Did you know that some of our employees work tirelessly to maintain your systems’ security and performance?
Martin Roy has been carrying out this work as systems administrator at Direct Impact Solutions since 2011. Find out what his job is like and what drives him from day to day.
Martin has a long history in the IT industry. After starting out as a technician in an Apple kiosk, he became the IT manager of a retailer and then joined the IT department of an aeronautics company. After that, he worked freelance for a few years, which led to him meeting the Direct Impact Solutions team while acting as a consultant. Things clicked immediately, and Martin joined the team. It’s a choice he doesn’t regret: as the father of an autistic daughter, Martin is happy to have a flexible schedule that allows him to balance work and family life, and to be able to count on the support of management, which he says is receptive to employees’ needs.
On a day-to-day basis, Martin’s job is to manage enterprise servers, whether they’re hosted locally or in the cloud through Amazon Web Services (AWS). He continuously monitors the servers’ operation and responds to client requests to resolve whatever problems arise. “I also track performance issues using monitoring tools that send me alerts,” says Martin. Trained in computer security, he understands the importance of acting upstream to prevent problems from escalating. Deploying new technologies and implementing new concepts, especially security-related ones, is what excites him most about his work as an administrator.
Martin has seen major evolutions in IT service offerings since he started at Direct Impact. He recalls that the company used to rent space in a data centre to house servers. Today, it’s more advantageous for clients and the company to outsource hosting to a cloud service like AWS, which has an infrastructure whose performance is virtually unmatched. “It lets me focus on implementing solutions to make sure the software works well rather than having to manage hardware,” he explains.
Martin’s career is still evolving, and he recently completed introductory management training. This certification will allow him to take on more responsibility in managing teams. One thing’s for sure: he’ll keep taking great care of our IT solutions’ security and performance.