Celebrated on the last Friday of July, System Administrator Appreciation Day means it’s time to officially say: thank you to the system administrators, IT pros, and tech teams who keep everything running behind the scenes.
Whether you're resetting passwords, patching vulnerabilities, wrangling cables, or restoring mission-critical data, you are the everyday IT heroes of modern business.
SysAdmin Day was started in 2000 by system administrator Ted Kekatos as a way to recognize the vital role sysadmins play in keeping our digital infrastructure healthy. It’s been celebrated on the last Friday of July ever since. This year’s SysAdmin Day falls on Friday, July 26, 2025.
It’s one small day of appreciation for the people who keep things running 24/7/365.
If you’ve ever submitted a ticket to “IT” for help, a SysAdmin was likely involved.
SysAdmins (or system administrators) are responsible for keeping IT environments operational, secure, and efficient. Their work touches just about everything in an organization, including:
In the world of IT, backups are your last line of defense against ransomware, hardware failure, accidental deletions, human error (think spilling coffee on your laptop), or natural disasters.
A strong backup strategy helps businesses stay protected and bounce back quickly when things go wrong. That’s where Comet Backup comes in.
We built Comet for the IT professionals who need backups to just work, without sacrificing control. It's a fast, secure, all-in-one backup platform designed for IT teams and MSPs with powerful features like flexible storage options, configurable retention policies, and support for a broad range of backup types.
If you're already using Comet (or just getting started), here are a few quick tips to get the most out of it:
1. Check and configure user permissions
User profiles are used in Comet’s encryption and key management, and therefore, act as a security boundary.
2. Enable MFA for admins and end users
Multi-factor authentication adds an extra layer of protection for admin and end user logins.
3. Set a smart retention policy
Keep what you need, clean up what you don’t to save storage space and ensure required data is kept for compliance and business continuity.
4. Schedule regular backups
Automate backups on a regular schedule to ensure consistent data protection, improve business continuity, and reduce recovery time.
5.Customize email reports
Stay informed and act fast. Set up custom reports so you know when something needs attention.
SysAdmins are often the first to respond when something goes wrong, and the last to be thanked when everything’s going smoothly.
We raise our glasses (or mugs of coffee) to all of the SysAdmins who keep our systems secure, our data safe, and our workdays running around the clock. Thank you for everything you do. Happy #SysAdminDay!
We sat down for a chat with Noel Reyes, one of Comet’s Software Developers who has been with the company since October 2022. This piece has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Where have you seen Comet’s dev team make an impactful difference for customers?
In our feature voting system, we had a highly requested feature for user groupings. I’m proud of the work Ben Frengley and I undertook to build that feature together.
Before customers were using the tenant feature in a way we hadn’t anticipated. We heard that feedback and built user groups specifically to make it easy for MSPs to group their clients and users, and for companies to group users by department. It really made a difference for customers and is a very handy feature.
How does the feature voting system inform what makes it onto Comet’s product roadmap?
Whenever we're making decisions about what will be included on the quarterly product roadmap, feature requests heavily influence what we decide to build and work on because we can see which features customers want.
If it's a highly requested feature, it goes into consideration for the roadmap, then we start developing. We listen to our customers and their needs. Feature voting allows us to see the number of customers that want a feature. When a feature gets a lot of up votes, we say, let's make these customers happy. Let's make it a reality for them, from feature request to reality.
All the new things that I could learn. It's not just programming, but also actually understanding all the different technologies we back up and the integration partners we work with.
You're handling Windows, you're handling Linux, you're handling Mac, and then there's a range of storage providers. One storage provider can work differently from another.
More often than not at Comet your day-to-day will be different. The endless learning opportunities is what really attracted me.
You were a mentor to Liam, one of Comet’s junior developers. What did you enjoy about being a mentor?
At the beginning of my career, in my first internship, I had a mentor who said something that really stuck with me – he wanted to be the senior mentor that he wished he had when he was a junior developer. He was a really good mentor for me and I wanted to take that same approach and be a good mentor for Liam.
To me, a good mentor means being available for any questions, teaching best practices, and making the mentee feel comfortable with the overall work, so I wanted to pay it forward.
