Sysadmin Blog Friday, July 31 is 2015's Systems Administrator Appreciation Day, better known as Sysadmin Day. It is a day during which sysadmins feel sad that nobody remembers there is a day dedicated to them, and they go on being as unappreciated as every other day of the year. The exception being vendors and other sysadmins; they remember to care.

Marketing loves Sysadmin Day. Articles from previous years show an ever increasing number of contests, discounts, and attempts at "customer engagement." This year is no different for vendors: they're out in force.

There is an uptick, however, in community-organized events. It seems that sysadmins are emerging from their cave-like abodes, venturing out underneath that great big ball of photon-spewing fusion in the sky, and actually socializing with other sysadmins in pubs all around the world.

What a brilliant idea.

As always, my Google-fu is imperfect, and not everyone alerts El Reg about their sysadmin day plans. The following rundown of contests and community get-togethers is not remotely a comprehensive list, and I do hope that events I miss will get added to in the comments section of this article.

General contests and marketing faff

Perhaps the most intriguing Sysadmin Day-related bit of marketing faff is only tangentially related to Sysadmin Day at all, but there is some pretty sexy hardware on offer. Catalogic is doing a Sysadmin Day webinar all about the copy data management market in which it operates.

So far, so boring, why am I bothering you with this pointless marketing tat when you can just read the articles in the hyperlinks? Well, a little birdie told me that the back quarter of the Catalogic webinar would be used to discuss the details of their VMworld home lab contest. More to the point, this home lab isn't going to be some crappy Intel NUCs and a switch.

The home lab "will include a free license for ECX and a NetApp box so the lucky winner can experience for himself/herself the power of SW-defined copy data management for VMworld." Details on what, if any, compute servers will be included are sketchy at this point, but any home lab serious enough to include a NetApp box has my interest piqued. Sysadmin Day 2015 will mark the start of a contest that ends quite well for some lucky nerd.

2015 is the first year in I can't remember how long that ThinkGeek doesn't seem to be celebrating Sysadmin Day. Perhaps their marketing people are just slow this year, or perhaps this is part of ThinkGeek's ongoing strategy of trying to appeal to the mainstream and largely abandoning its "geek" base.

If you were hoping to get your ThinkGeek fix on for the year, you needn't fear: Netwrix is here. $25 gift certs are the prize for the best "what stresses you out" short form. Terms and conditions aren't posted, so I have no idea who is allowed to participate.

Manage Engine has fully embraced Sysadmin Day. There is the usual contest, this time based around sending e-cards to your sysadmins. 20 people will be picked from among the senders to receive $20 gift cards for Amazon. More intriguingly, ManageEngine has put together a fun picture-thingie on "sysadmin myths," seemingly sourced from a survey of their community members. The contest is open to everyone unless you live in a country that the US government doesn't like.

Spiceworks is running a 12 days of sysadmas that hasn't seen as much engagement from the community as past years, but is fun nonetheless. There are sponsors listed, but what events or prizes they might be sponsoring isn't immediately evident.

Thwack (SolarWinds) is at it again this year with its own contest. The grand prizes are an Nvidia Shield Pro and a video gaming chair. There are some runner-up prizes as well. The contest seems to be open to residents of Canada, the US, UK, and Germany.

Softinventive Lab is offering a 20 per cent discount for Sysadmin Day, so if you need network auditing and inventory management software you may want to give them a boo.

In the US of A

Events are also occurring around the world. For those sysadmins living in Dayton, OH, DataYard is holding a shindig at the Fifth Street BrewPub. Tip of the hat to those folks for doing something beyond a quick marketing giveaway and for showing local sysadmins some appreciation face to face.

New York City area sysadmins should join in the festivities at The Gingerman, courtesy of Digital Ocean.

If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area you might want to take the opportunity to hang out with OpenDNS at their headquarters. They promise pizza and beer. From experience, they're pretty fun guys to spend time with.

CDW and Kingston are also doing a contest this year. There's a Microsoft Surface 3 64GB up for grabs, along with a Microsoft Arc touch mouse and a Logitech wireless keyboard/mouse combo. Americans only.

In Australia

Australians are really stepping up to the plate this year. Sysadmin Day's Australian tentacle is running a contest that includes a Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 (courtesy of Samsung Communications Centre), a Targus rolling travel laptop case (from Datacom), and one year membership to SAGE-AU. There's even an official trophy and certificate from SysAdminDay.com.au up for grabs.

Paessler – whom we all know as the folks behind the PRTG network monitoring software – is also running a contest. The best response to "Only Aussie SysAdmins Know" gets a $500 Red Balloon voucher.