IT pros, what are some great resources for low-level techs who want to move up in IT?

T

TylerJ

Limp Gawd
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Jun 17, 2003
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*crossposted from OSes*

I'm currently employed by a small government agency as 1 of 2 helpdesk and training coordinators (about ~35k/yr with full benefits in KY) on an IT team of 5. This sort of job is great, especially right out of college (B.A. Psych, hoping to go for Ph.D in 2 years), but I have been doing this level of work for the past 7 years and I think it's time that I move up in the IT world - well, within the next two years.

I was hoping some of you could suggest materials that someone with a general understanding of enterprise IT could pick up and learn more about both the technical and the administrative aspects of enterprise/business-level IT administration.

I'm looking for something that deals with AD\Server 2008\Linux as it applies to IT administration\Technical functions of an IT admin. I realize that those categories are somewhat vague while at the same time fairly specific so I should be able to find something about them on my own. The problem is that I don't know what is worthwhile, and I am not 100% sure what is expected of someone who administers large domain environments from the server side.

Right now, I'm writing simple batch files to help speed along processes that we repeat frequently, but am not sure if purchasing and spending months reading literature on Batch programming would be the smart thing to do. Are there better, more modern and applicable, automation methods/languages/applications that I could be using? Will I need to know C, SQL, or VB? What do you guys who are already IT pros typically utilize on a day-to-day basis? Learning the ins-and-outs of AD would be great, so maybe that's a place to start, or is that not going to be the preferred method of account administration in the near future? What emerging enterprise IT technologies should I be looking into?

I've spoken with our server admins, but they're your typical server trolls, grunting and sighing behind the soft blue glow of their monitors as they point halfheartedly towards the bookshelf full of gigantic manuals for extremely specific applications or outdated and broad topics.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I've been a member of the [H] community since my freshman year in High School, before the servers crashed and accounts had to be recreated (and all those post points lost!), and I have to say - this is one of the best tech forums out there.

Thanks in advance everyone that helps me realize my goals!
 
Thats a very broad question. For actual material start with looking at MSITP books. Personally I have never touched a book as I have always favored actually doing stuff rather than just reading about it. What I did to move up was in my spare time at work I took a look at the things others were in charge of that I found annoying / inefficient. I took those things and made them better / faster / stronger in a test env and then presented it to the boss. I did that enough times where the guy who just went along with the motions was booted and I replaced him. If I ever ran into anything that i didnt understand I went to technet.

So if I were you, setup some VMs, get a test environment going and get your hands dirty.

Right now, I'm writing simple batch files to help speed along processes that we repeat frequently, but am not sure if purchasing and spending months reading literature on Batch programming would be the smart thing to do. Are there better, more modern and applicable, automation methods/languages/applications that I could be using? Will I need to know C, SQL, or VB? What do you guys who are already IT pros typically utilize on a day-to-day basis? Learning the ins-and-outs of AD would be great, so maybe that's a place to start, or is that not going to be the preferred method of account administration in the near future? What emerging enterprise IT technologies should I be looking into?
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Definitely need to know VBScript. Powershell is awesome and you should also learn it as you can do some really cool stuff with it. You will probably never need to know C and for SQL it depends on what your tasks are. Some applications have their backend in SQL and sometimes you need do some of your own queries to get what you want. But its not something you should focus on untill you have to.

On a day-to-day basis i use (in order of frequency) powershell -> vbscript - > batch. I occasionally create a custom C# app but I have a programming background, its not something it pros are expected to know.

AD is not going to be replaced any time soon so stick to that. For linux I personally leave that for the linux guys as I specialize very heavily in what I do and so do they. No point in making things too hard for yourself, rely on your teammates when you can. As for macs..... LAWL, imo macs do not belong in the workplace.
 
I think a lot of these things are discussed on this forum, but i'm not taking any digs at you. I'd say you need to gets some equipment at home and play around with it. Were talking virtual machines. Lots of free vm software out there, esxi, to vmware(server), to virtual box, etc. If your thinking networking, well then you will need to pick up some cisco gear, or procurve curve, etc, etc. This shit takes time to learn, and understand. So if you want to roll out in 2 years, i'd start now, and work on it for 2 years. Certs. are huge, and it takes time to study for and pass the cert. exam. Realize that and plan for it. Plan for failure, because some of those tests are hard. Don't give up, set short term and long term goals, write them down, post them at home.(thats what i do)

also, yeah, get some books too. Those are study guides, look for web resources as well. Lots of CCIE's have their own study programs for ccna, ccnp, ccie, etc. So i'm sure the mcse's have those some sort of programs, etc.

good luck man
 
Backing up what these guys suggest: Set up your own learning environment. Be it switches, routers, server, books, or all of them... save up and invest in it.
 
Buy some hardware, setup a lab at home, break it, fix it, move up.

Seriously the ONLY way to learn is by doing. Get yourself a decent server, throw ESXi on it, grab Server 2008 or R2, see if you can get an evaluation copy of exchange. Setup AD, printer sharing, file shares, login scripts, exchange accounts. Get a copy of BES Express and learn that. Add your PCs to your domain and learn about group policy. Setup MS Forefront TMG and learn Proxy. Maybe get your MCSE or MSITP.
 
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