So whenever Liam has any questions, I'm more than happy to answer and help him learn. When something is going well for Liam, it makes me proud. He's learning and he's making things that help our customers now. It’s great getting to see his work have that impact.
What advice would you give to an aspiring developer?
Just try to write code as much as you can. Debug for 15 to 30 minutes. If you are struggling or can't figure out the answer, it’s okay to stop and ask for help. Don't be afraid to ask questions. We're more than happy to help.
What's your favorite thing about working at Comet?
At Comet, the work-life balance is top tier. It's the best company I've ever worked for, including other previous workplaces. No one comes close to the work culture and the people at Comet.
My favorite thing about working at Comet is definitely the people. It's really nice to be working with like-minded people. It's fun. You can talk about your hobbies, video games, and hiking. It’s not always about work.
I really like CometCon, our internal company conference. Especially hearing talks from the different departments that I don’t normally interact with, like Marketing, Customer Success, and Sales. It’s great to learn about other areas of the business outside of the dev teams and the software side of things.
We have Monday and Friday in the office where you can have a chat and in-person interactions with people. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we have the option to work from home if we want to. I find those days are good for working on things that need a state of deep focus.
It's really nice because our hours are flexible. As long as you're doing your eight hours per day, if you have errands during the day, you can make up the hours later in the evening.
How would you describe the team culture at Comet?
It's open. I really like it because everyone feels welcome to ask questions. Even if you are a senior developer or the CTO, it doesn’t mean you have to know everything, you can still ask questions and people are more than happy to answer and help.
People are humble and don’t have egos. For example, I have more years of experience than Jackson. But I find myself sometimes saying, "Oh, I never knew that. Jackson, how did you do that?" Then he will be more than happy to answer my question.
When I was in high school, my sister worked for an internet café in Manila in the Philippines. When she took me there, that was the first time I saw computers. We didn’t have one at home. From then on, when we went to the city, I would look forward to going to the internet café to browse the internet and play computer games like Counter Strike, or pinball on Windows XP. I was really fascinated with how computer games work, and how they were connected with other computers.
When I was in university, I had a conversation with my uncle who worked for the Philippines government’s department of science and technology. He suggested that I should study computer science. It wasn’t on my radar, but after my uncle suggested it, when I took a computer science course, I really enjoyed it. I was fascinated with the programming side of computer science and always looked forward to programming.
Tell us about your journey of becoming a developer.
I started with an internship in the IT department at a hospital. That was my first time seeing how programming was done in real life and what it’s actually like versus writing code and submitting it to your professor. In the internship, I was writing code and could see when I opened the software that I did that, I contributed to that, so I really enjoyed that feeling.
Then my first developer job was in Manila for a US client, an e-learning platform. That was my first introduction with Git and meddling with the server, configurations and networking, I learned a lot there. I started as an intermediate developer there, then I got promoted to the lead software developer and I was leading the whole team.
When I came to New Zealand, I got hired in the IT department for a geotechnical firm and I learned a lot there, like working with Linux. Then I came to Comet.
I love that Christchurch is in close proximity to pretty much everything. You’re near the sea, the mountains, the hills, hiking and ski areas. I also love that there are a lot of local walking trails around Christchurch and easy access to outdoor activities. Plus, there's also a lot of good restaurants and cafes.
I love being outdoors, going hiking, and mountain biking. I love exploring the mountains and seeing the views when you’re high up, it’s astonishing. My favorite hike is the Milford Track, it was amazing, nothing else comes close. I’ve done a few of the longer bike trails, the Otago Rail Trail, the Millennium trail, and other bike trails in the Otago area.
We’re back with the sixth edition of CometCon, our company-wide internal conference where local and remote team members gather at Comet HQ for a week of collaboration, knowledge-sharing, connection, and (mandatory) fun.
Here are some highlights from our mid-year CometCon:
At each CometCon, team members from all departments are invited to submit a talk to present to the company. This time, we had an action-packed speaker lineup with eight presentations from the Developers, Marketing, Customer Success, and Software Testing teams.
