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Which direction to go?
maderj241
Registered Users Posts: 4 ■□□□□□□□□□
Hello everyone, it's been a while since I been on the forums. Got a lot of help here with my Comptia Network + cerifications. Ever since then my new job has had me so busy I find myself with too little time to check into places like this.
Well, now I have a new issue. I'm working at an I.T. services firm where we are called out to handle in house issues that their local techs can't handle or they have no I.T. staff whatsoever and they have us on call for issues that arrive.
My largest issue right now is that I need to make a decision on which Microsoft Server path to follow. I know what I need to know, I just don't know which direction of study will give me that knowledge by reading the descriptions of the certification paths. Technically, I'm not worried about the certification as much as I'm worried about the knowledge following the path will help me gain.
We have several major functions that we have to deal with. Active Directory security groups is a big one people make mistakes on that I see a lot of, but I don't think I need to study that specifically, as a lot of it I seem to be picking up OTJ. We don't really do a lot of setups so I didn't think the installation path was what I was looking for either. I guess the biggest clue would be the problem we had over the last two days that forced my boss to use up one of his credits with Microsoft Support and have us call in the big guns.
We had a server that worked fine in safe mode. Production mode, crash every 5 minutes. This was a production server, only server on the network, serving around 100 computers on 2 shifts, and the company was losing a lot of money. We had just been called in within the week to do a site survey and help their local I.T. guy (non certified guy who built their system with the scrap money his boss threw his way). During the weekend updates was when the server crashed. I spent two days trying to find that culprit, and to nail down a rogue access point on the network that was interfering with their default gateway.
After the fact, I know it was AVG software running in the background that had services hanging and locking the server. Which area of study do I follow to help me deduce these kinds of issues better in the future?
Thanks for your time
Justin Mader
Well, now I have a new issue. I'm working at an I.T. services firm where we are called out to handle in house issues that their local techs can't handle or they have no I.T. staff whatsoever and they have us on call for issues that arrive.
My largest issue right now is that I need to make a decision on which Microsoft Server path to follow. I know what I need to know, I just don't know which direction of study will give me that knowledge by reading the descriptions of the certification paths. Technically, I'm not worried about the certification as much as I'm worried about the knowledge following the path will help me gain.
We have several major functions that we have to deal with. Active Directory security groups is a big one people make mistakes on that I see a lot of, but I don't think I need to study that specifically, as a lot of it I seem to be picking up OTJ. We don't really do a lot of setups so I didn't think the installation path was what I was looking for either. I guess the biggest clue would be the problem we had over the last two days that forced my boss to use up one of his credits with Microsoft Support and have us call in the big guns.
We had a server that worked fine in safe mode. Production mode, crash every 5 minutes. This was a production server, only server on the network, serving around 100 computers on 2 shifts, and the company was losing a lot of money. We had just been called in within the week to do a site survey and help their local I.T. guy (non certified guy who built their system with the scrap money his boss threw his way). During the weekend updates was when the server crashed. I spent two days trying to find that culprit, and to nail down a rogue access point on the network that was interfering with their default gateway.
After the fact, I know it was AVG software running in the background that had services hanging and locking the server. Which area of study do I follow to help me deduce these kinds of issues better in the future?
Thanks for your time
Justin Mader
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JasminLandry
Member Posts: 601 ■■■□□□□□□□
I would say no certification can help you fix this problem better in the future. Only experience will. But if you really want a certification path, I would suggest MCSA 2008 or 2012 depending what servers you use more often. -
OptionsMeatCatalogue
Member Posts: 145
To be frank - certifications aren't going to help you. Had you called a professional, he would have fixed this server within 30 minutes. When a server crashes you look at logs, logs, logs and if you're lucky, memory ****. If you don't know how to do this, or don't do this regularly, it might take you 2 days to fix a downed server.
The best thing for you to do is to start here:
Defrag Tools | Channel 9
There is also a book (mentioned in the videos) for this: Widows Sysinternals Administrator's Reference. Microsoft Press. ISBN 0-7356-5672-X.
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NetworkingStudent
Member Posts: 1,407 ■■■■■■■■□□
TO the OP maderj241
Which direction to go?
These two podcasts may help with sever knowledge and torubleshooting
The Server Show
The Server Show | Podnutz - Tech Podcasts
Mike Tech Show
The Mike Tech show
Mike mainly with servers and SMB clients. He talks about his business during the show. Additionally, he answers listen email and voicemail questionsWhen one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened."
--Alexander Graham Bell,
American inventor -
Optionsdspielman
Member Posts: 38 ■■□□□□□□□□
Certifications don't help you fix problems, just give you the basic tools to understand what you are staring at. Being an analytical thinker is going to help you the most when trying to problem solve in situations like the one you described. Knowing that the machine works properly in safe mode really narrows down the possible causes in this circumstance.