Oct. 22, 2023, Post by Curtis
The key difference between Help Desk and Sysadmins is that Help Desk solves problems that affect 1 user, while Sysadmins solve problems that affect many users. This is a big difference and the responsibility that a Sysadmin has is large.
Moving from Help Desk to System Admin is a big step but it can definitely be done. It will take a lot of hard work and a lot of interviews. Moving up from Help Desk is one of the hardest moves in IT as there are not many jobs that are just above Help Desk. Most IT jobs are a large step above Help Desk.
So making the move out of Help Desk is critical and once you've done that the other moves won't be nearly as difficult. Work hard at achieving the skills outlined below and get this difficult maneuver under your belt.
Sysadmins wear many hats and 2 Sysadmin jobs may have very different responsibilities. That said, here are a few competencies that most Sysadmins share.
Linux is the underlying operating system for many servers and cloud services.
Active Directory is a key piece of infrastructure for most businesses.
Although Active Directory is not too difficult to understand, getting something wrong in AD can wreak havoc for many users.
Email is a huge part of any company and Outlook or Office 365 is what they typically use.
Powershell is one of the best tools that a Sysadmin has. It allows you to create custom ways to manage servers and services remotely.
Getting good at Powershell will put you in high demand in the IT world.
You need to be familiar with:
Sysadmins need to be familiar with:
Take every advantage of your time at Help Desk to get hands-on experience with technologies that you will use as a Sysadmin.
Companies have different policies about what Help Desk staff's roles are in administering Active Directory. Some companies give Help Desk a lot of AD responsibilities while others give them almost none.
Try to grow your role in AD with your company. Users are always putting in tickets to get folder permissions so start asking for permission to add these users to the group memberships that will give them the permission that they need.
Start learning how Group Policy works at the Organizational Unit level and get familiar with how your company applies Group Policy.
Find ways to use Powershell while you are at the Help Desk. Things you can do with Powershell include:
A large role for most Sysadmin is to manage the mail servers. This may either be on-prem in the case that Outlook is using Exchange servers or for Office 365, typically hosted and managed by Microsoft. Even though Microsoft may be managing these servers, there is still plenty of collaboration needed with the Sysadmins.
While you're at Help Desk you probably won't be touching any mail servers or configuring any mail services, but you will get a lot of exposure to Outlook problems. Spend extra time with these tickets and look deeper into them before handing them off to the Sysadmins and see if there's anything you can collaborate on with them in working these problems.
Start using Event Viewer when diagnosing PC problems. Getting used to using logs to solve problems will help get you ready for System Administration.
Start doing simple tasks from the command line. Sysadmins spend a lot of time in the command line. Simple things you can do from the command line:
As I mentioned earlier, one Sysadmin job may have completely different responsibilities than another Sysadmin job. An AWS cert might be exactly what you need to get one Sysadmin job, while it may serve no use for another.
Here are some certs that should be universally valuable to any Systems Administrator.
Doing labs is the best way to get experience using all of the technologies mentioned in this article. You can setup your own domain, or better yet, forest (multiple domains in one organization). You can build AD servers with domain controllers, DHCP servers, DNS servers, and RADIUS servers. You can then make different security zones by segmenting your network using routers and switches.
My preferred method for doing this is by creating all of this virtually using EVE-ng. Another popular network virtualization software is GNS3. Both of these have a free version but you will need either a powerful computer, older server, or you can rent compute from a cloud provider for pretty reasonable rates. They will only charge you for the recourse you deploy while you are using them.
Another option is to set this all up with hardware. Get some cheap used PCs for the servers and some network gear, routers, and switches. You can get all this stuff used from eBay for pretty cheap.
Going from Help Desk to Sysadmin is a pretty big jump. That's not to say that it can't be done, but if your having trouble getting a Sysadmin job, consider a job in between Help Desk and Sysadmin.
Another approach would be to either go further in your Help Desk job before moving to Sysadmin or to look for a Junior Sysadmin job.
Moving up from Help Desk is of vital importance. It is a big step and can seem impossible but don't be someone who gets stuck at Help Desk. Read my article about How Long You Should Stay At Help Desk.
Put in the work, fill out hundreds of job applications, because once you move out of Help Desk, you can start moving in just about any direction you want in IT.