CometCon talks are a fantastic platform for sharing insights across the company. Many of the talks focused on learnings from different projects, and how we can improve the product and experience for our Comet community and partners.
Between the speaker session, we built in open time blocks for people to connect, brainstorm, and collaborate. These flexible sessions encourage impromptu discussions, in-person meetings, and a bit of downtime to hang out and chat (or play Jenga!).
Throughout the week, our developers also picked up support tickets to help lighten the support workload.
In addition to our company dinner and drinks on Thursday, we hosted a few optional after-hours events, including a team dinner at a burger and BBQ joint (a fan favorite), bouldering, and karaoke. We’re big believers in balancing hard work with both mandatory and optional fun during CometCon.
The energy at Comet HQ during CometCon week is always something special. It’s great to have the team together in person, catching up, learning from one another, and working side by side. And of course, the excellent catering kept us fuelled all week, with coffee breaks and shared meals becoming a highlight for great conversations. We’re already looking forward to the next CometCon, stay tuned!
Since launch, our mission at Comet Backup has been to empower IT professionals to protect your organizations. Thousands of you, from MSPs to in-house IT teams, have since used Comet Backup to save the day when disaster strikes.
We know data resiliency is critical to safeguarding your business and the teams that rely on you to keep them safe – but as IT leaders we need to ask the question: how can we ensure our business is not just safe and secure, but growing and thriving?
That focus is at the heart of our decision to join forces with WebPros. We’re excited to announce that Comet Backup has been acquired by WebPros and is now a proud member of their ecosystem, alongside industry heavy hitters like cPanel, Plesk, and WHMCS.
Since launching in 2017, WebPros’ mission has been to integrate web operations – helping businesses establish and grow their digital presence with ease. Now, they’re expanding that mission: empowering digital and IT leaders to thrive in the digital landscape so they can focus on growth instead of tech headaches.
Their suite of leading software solutions is one of the most widely used web enablement ecosystems in the world with over 27 million users, managing over 750,000 servers, and 60 million domains, including over 23 million WordPress websites, across 227 countries.
Comet Backup protects your business, and WebPros opens doors for your business to grow. Together, our tools enable you to build and scale your organization’s digital presence, securely and profitably.
A shared vision for the future of data protection
"We are thrilled to welcome Comet Backup into the WebPros family. This is an important extension of our web enablement ecosystem, helping businesses address their backup and storage needs with greater efficiency and reliability,” said Christian Koch, CEO of WebPros.
“It was clear to us from the outset that WebPros’ leading global web enablement ecosystem is the perfect permanent home to take our business to the next level,” said Josh Flores, General Manager of Comet Backup. “The acquisition process itself gave both my team and me full confidence that the WebPros group is an optimal cultural fit for us. Our customers can expect the same great service, now with enhanced support and innovative new features as we continue to invest in the product.”
With WebPros adding rocket fuel to our capabilities, we’ll be innovating faster and building more. Together, we’ll be able to serve you even better.
Comet Backup will continue to operate as its own platform, with the same mission to provide MSPs and IT teams with the best backup solutions in the galaxy.
What this means for you:
No disruption to your service: Your Comet account, pricing, backup environment, storage options, integrations and workflows will stay the same.
More resources and faster product development: With additional resources, we’re accelerating our roadmap to bring you more new features, sooner.
A stronger customer experience: Better tools and ability to enhance our support systems and increase support coverage across more time zones.
Our commitment to your success remains our top priority. The Comet community means everything to us. This move allows us to invest even more in things that are important to our partners: performance, reliability, and support.
Whether you’ve been with us since the beginning or are a new customer, we’re incredibly grateful to have you on board for the journey ahead.
Comet is now part of WebPros. Read our official announcement here
Q. Will anything change for current Comet Backup customers?
Nothing changes for your business. Everything in your Comet account stays the same. Your backup environment, storage options, integrations, and workflows will keep running just as they do today. In the near future, you can look forward to enhanced support and some exciting new features.
No, your current plan and pricing will stay the same. If anything ever changes, we’ll let you know well in advance.
Q. How does this acquisition benefit Comet customers and product development?
With additional resources, this acquisition will speed up the development of new features and improve the ones we already have, using our combined skills to bring more value to our customers.
