What Are the Essential Skills for a System Administrator?

The system administrator industry's requirements for network administrators are basically big and comprehensive. They do not need to be proficient, but they need to understand everything. So, to sum up, a qualified system administrator is best to have solid theoretical knowledge and application skills in six aspects, such as network operating system, network database, network equipment, network management, network security, and application development. To be handy and easy. National professional qualifications define network administrators as those who are engaged in the operation and maintenance of computer networks.

System administrator

System administrator

mainly divided

Infrastructure management

(1) Ensure smooth network communication transmission

(2) Grasp the configuration of the backbone equipment and the configuration parameter changes, and back up the

Responsible for the improvement of processes and systems

(1) Specific network and system according to specifications, processes and product descriptions

First, a computer network administrator is a "existence first and then definition" profession

Computer network administrators (referred to as network administrators) is a booming and emerging profession. In just a few years, it has become a must-have job in most enterprises.

User Management

Whether it is

What is your technical background?

Given the different scopes of system administrator roles, professional education requirements vary. Most system administrator jobs require a solid foundation in the field of computer science, such as a bachelor's degree in engineering. Some organizations require entry-level certifications, such as CompTIA Server + or similar technology-specific certifications, such as Microsoft Certified Professional or VMware Certified Associate-Data Center Virtualization (VCA-DCV).

Although the expected result of this answer is a lot of flexibility, understand your gap and be prepared to discuss it. If you do not have any specific certifications, do you have relevant or similar experience? For example, if the position requires VMware Certified Professional 5-Data Center Virtualization and you currently have a VCA-DCV, you can discuss projects where your expertise and related technical skills are applied.

Before the interview, confirm that all your certificates are within the validity period, and confirm with the certification service provider that your information in the database is correct. Potential employers may check the validity of this information at Microsoft, VMware or CompTIA, and other organizations. Outdated, outdated, or contradictory information can cost you a lot.

Responding to this interview question can also show you how to evaluate the value and ability of the company. When describing educational experience and certification, emphasize how each certificate can help you; show the strategic significance of each educational investment.

What is the background and experience of your operating system and services?

System administrators need to ensure the configuration, optimization, and cloud top operation of servers and endpoints, so the interview will inevitably turn to server hardware and operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2, VMware Vsphere virtualization management program, and the scale and scale of network services. Applications such as Active Directory, Domain Name System, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, Virtual Private Network, etc.

Employers want to know the scope of your field and whether it matches the core technology of their IT infrastructure. The typical response is to talk about the task you are responsible for and any special items, such as testing and installing operating system patches, or upgrading the management server to Windows Server 2012 R2. Don't worry if your experience matches every requirement, as assistive skills can enhance your ability to work.

What about user and end system support?

System administrator roles often extend beyond the data center and extend to end users and their devices.

Responding to such questions in an interview is an opportunity to highlight your familiarity with the help desk work order system and remote desktop management, especially in large enterprises with many employees.

A restricted discussion framework is an effective solution. They already know that you can patch Windows, upgrade or install memory. Prove that you understand the business value of user support and clear communication, and that you can use tools to solve problems and quickly restore functionality. Explain the specific tools used and highlight the benefits they can bring.

Highlight your experience and capabilities in other data center equipment management, such as controlling end-user access, and management background of firewalls, routers, and switches. Describe your expertise in system management tools such as Splunk and Nagios.

How to manage system performance

The system administrator should regularly monitor the availability and performance of the system. Employers typically ask to answer two questions when interviewing system administrators to understand their expectations for hardware operation and an assessment of acceptable resource utilization levels, such as backup planning tasks, attention to errors, and the ability to check key event logs.
Data center decisions need solid metrics. Focus on key performance indicators (KPIs) that can serve your current role. These metrics can range from host levels such as CPU, memory, and disk utilization to granularity of the number of server virtual machine workloads.
Note that each KPI is important to the business. Maybe you are looking at the number of virtual machines per server or the origin of the server, because you are trying to improve the consolidation of virtual machines by reclaiming underutilized resources. If you don't know what each KPI you care about represents, that could be a red flag.
Specific monitoring and management tools such as SolarWinds, ManageEngine or Nagios can be cited in the conversation. Introduce your content to your potential employer-showing that you can easily transition from one tool to another.

How to handle backup and restore jobs with your current role

System administrators store physical and virtual backups to various media, storage tiers, or archive subsystems.
It's important to be familiar with specific backup tools and understand sound backup and recovery practices, so talk about the tools you use, such as CommVault Enterprise Backup Software or Symantec NetBackup. Recovery is often the weakest link in any data protection strategy, so emphasis should be placed on verifying or testing backup methods to ensure recoverability. For example, restore the virtual machine to a test server through replication to verify the integrity of the backup.
Backup and recovery also affect data retention, legal discoveries, and related data security issues, such as data theft and regulatory compliance. The sought-after system administrator knows how to back up these important business issues. For example, if your resume background includes data management, you can discuss ways to archive or destroy data during the interview.
Areas Every System Administrator Must Know

What's the toughest problem you've ever solved?

This is one of the most powerful candidates in an interview. System administrators are professional troubleshooting experts who can identify and resolve problems with hardware, software, networks, services, and applications.

Some system administrator interviews also include a simple troubleshooting test scenario. Highlight recent experience to emphasize your diagnostic process and expertise. In a short example, you can explain how to determine the problem, use the system log to narrow down the problem, and use tools such as PerfMon to test performance, use PowerShell to query or change configuration data, and finally get this series of steps. Out solution.

Show potential employers that you can use rationality and take full advantage of diagnostic tools to solve problems and quickly restore functionality. Emphasize that applications and services can be guaranteed during processing, such as migrating workloads from failed servers.

How to manage this process

Don't be fooled by this type of interview. Virtualization is undoubtedly an important technology at present. System administrators should have detailed knowledge of hypervisors, so highlight your experience using hypervisors or hybrid management, as well as remote management (physical servers and virtual machines).

But don't stop there.

This question is about strategy, not just technical discussion. As a leadership role, how do you weigh, organize, and execute the deployment of this emerging technology in the data center? How can IT provide cost-effective services to enhance the competitiveness of enterprises.

This is a great opportunity to stand up and become a manager. Talk about how to evaluate hypervisors, how to determine which workloads need virtualization, perform performance testing and safeguard decision-making processes, and how to maximize user and business benefits from virtualization technologies. ^[1]