Hello everyone from northern MD! Been lurking these reads for a little while now, figured it was time to join the fun! I frequent Spiceworks as well.

Good morning all, I have been reading posts here for a while so I figured I would put my thoughts out to this great community.

I am looking for feedback, as I currently feel like I am running into a wall or have reached the ceiling of my current position.

I am trying to get a benchmark as to where I stand as a system administrator, or at least some validation of my current skills. What I mean by that, is the longer I work this position, the more I feel like just a power user and have lately been second guessing myself. I've been in the IT industry for around 15 years in one capacity or another, from call center helpdesk, desktop support to gradually moving into sysadmin roles. Here is a brief rundown of my current situation.

In this current environment, I am a jack of all trades spread out among all area of IT. Basically, if it has a cord it my responsibility, and yes, I did disassemble our Keurig to fix the water pump.

Being the only ‘admin’ at small company, with the limit types of technology I have at my disposal, feels very crippling. In the past year I have touched on a lot of things, however I have not been able to really focus on any one thing, at least to where I feel like I can say I am decently proficient. I guess you can say I know a little about a lot and I feel like the skills gaps are only getting wider.

I take care of 14 physical servers, many of which are Hyper-V hosts running our business VMs (file server, domain controllers, a couple web servers, remote desktop servers, etc). One of my servers runs vmware ESXi hypervisor, with a few VMs on that host as well. I have only had the chance to briefly look at vSphere and Horizon View.

The network is basically flat, with 1 switch in the rack with two VLANS. One for private network traffic (basically everything) and one for public internet or DMZ. I also have a Sonicwall with a few VPN tunnels, firewall rules and some NAT policies in place for the web and remote desktop services servers.

I have spent the most amount of my time here working with Server 2012 R2 and Hyper-V, but I have not been able to take advantage of the advanced tools, power shell or SCVMM. I have also not been able to do any kind of clustering or HA due to lack of shared storage.

My interests are in cloud virtualization and I have always been fascinated with Linux and Open Source solutions; however I haven’t really been able to pursue that path.

I want to progress as an administrator but feel like I’m hitting a wall. I have considered going back to desktop support to fill some gaps, but I realize that would be defeating the purpose. I have also considered trying to find a Jr. Admin position where I might be able to fill those gaps, again, might not be the best avenue. I find myself uncertain as to where I am in my journey.

Lately, I keep getting this bright idea like..”I KNOW! I’ll get MCSA certified!” or “LPIC-1” or whatever flavor. However, I don’t think that qualifies as a benchmark or true validation.

If you have taken the time to read all of this incoherent rambling, I truly thank you.

Has anyone been in this position and if so, what might be your recommendations as to which way one might go? I’d like to one day graduate from amateur status to playing in the big leagues.

I'll say! I posted this in the wee hours this morning and figured I would check back before I get out of here for the day.. O M G!

But I like the activity! Just need to read through it all now haha

Wow! A lot of posts! Thanks all for reading and responding. I have already gotten so much out of the feedback and comments. I'll do my best to clear up some questions with this thread, and do a reply to those who have posted. I am going to add to Scott's post that he created on the other thread with the type/role of my servers.

Here is a little bit more information about the environment. Also, when it comes to budget, I have none. We are a 6 person shop mainly offering consulting services in the ERP arena to customers that have on premise infrastructure in place.

I have 14 physical servers, which I mentioned many are Hyper-V hosts. Not all of them are however. So here is a list:

Physical
1 - 7 are virtual host servers ( 84 virtual machines)
8. Dedicated backup server (in house stuff)
9. Dedicated backup (for client)
9. Dedicated SQL (for client)
10. Replica Server (in house)
11. Replica Server (for client)
12. Physical remote DC
13. Remote backup repository
14. Hot spare server - (parts).

The VMs are virtual desktops, application servers for a couple clients, domain controllers, remote desktop services servers, and file servers)

Most of these are Dell R710s with a couple R620s and 1 R720 (mostly older stuff that was refreshed 3 or so years ago and was picked up refurbed) - all with internal storage and a mish mash of different raid controllers.

As mentioned above, we have been lucky so far and haven't had anything major break, because with the VM density on a couple hosts and the roles the VMs play would be a significant hit. Not to mention everything is out of warranty and there is no maintenance in place for the hardware. Does that make a good case for HA? It seems too.

Ideally, I would like to consolidate a lot of this, and undo some of the funky setup that exists. For instance, having a standalone server for the accounting data, (with it own domain, rds, virtual desktops) separate from the rest of the the network. For whatever reason, someone thought it was a good idea to just separate everything out by creating a new domain! We need a development , lets just create a new domain for that!