No, your data, privacy, and security will not be affected. We remain fully committed to protecting your data and maintaining exemplary security standards.
Q. Will support quality or responsiveness change?
Technical support will remain the same, and in fact, we expect it to improve. With WebPros' assistance, one of our top priorities is enhancing our support systems and increasing support coverage across more time zones.
Q. Will Comet Backup integrate with new tools or platforms?
That’s the plan! We’re exploring more integrations to make your backup and IT workflow even more seamless. Stay tuned.
As always, you can reach out to our customer success team by emailing partners@cometbackup.com, or raise a support ticket. We’re here for you and happy to help.
We’re reaching for the stars. With WebPros adding rocket fuel to our capabilities, we’ll be innovating faster and building more to bring you the best backup solutions in the galaxy. We’re excited to have you on board for the journey ahead.
Comet 25.5.0 Hyperion, our latest Quarterly release, brings 3 new features and 9 enhancements, including automatic Storage Vault unlocking, automatically switching jobs to use on-disk indexes, a new option to backup everything in a Microsoft 365 domain, and more.
The full set of changes can be found in the release notes.
This Quarterly release is named after Saturn's moon Hyperion. Fun fact: Hyperion is potato shaped and its deeply cratered surface resembles a sponge. Hyperion rotates chaotically, tumbling unpredictably through space as it orbits Saturn.
Join us for our Quarterly webinar on Tuesday 10 June (4pm ET / 1pm PT). Comet's CTO, Mason, and Product Engineering Manager, Callum, will cover all the latest product updates, with a live question-and-answer session at the end.
Storage Vault locking is a core part of Comet that ensures backup and retention passes can run safely on multiple devices sharing the same Storage Vault. A Storage Vault is only locked when critical changes are being made to the data in the Storage Vault, such as when unused data is being removed as part of a retention pass.
As part of our efforts to improve the experience of Comet, we have added functionality to automatically change Storage Vault access keys for some of our supported storage providers. This allows admins to unlock compatible Storage Vaults without the risk of data loss.
The following Storage Vault types are currently supported:
Comet Storage
Amazon AWS
Wasabi
Storage Vaults can also be automatically unlocked. This can be configured in user policy settings. This is great for admins who want to resolve Storage Vault locking issues without introducing a data loss risk.
New Feature: Automatically Switch Jobs To Use On-Disk Indexes
Comet makes use of in-memory indexes to optimise backup and retention pass jobs to maintain a list of where the data is in the Storage Vault. For larger Storage Vaults, this can lead to a large amount of data held in memory. On devices that have a lower amount of RAM, this can cause a job to fail as there is not enough available memory to complete the job. Comet's solution is to store the indexes on-disk using temporary files instead. This is because devices can often have more free disk space than available RAM.
When a scheduled backup or retention pass requires more RAM than is available, Comet will now automatically switch to store the indexes using temporary files on disk.
Enhancement: New option to back up everything in a Microsoft 365 domain
We are introducing the new "Back up everything" option for Microsoft 365 backups. This option provides a simple way to back up everything within a domain, including any accounts that are added later.
To back up everything with exceptions, users should instead create a group in Microsoft 365 and have the group auto-assign to new accounts. Users to be excluded can be removed from the group, and this group can then be selected in Comet.
Enhancement: Linux Disk Image driver now installs automatically
Comet uses a custom Linux kernel driver backupsnap61 to snapshot a block device during a Linux Disk Image Protected Item backup.
In previous releases, backupsnap61 had to be installed manually using the backupsnap61-install.sh script found in the Comet Backup install directory.
Without backupsnap61 installed, Comet can't guarantee it can get exclusive read access to a block device. This will appear as a warning in a Linux Disk Image backup job log.
Now, backupsnap61 is installed automatically by Comet to ensure a snapshot driver is always available before starting a Linux Disk Image backup.
Enhancement: Bulk Cancel Jobs using the Comet Management Console
From the Comet Management Console, admins are able to monitor and manage thousands of devices and backup jobs. To continue Comet's mission to make managing backups as easy as possible, it is now possible to cancel running jobs in bulk from the Job Logs page on a Comet Management Console.
