server administration - tasks

Hello everyone,

Alright so at my job, I do just about everything. What I can't do or haven't done before (where I don't want to mess up), I call someone else and learn what I can while they do the work. Well I'm starting to do more things in Windows server and I'm starting to wonder if it would be safe to put server administration on my resume or not. I'm working more with GPO's, NTFS permissions and a little bit of DHCP where I'll reserve addresses for now. In the near future, I think I'll be working more with DHCP because my organization is downsizing. I also add/disable user accounts, move them into groups, join computers to the domain and some troubleshooting. Backups are done by another appliance.

I know that there is way more to Windows than what I wrote. If anyone has any advice, please let me know what you think.

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AvgITGeek

Server Administrator responsibilities will differ from company to company depending on the size. Example: If it's a smaller company, you should probably be familiar with storage and DR. For a larger company, what you are doing may be all that is expected as an 'Administrator'.

I'm also curious about this. I've recently taken a position with a MSP and these lines vary from company to company.

jamesleecoleman

Yea, I've read that it will differ from company to company. I have DR/IR in mind right now along with BCP. We had our server breached so it had to be built from the ground up. I don't want to put it on my resume and then get schooled on it if I end up going to a bigger organization, just because everything I did was at a smaller organization.

NetworkNewb

Learn how to do your tasks in Powershell.

jelevated

NetworkNewb wrote: »

Learn how to do your tasks in Powershell.

This a million times.

jamesleecoleman

For sure but I need to be able to do the tasks without it well, first. I'm down for automating things but I do my best to make sure I know what's going on. In my last job, I did a lot of batch scripting and it helped me out a lot!

NetworkNewb

Powershell is just learning to do things without the GUI. Not automating. In most cases it just makes doing things faster and easier. It can be easier to do somethings in the GUI. But Powershell is definitely awesome and underrated. Makes me look really good that other people on my team aren't taking the time to learn it.

Automating would be using something like the Task Scheduler to automatically run Powershell scripts at certain times. (Which is nice to do)

kiki162

Sounds like you are doing some of the basic system admin tasks, which is a good thing. It's when you set up the domain and group policies from the ground up that will really set you apart. If you have the ability at work to put yourself in a Test OU, and create group policies, that would be a lot of fun and good experience for you. While every organization is going to be different in the way of policies and permissions, you could also setup a lab at home with a DC and a workstation, and play with that some. What would also be helpful in your case is knowing how to create a custom Windows image and deploy that to workstations within your company. Again, that may or may not be possible depending on your company.

Learning more about Powershell, registry scripts, and other ways that you can manipulate the registry from group policies will also be useful. Knowing how to access a remote computer and enable or disable a particular service is another one. I could go on for days, but these are some of the things to think about that can help boost your skills. Also look into getting your MCSA 2016 (3 exams).

jamesleecoleman

My bad on the misuse of wording NetworkNewb and thanks for letting me know. I've been having issues with Powershell and I hope to get everything worked out over time.

kiki162, I should have had the guy let me do everything and kind of just guide me through everything when we had to reset up everything. I have a list of things that I would like to do and I always try to see if I can do it with a GPO. I do have a test OU with test accounts just to help me make sure if something will work. I used to have a DC and multiple workstations in VMware but I stopped doing it and I shouldn't have. I might be stuck on the custom images since we're almost set with what we have.

What do you mean by "Knowing how to access a remote computer"? Do you mean though remote desktop or pstools???

I've been looking at getting the MCSA for server and O365, since we use it here. I stopped the use of syncing with our server because I just had issues with everything. When the DC went down for a month, it made things even harder to do.

It does seem like getting the MCSA and RHCSA is becoming more and more of a need for me, especially since there aren't a lot of IT security jobs in my city.

DatabaseHead

NetworkNewb wrote: »

Powershell is just learning to do things without the GUI. Not automating. In most cases it just makes doing things faster and easier. It can be easier to do somethings in the GUI. But Powershell is definitely awesome and underrated. Makes me look really good that other people on my team aren't taking the time to learn it.

Automating would be using something like the Task Scheduler to automatically run Powershell scripts at certain times. (Which is nice to do)

And scripting is A LOT of fun!

AvgITGeek

jamesleecoleman wrote: »

Yea, I've read that it will differ from company to company. I have DR/IR in mind right now along with BCP. We had our server breached so it had to be built from the ground up. I don't want to put it on my resume and then get schooled on it if I end up going to a bigger organization, just because everything I did was at a smaller organization.

If you understand the concepts behind DR and even High Availability, you should put it on your resume. There are a lot of DR and HA solutions out there that don't involve Microsoft. Real world example. My only experience with DR was upgrading from disk to tape, to disk to disk with implementing a REO 1000 which introduced me to iSCSI. We then went with a Barracuda backupserver for DR.

Fast forward to now... Neither solutions are ever being looked at as there are other vendors out there that I had never heard of until now but am now supporting and they are easy to support.

In short, If you can describe how it works and the methodologies behind it, you should be good to go. If an employer is demanding you know all of the vendor BU/DR or HA solutions out there, you would be working for a much bigger company.

jamesleecoleman

We currently use Barracuda backup server and it's great! I have to start thinking about testing the backups though, just in case.

AvgITGeek

I've never had any issues with Barracuda. Make sure you keep their refresh up to date so you will get the new hardware. Instant replacement was as advertised had ours fail after a power failure (It was on a UPS but the power outage lasted longer than 24 hours so it powered off and never powered on again) Have nothing bad to say about them. Testing backups is something to do monthly. Barracuda will restore from the device first. Be checking your Barracuda logs!

boxerboy1168

Sign to Pluralsight and buy a server administrator's handbook and become an admin. CBT nuggets has a good windows server class as well.