the enterprise system administrators who always work behind the scenes to keep the systems stable.

At present 5,000 system administrators and over 100 companies are registered members of the Group. Our website (http://www.sysadmingroup.jp/) has been a place where the member of the group can gather and exchange useful information related to IT systems, their careers, lifestyles, and others.

The disastrous earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11, 2011, has created new challenges for the System Administrators Group. Many people are suffering from deaths in their families and from the inconveniences of an unsettled life. Our office in Tokyo suffered no damage, and no immediate ill effect on our operations, but we are concerned about the afflicted area and want to do what we can for the people there. What can we do to help the nation recover from the greatest earthquake in a thousand years? The self-defense force, many volunteers, and numerous rescue teams from foreign countries are visiting the site to offer assistance. Professionals from all over the world are cooperating to help Japan. We are grateful for their dedicated help.

System administrators cannot help disaster victims directly, but can help them remotely during a recovery that may take more than ten years. At present, their most important job is to restore the network systems that were damaged by the earthquake and control servers’ consumption of power during the resulting shortage of electricity. The System Administrators Group stands ready to support them.

The disaster site needs, and will continue to need, a lot of money. But money is not all that is needed. To speed recovery and reconstruction, IT systems play an essential part in this recovery, and so do system administrators, who we believe will rise to the occasion. We appeal to system administrators groups all over the world to pray for Japan, to lend the nation a helping hand, and to send messages encouraging the Japanese people.

We would like to ask the following of you:

• Ask the system administrators in your country to use their Internet sites to send messages encouraging not only the individuals struck by this disaster, but also the Japanese system administrators fighting to restore IT systems.

• Collect the messages submitted in your country and send them to us so that we can distribute them to encourage system administrators in Japan through our website. Mail to: sysadmingroup@bsp.co.jp (We hope them in English preferably.)

We believe that your messages will inspire Japanese system administrators as they work on this tremendous project. They will strengthen the resolve that Japan will never give up, but will revive again.

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"Every last Friday is
The Monthly System Administrator Appreciation Day."
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BSP Incorporated.
Committee of System Administrators Group.
Yasuko NISHIMURA

Address:
Shinagawa Intercity A-29,
2-15-1 Kounan, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-6029, Japan

Tel:+81-3-5463-6381 Fax:+81-3-5463-6392
URL : http://www.bsp.jp/en/index.html
E-Mail：sysadmingrp@bsp.co.jp