This is an effective way to stop all currently running backup jobs with one click.
May marks Mental Health Month in the US and Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK (May 12-18, 2025). It’s the perfect time to talk about something that is often overlooked in the workplace: our mental wellbeing and how we’re really doing.
At Comet Backup, we care about keeping our team healthy and happy. Every Friday, we share a quick wellness tip during our all-hands meeting, and we’ve got a Slack channel dedicated to wellbeing tips, healthy recipes, and other resources.
We want to help start the conversation and share some tips and ideas to help support you and your technicians.
It’s about understanding that mental wellbeing matters just as much as physical health. It's also about breaking the stigma around mental health struggles—and making it easier to speak up, check in, and ask for help when needed. We want to help encourage having open conversations in the workplace.
Working in IT and managed services often means long hours, on-call stress, and high-pressure environments and expectations. Whether you're jumping between urgent support tickets or juggling multiple client needs, burnout can creep in fast if you're not careful.
As an MSP or IT professional, do some of these challenges sound familiar?
Always on-call: After-hours alerts and weekend fixes can wear you down.
Constant firefighting: Solving problems all day, every day, with little breathing room.
Pressure from clients: Juggling expectations and staying calm under pressure.
Working solo: Remote work or small teams can feel isolating at times.
5 Workplace Wellbeing Tips for MSPs & IT Professionals
For many IT professionals, stress comes with the job, but there are things we can do to help manage that stress. Here are a few simple yet effective tips to help with workplace wellbeing:
1. Set Clear Boundaries Between Work and Personal Time
IT professionals are often “always on.” Define and stick to work hours, silence notifications after hours, and communicate your availability to clients to avoid burnout.
2. Take Regular Micro-Breaks
Stepping away—even for five minutes—helps reset your focus and reduces stress. Use a timer, like Pomodoro or breaktimer.app, to remind yourself to stretch, hydrate or get a cup of tea, or take a few minutes to look away from the screen (all screens, including the small screen).
3. Automate and Document Where Possible
Reduce decision fatigue and manual tasks by using automation tools and maintaining up-to-date documentation. It lightens the load and helps avoid that "everything depends on me" feeling.
4. Talk About Mental Health Openly
Make it normal to check in and have a friendly chat with coworkers—not just about tickets or projects, but about how they’re doing. A culture of openness leads to earlier support and less stigma.
5. Move Your Body
Whether it’s a short stroll around the block, a quick stretch at your desk, or having a standing meeting. Physical movement helps boost mental clarity, reduces stress, and it’s good for you.
We’ve gathered a few blogs and resources for workplace wellbeing and how to manage stress and avoid burnout at work that you can share with your team and your clients:
We sat down for a chat with Michelle Wong, Comet’s Marketing Specialist who has been with the company since July 2023. This piece has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
I sort of fell into marketing. My first love was rugby, I wanted to introduce everyone to the sport. I played at the University of Michigan and was in charge of recruiting players for our team. Without realizing I was doing marketing, I hand painted posters, designed merch, ran recruitment events, and created websites and social media pages to get the word out.
I’ve always loved being the hype-person for all the organizations and brands I’ve worked with, whether it was for rugby, the University of Michigan Rec Sports department, Kathmandu, and now at Comet Backup. My approach to marketing is to bring the energy, enthusiasm, and excitement to promote the brand or company.
What’s your background in marketing before coming to Comet?
I started out volunteering doing marketing for rugby clubs I’ve played on and various rugby organizations to champion the sport. For a few years, I covered USA Rugby’s day-to-day social media content, and their domestic competitions, international tournaments, and the 2014 Women’s Rugby World Cup in France.
When I came to New Zealand in 2014, I did data admin at Kathmandu, an outdoor retail brand. Then I moved into a customer service role doing community management for their social media platforms. Eventually, I transitioned onto their marketing team, where I specialized in email marketing and campaigns.
What was it like coming to Comet and pivoting to working in the IT software industry?
