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So I jumped from IT support to Desktop Admin …

Taking care of servers and every thing related to Clients and lab computers…

and i am the only technical person .

whats next ?

I personaly like working with server client technology . but don,t know if its good for long term …

should i think for more advance route ?

thanks

11 Spice ups
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Hello, Desktopsupport,

I think this is the first step and basic, now you have to enfoce to manage this, learn in each case trying to find the root cause. Also as you say to know networking. I wish the best.

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Desktopsupport wrote:

I personaly like working with server client technology . but don,t know if its good for long term …

should i think for more advance route ?

thanks

What more advanced route are you talking about?

Heading into the server admin, or system administrator or network admin role from a help desk role is a great step forward and will lead to a great career path if you learn well, know what you’re doing and get your certifications.

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I think where you are now you have a good position to gather working expirience. Try to gather as much knowledge as you can (and not only related to the products your company uses), do some certs and after a decent amount of time you can try to get more into projects and collect project expirience. If you have done some nice projects that you can add to your resume, it´s time to go on and maybe apply for a data center team leader role or IT manager role. But be sure that you need a degree for the most of IT manager / department manager roles today. At least here in Germany.

But after all, if you really like your current position and you feel comfortable with the company you work for: That´s worth more than inheriting a higher position.

5

You say you want a challenge?

Say CISSP

http://www.cissp.com/security-professionals-network/home

6

Not heard of Desktop Admin, but When you have Reached network Administrator you have reached the promise Land!!! To me It is the best combination of doing technical stuff, working on servers routers etc, as well as being involved on the business side of things, purchasing equipment, long term IT goals, who gets access to what and when. I report to the VP of operations so no direct supervisor. If you want to go the more business management route then you are looking at IT Manager or IT Director, usually much bigger companies

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Transparent wrote:

Not heard of Desktop Admin, but When you have Reached network Administrator you have reached the promise Land!!! To me It is the best combination of doing technical stuff, working on servers routers etc, as well as being involved on the business side of things, purchasing equipment, long term IT goals, who gets access to what and when. I report to the VP of operations so no direct supervisor. If you want to go the more business management route then you are looking at IT Manager or IT Director, usually much bigger companies

For the most part Desktop and Network Admins do just what their respective titles say. One administrates over desktops, notebooks and workstations. Network Admins depending on their scope oversee servers and possibly edge hardware.

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I have always been a Network Admin by title for midsize companies, and have always also done the desktop support, sounds like desktopsupport is a desktop admin that also does servers. I wish companies would switch to a more generic job description like IT Administrator for the all in one positions.

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Mike Weatherbee wrote:

+1 Focus on learning more higher level skills and work toward either network or server admin. You may also want to look into a security roll.

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Within the admin realms, System Admin is the big payer with the most business say. As System Admin you are generally on the top most admin team above the network admins, DBAs, desktop admins, etc. Only the biggest orgs break them out but SA is by far the top most because you are responsible for the platforms themselves. As an SA, you are the least “cog like” of the admins as the platforms are the least interchangeable component and the most complex.

From administration you can easier move to engineering if you want the slower pace.

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What do you mean by engineering and slower pace ? Isn’t IT and slower pace a misnomer or maybe I’ve been working for too many small to mid-size companies where roles are inter-changeable. If so, where can i find these slower pace type jobs ?

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I mean engineering is slower pace compared to support roles. Engineers and Admins are basically the same job except that one is a “design” role (engineering) and one is a support role (admin.) So an admin has to deal with screaming business owners losing money, work with boxes that are down or failing, worry that backups have not completed, cross their fingers when rebooting a box, etc. Engineers get to work on their own schedule with “lab” boxes as they document how a system should work. Very different aspects of the same job.

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Being a systems engineer if far less interrupt driven than being on the helpdesk or doing more direct support. With less interruptions you can be more focused on longer term projects. When I was doing desktop support/administration it was rare for me to go half an hour without an interruption that pulled me away from what I was working on, now I can often focus for half a day or more on a project. It is a very different pace, and even though I am doing more work most days it feels slower as the stress generated by interruptions is reduced.

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More on the Differences Between Engineers and Interrupt Driven Support Professionals .

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The article Scott posted is a good one. For most people myself included moving away from interrupt driven work will reduce your chances of burn out. Desktop support is difficult just because of the nature of the work, you are constantly going from one task to another often without finishing the first due to the priority of new problems.

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I do production UNIX server support most of the time. I love the pace but the difficulty in ever doing an “engineering” task is very high. It’s all about “putting out fires”. But, the lack of “continuous workload” because of the interrupt driven nature is also what allows me to do “short burst” SW postings in between other tasks.

It is nearly impossible for me to write a blog post or an article but squeezing out a forum post is very easy to do between issues.

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Very true, a lot of times I pop in and answer some forum posts while waiting for tasks to complete or if I am doing research and need to take a step back so I can think. In days where I do get a lot of interrupts I can actually see my productivity drop, often tasks will take 2-3 times as long to complete while being interrupted, and I exclude the time spent handling the interrupt.

In my organization I moved up the ranks from tier 1 helpdesk to senior systems engineer, and I am much happier now. My focus is now fire prevention instead of putting them out after they start.