Software and/or services commonly used in corporate settings?

ItsEggrollTime

I am planning to switch to IT from the dying newspaper industry. I know breaking into it is hard, so I want to get a head start obtaining the necessary skills for a help desk or desktop support job. For those currently employed, what do you regularly deal with?

Reading job descriptions in my area (Northern Virginia) I see common themes - Windows Server 2008 R2, Active Directory, Outlook Express, Ticketing systems (Remedy?), Disk imaging software (Norton Ghost?). Am I missing anything?

SouthSeaPirate

Our Company uses Dameware for remoting. A lot of servers are still 2003 and 2008. Also learn Symantec Backup Exec or Veritas. VMware and Hyper-V. You will run into a lot of proprietary applications, as there is a lot more I can list that wont apply to any other position.

ptilsen

I wouldn't start my career by learning too many specific vendors other than the hardware and OS producers. Microsoft, Cisco, maybe VMware, RedHat or just Linux in general. I can list dozens of productivity/CRM/ERP/LoB or backup suites, but that's really not going to help you. You want to focus on learning Windows, PC hardware, and basic network services and how they work together. DHCP, DNS, SMTP, HTTP/HTTPS, MAPI, SMB, FTP, etc. Learning the major Microsoft products is good -- Windows 7, Windows Server, Active Directory and Group Policy, Office, Remote Destkop & Terminal Services. But really, learning products shouldn't be your main goal.

Everything else is going to be too job-specific. Not a lot of jobs, not even MSPs, are going to be make or break whether you know BackupExec really well -- actually many providers are moving away from BE, but that's not even the point. It doesn't matter if you know BE or ShadowProtect or XYZ Backup Software. You want to know the difference between Full, Copy, Differential, Incremental backups. You want to know the difference between file and block based backups. You need to know about retention and archive strategies, about data recovery vs full system recovery. You need to know about disaster recovery, business continuity, and high availability. You don't need to know BackupExec. BackupExec is a just a tool, and a fairly straightforward one at that (when it works). You can call support or Google it.

An individual program or suite like BackupExec or ShadowProtect or ACT or GreatPlains or QuickBooks or Office may see a lot of use, but they're just programs. As an IT professional, unless you want to make your career supporting a very limited set of software, you want to focus on learning the fundamentals of how operating systems, hardware, and networks work together. Even learning how to implement specific Microsoft of Cisco features is useless if you don't really know how the underlying protocols work. Learning syntax for VLANs is useless if you don't understand the OSI or how Internet Protocol, subnetting, and ARP work. Learning how to implement a Microsoft DNS server is useless if you don't really understand how a DNS infrastructure works.

To end with the rambling and get to the point, you are asking the wrong question. Ask, "where should I be focusing my studies to get into X career track or Y type job"? Don't let the job descriptions fool you, either -- employers want candidates with general IT knowledge and a strong aptitude to learn and adapt. They also tend to exaggerate requirements for positions.

ItsEggrollTime

ptilsen wrote: »

To end with the rambling and get to the point, you are asking the wrong question. Ask, "where should I be focusing my studies to get into X career track or Y type job"? Don't let the job descriptions fool you, either -- employers want candidates with general IT knowledge and a strong aptitude to learn and adapt. They also tend to exaggerate requirements for positions.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.