Coming to work in the tech industry and B2B SaaS (software as a service) space was really new to me. Previously, I worked in B2C in the sports and retail sectors where I was the target market and end user, so I was very familiar with how to market to those audiences.
Comet was a new challenge because I don’t have an IT or tech background. But the team was incredibly helpful. They answered all my questions and made the transition easy for me.
What motivated you to make the leap between industries and roles?
Before coming to Comet, I never really thought I would work in the tech industry. It wasn’t really on my radar.
But I was ready to try something new. I had specialized in email marketing at Kathmandu for almost four years, so I was looking for an opportunity to expand my marketing skills in other areas.
At Comet, I’ve stepped into a new phase in my career. I’ve had the opportunity to grow into a more well-rounded marketer and lead bigger projects. I get to create and implement the content strategy and own the content calendar, including email, organic social, blog posts, webinars, industry groups and integration partner marketing, and more. I love the variety of marketing activities and having creative freedom and autonomy.
What was it like coming to work at Comet even though you didn’t have a background in tech?
Comet is really good at seeing the potential in people. Cultural fit is one of the key things we prioritize during the hiring process. We want to make sure everyone gets along and shares our values of collaboration, creativity and craftsmanship.
I didn’t have a tech background, but I was open to learning, and everyone at the company wants to help you succeed.
When I first joined the company, I had one-on-one meetings with people from different departments. People from all areas of the business spent time with me, telling me about their role and how the backup software works.
Natalie, our Marketing Manager, made IT flashcards for me as a fun way to learn some of the industry specific terms. And I was given a lot of time to research and get a grasp on the tech industry and our audience (IT professionals).
Even now, I still spend time every week reading what IT people are saying in different forums and online community groups, learning what they care about, and what their challenges are.
Genuinely it's the people. Everyone actually cares about you as a person. People are interested in what you did on the weekend and ask you about your hobbies or your holiday. Everyone's really genuine, friendly, and kind. We also have a lot of fun, great conversations and laugh a lot.
I feel comfortable asking anyone questions. I can go directly to the GM, CTO, Product Manager or whoever, and they'll have always make time for me. Everyone's really supportive and collaborative. We just want to help each other out.
What is the work culture like at Comet and on the marketing team?
What I really love about working at Comet is that I feel valued and that my ideas matter. I can make an impact with the work I’m doing.
The projects I choose are largely self-driven, with input and guidance from my manager when I need it. I have lot of freedom to run with new ideas and try different types of content and marketing activities.
What’s it like getting to craft the branding and content for an IT software company?
Comet Backup has a fun outer space theme, so there’s a lot of potential to be creative with the branding and have fun with the marketing.
I feel like I get to be really creative in my role. My manager supports me and helps coach me through areas I’m not as familiar with, and trusts me in areas that I have more experience in. We are always collaborating and learning from each other.
What was the inspiration behind the CometCon meme workshop you led?
At CometCon, our internal conference, I gave a presentation on how we can make our content marketing strategy more entertaining and relatable. Our company culture is really friendly, helpful and fun – so I wanted our marketing and brand personality to reflect that.
Personally, I follow brands because they are either educational, inspiring, or entertaining. I wanted to introduce the ‘entertaining’ part to Comet’s marketing mix by incorporating memes and IT humor.
After the presentation, I ran a meme workshop. Everyone at the company contributed and had a lot of fun coming up with memes. It was really cool to see our GM and company owner get involved. They are really into Comet’s space brand and supportive of making our content fun and helpful.
Outside of CometCon, what other learning and development opportunities are there?
We are encouraged to attend events and talks. Comet is part of a lot of tech organizations across New Zealand, including the Tech Marketers Group, Women in Tech, and Kiwi SaaS. I’ve also joined a few marketing community groups on Slack, including Generate (an APAC tech marketers group) and The Marketing Club AU/NZ.
I participated in a Women in Tech mentorship program, and a virtual tech marketing training cohort over 6 weeks. It’s been great to connect and network with other tech marketers and women in tech to share experiences and ideas.
How do you feel Comet’s work culture supports your lifestyle?
We have hybrid working at Comet. If you're based in the head office in Christchurch, we have a few days in the office and a couple days working remotely. I love it, I think it’s a great balance of having collaborative face-to-face time, and then the option of working from home and not having to commute on those days.
