Article

How To Become A System Administrator

Written by Ben Brumm

Topic: Career DevelopmentPublished October 30, 2012
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A system admin is an essential part in the IT department in every company. They are highly regarded, well paid, and also have a national day named after them! Learn how to become a system administrator in this article. What Is A System Administrator Let’s begin with determining exactly what a system administrator actually is. A system administrator performs in the operations part of an IT department. This section is liable for monitoring the company’s IT systems, providing a help desk or support purpose, and setting up and upgrading various parts of the system. The system administrator is responsible for building and supporting the computer system for a business. They update it whenever it gets out of date, they repair it when it crashes, they make it run better if it’s having problems. How To Become A System Administrator Like some of the roles in the IT sector, there isn’t really a particular degree you can acquire to become a system administrator. Quite a few system administrators have degrees in computer science or computer engineering. Several system administrators don’t possess a degree - they have gotten their positions from internships or promotions from other areas. It’s a role which you don’t always need a degree for, nevertheless it certainly helps. Other than getting a degree in computer science or computer engineering, the next best way to become a system administrator may be to work your way up. A number of system administrators start off at service desk jobs or desktop support roles. This can be an effective move for the long term - the expertise of handling user issues, figuring out system issues, offering solutions and researching a computer system is a big help to anyone planning to eventually be a system administrator. I’m actually in the process of putting together a certification guide eBook which will get into even more detail about which certifications are perfect for which roles (and much more information) - but until I can provide that, you can consider certifications from vendors such as CompTIA, Cisco, Red Hat or Microsoft. What Should I Learn To Become A System Administrator? A system admin has a great deal of accountabilities and knowledge. In order to lea how to become a system administrator, there are several areas that you need to be knowledgeable in: • Network technologies - areas which include TCP/IP, routers and switches and common network structures should help a system administrator • Web servers - Apache and IIS technologies along with their capabilities • Operating systems - Unix, Linux and Windows operating system understanding is helpful for system administration • General Troubleshooting - the way to identify, test and correct various problems in a system Understand more about these areas by going to web sites, gaining knowledge from other co-workers or people in the industry, reading through forums, magazines, along with other industry publications. The more you know, the better you’ll be at your job! I really hope this information proves helpful to those of you planning to move into a system administrator role, and shows you how to become a system administrator. Good luck!

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