The flexibility is great, people have varied start and finish times to work with their schedules. I’m more of a standard 8:30am to 5pm. I go to the gym in the morning and I finish at 5pm so I have enough time to bike home and get to rugby league training at 6pm. Some people start earlier and finish earlier, so they have the afternoon off. People with kids can do school drop off or pick up, and finish their hours later. There’s real work life balance.
What are your interest in hobbies outside of work?
I really love the outdoors and being outside in nature, hiking, tramping, camping, surfing, and going on road trips in our van. I’m also a rugby union and rugby league fanatic, as a player and a fan. I like also barbecuing, cooking, trying new recipes, and catching up with friends.
World Password Day is another great opportunity for IT Providers and MSPs to educate clients and end users about the importance of good password and cybersecurity habits.
Weak passwords, like “Password1”, or your pet’s name, make it way too easy for cyber criminals to hack into your systems. Strong passwords and good cybersecurity hygiene can help protect end users’ work and business accounts, and these habits can also be applied to personal logins and devices to help everyone stay safe online.
As our digital world keeps evolving, we need to keep up with the latest cybersecurity best practices to keep ourselves and our end users safe. Below are some additional information and resources for World Password Day.
World Password Day is celebrated annually on the first Thursday of May to encourage people to use stronger passwords and secure their online accounts. Intel created World Password Day in 2013 to raise awareness about the role strong passwords play in securing our digital lives.
Strong passwords are important for protecting sensitive information and preventing unauthorized access. For another layer of protection you should also enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) on accounts for increased security.
Strong passwords aren’t the only way to secure your data. It’s also important to back up your data and store a copy of it to a secure location as an additional layer of protection.
Use strong passwords – Passwords should be at least 16 characters in length, and a mix of upper-case and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols.
Unique passwords for each account – Don’t reuse the same passwords. If one account gets compromised, the same password can be used to access other accounts.
Consider using passphrases – These are made up of four or more random words, typically longer than a traditional password.
Use a password manager – These act as a secure, digital vault protected by a single, super strong master password. Password managers can generate strong & unique passwords for each account.
Enable multifactor authentication (MFA) – Add an extra layer of security, such as getting a code via text message or email, entering a pin number, or biometrics such as face recognition or fingerprint scanning.
Always back up your data – Regularly back up your critical data to a secure location, either locally or in the cloud. This ensures you have a copy available to restore in case of a security breach or data loss event.
We sat down for a chat with Josh Conant, one of our Software Developers, who has been with the company since July 2022. This piece has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
In college, I majored in biomedical engineering, but I didn't graduate. Life got in the way. And I ended up taking a call center job working tech support for Microsoft. They used to have a free virus and malicious software hotline that you could call. It got to the point where I could just hear what the customer was clicking and I could tell if they clicked on the right thing or the wrong thing. It was very interesting. I got to learn all about viruses and backdoors and Windows. That’s how I started my career in tech.
Tell us more about your journey in tech and how you became a software developer.
After my tech support role at Microsoft, I worked for a company called Computer Nerds, where I went to people's houses and helped them out with their computer. Then I worked as an IT admin for a golf course in Texas where I got my foot in the door for administration work. Then I went to Rackspace, a hosting company, for about six years. I went in as email admin, then became a Linux admin.
While I was a Linux admin, I really got into programming. I was making little PHP websites for support. I also got into Python, was promoted to Linux Engineer, and started teaching Python classes on the side. When I got really into coding, I switched over to software development, and I have been a software dev ever since.
How did starting in IT before becoming a dev shape your outlook?
Starting in IT operations and then moving into software development gives you a really good perspective on using the software before moving over to making software.
It helps you understand how to make people’s lives easier and how your development choices are going to affect the people trying to run and maintain platforms for your software. This allows you to better architect your software to be more resilient and easier to troubleshoot.
In many ways, keeping operations happy is just as important as keeping the end-user happy, all of which leads to more adoption of your software.
I had done some previous work in the storage realm. The low level storage is always fascinating to me, because it's very complex and technical. It's a fascinating problem in an interesting space.
When I was reading about Comet, specifically about deduplication, local deduplication and compression, it sounded like they were going to be in the thick of it and working with the all the hard problems of optimizing for data backups.
I like problem-solving, and love having difficult problems and interesting puzzles to figure out. I love coding and I love coding problems. I love working to make people's lives easier. Helping people out always feels great.
My favorite thing about Comet has to be the people, honestly, the crew is awesome. Josh, our General Manager, is such an approachable leader. He’s very honest and very open, and I really appreciate that. Our CTO, Mason, is just a treasure trove of technical information and expertise. Everyone is very nice and amiable. Everyone is always up for a chat.
Before coming to Comet, I was doing contracting work and was very transitory, working on temporary fixes or doing temporary jobs. I really wanted to get back to what I had loved about Rackspace’s company culture which put friends and family first, and the feeling of working with a good team. That's when I got the job at Comet. I've been grateful to Comet ever since because everyone here is so amazing to work with.
How would you describe the team culture at Comet?
At Comet, from day one, it's felt like a family. Everyone's nice, everyone's open to feedback, and open to helping each other. The culture of openness applies to the whole company. While we have two dev teams, it’s not isolating or siloing. If I talk to anyone on the other dev team, I still have the same great experience, and I appreciate that.
What's the learning and development culture like at Comet?
At Comet it’s great because if there's something you're interested in, and think it will help Comet, they will allow you to pursue it. If I need to take time to research what I'm working on, that's encouraged. I don't have to knock out a ticket as fast as possible. It’s not like at a big corporation.
If you're interested in any part of the code base, and you want to learn more about it, you just tell your Dev Team Lead and they will give you tickets on that area. There’s a tag on tickets called ‘First Projects’, specifically for new devs. If you want to try something new, they don't just throw you in cold turkey, instead they'll give you one of those easier ‘First Projects’ tickets. And whoever is the subject matter expert for a particular area of the code base is always willing to talk and they'll help you get started.
Are you the subject matter expert on specific realms?
Yeah, a couple of them, including Microsoft 365. We've done a massive rewrite on that over the last year to improve the user experience. My expertise is mostly on the backend stuff, specifically Microsoft 365, email reports, and the internal event system. I enjoy working on the more technical stuff, such as our bloom filter, for example. I’m most adept at all the Go (programming language) we use, which is Comet’s foundation. I'm not a TypeScript or PHP expert, but I can do that in a pinch.
How do you find being part of the company when you're a remote team member?
On Wednesdays, we have the ‘Comet Café’ which is a dedicated Slack channel where people can join a call and just talk about anything. We’re encouraged during that time to chat about things that are not work related, to get to know one another better, and just hang out, which is really nice. Or sometimes Josh, our GM, just randomly starts a Comet Café hangout outside of the regular scheduled time, he’s really good at that.
When I first started at Comet I remember Mike Hall, our Support Team Lead, stayed and chatted for quite a while. It is really good to just talk, and to have a casual meeting with your remote work mates with no expectation, because it allows you to bond with people with no pressure.
What advice you would give to an aspiring developer?
My advice would be to just code, even if it's bad code. It's similar to writing, you need to actually do it and keep practicing to get better at it. Coding is the same.
If you’re starting a project, even if you unsure what you're doing, just get started – write some code to get some basic functionality working. Once you have that base, you can build on it. It's much easier to work on something that exists, than to try to figure everything out all at once.
I would also say don't worry about which language you pick when you’re starting out. Skills between languages are easily transferrable. Again, just getting practice writing code is the key.
What are some of your interests and hobbies outside of work?
A lot of my time is spent on family. I have two kids, they’re both in college. And at home, I have my wife, Sheena, and my dog. Outside of work I try to spend as much time with them as possible.
Other than that, I'm still interested in biomedical engineering, which I studied in college. So I tend to read articles about that, specifically, neurological engineering. I’ve also thought about going back to school for electrical engineering. I would love to go back to college. Because even when I was working at Dell EMC, I was taking biology, biochemistry, and biology courses. I love learning, so I try to keep doing that.