@scottalanmiller

A big part of why there are 14 servers is due in part to mindset. Before I came on board, the person running this coach was a big physical server advocate. Virtualization was inferior to dedicated hardware, especially for SQL. When the need for a new process came up, a box was procured and racked up. Some of these were 16gb ram 1TB array setups. (This was not my thinking)

It has taken me a little while to prove the benefits of virtualization.

After moving some of the server roles from p2v and getting them on a bigger host, it was decided that maybe we should have some sort of redundancy, so a replica server seemed the easiest way to go.

A big problem now is sprawl and how a couple of these boxes are running independent domains for different applications. My initial goal was to consolidate the in house vms and use remaining hardware for a possible SOFS storage build. Part of what keeps me from digging in is having to put out fires with clients or other areas.

Also, 2 of these hosts are mostly dedicated to virtual desktops for a client, which is why the total number of guests is at 84.

Here is a little bit more information about the environment. Also, when it comes to budget, I have none. We are a 6 person shop mainly offering consulting services in the ERP arena to customers that have on premise infrastructure in place.

I have 14 physical servers, which I mentioned many are Hyper-V hosts. Not all of them are however. So here is a list:

Physical
1 - 7 are virtual host servers ( 84 virtual machines)
8. Dedicated backup server (in house stuff)
9. Dedicated backup (for client)
9. Dedicated SQL (for client)
10. Replica Server (in house)
11. Replica Server (for client)
12. Physical remote DC
13. Remote backup repository
14. Hot spare server - (parts).

The VMs are virtual desktops, application servers for a couple clients, domain controllers, remote desktop services servers, and file servers)

Most of these are Dell R710s with a couple R620s and 1 R720 (mostly older stuff that was refreshed 3 or so years ago and was picked up refurbed) - all with internal storage and a mish mash of different raid controllers.

As mentioned above, we have been lucky so far and haven't had anything major break, because with the VM density on a couple hosts and the roles the VMs play would be a significant hit. Not to mention everything is out of warranty and there is no maintenance in place for the hardware. Does that make a good case for HA? It seems too.

Ideally, I would like to consolidate a lot of this, and undo some of the funky setup that exists. For instance, having a standalone server for the accounting data, (with it own domain, rds, virtual desktops) separate from the rest of the the network. For whatever reason, someone thought it was a good idea to just separate everything out by creating a new domain! We need a development , lets just create a new domain for that!

I'll say! I posted this in the wee hours this morning and figured I would check back before I get out of here for the day.. O M G!

But I like the activity! Just need to read through it all now haha

Wow! A lot of posts! Thanks all for reading and responding. I have already gotten so much out of the feedback and comments. I'll do my best to clear up some questions with this thread, and do a reply to those who have posted. I am going to add to Scott's post that he created on the other thread with the type/role of my servers.

Good morning all, I have been reading posts here for a while so I figured I would put my thoughts out to this great community.

I am looking for feedback, as I currently feel like I am running into a wall or have reached the ceiling of my current position.

I am trying to get a benchmark as to where I stand as a system administrator, or at least some validation of my current skills. What I mean by that, is the longer I work this position, the more I feel like just a power user and have lately been second guessing myself. I've been in the IT industry for around 15 years in one capacity or another, from call center helpdesk, desktop support to gradually moving into sysadmin roles. Here is a brief rundown of my current situation.

In this current environment, I am a jack of all trades spread out among all area of IT. Basically, if it has a cord it my responsibility, and yes, I did disassemble our Keurig to fix the water pump.

Being the only ‘admin’ at small company, with the limit types of technology I have at my disposal, feels very crippling. In the past year I have touched on a lot of things, however I have not been able to really focus on any one thing, at least to where I feel like I can say I am decently proficient. I guess you can say I know a little about a lot and I feel like the skills gaps are only getting wider.

I take care of 14 physical servers, many of which are Hyper-V hosts running our business VMs (file server, domain controllers, a couple web servers, remote desktop servers, etc). One of my servers runs vmware ESXi hypervisor, with a few VMs on that host as well. I have only had the chance to briefly look at vSphere and Horizon View.

The network is basically flat, with 1 switch in the rack with two VLANS. One for private network traffic (basically everything) and one for public internet or DMZ. I also have a Sonicwall with a few VPN tunnels, firewall rules and some NAT policies in place for the web and remote desktop services servers.

I have spent the most amount of my time here working with Server 2012 R2 and Hyper-V, but I have not been able to take advantage of the advanced tools, power shell or SCVMM. I have also not been able to do any kind of clustering or HA due to lack of shared storage.

My interests are in cloud virtualization and I have always been fascinated with Linux and Open Source solutions; however I haven’t really been able to pursue that path.

I want to progress as an administrator but feel like I’m hitting a wall. I have considered going back to desktop support to fill some gaps, but I realize that would be defeating the purpose. I have also considered trying to find a Jr. Admin position where I might be able to fill those gaps, again, might not be the best avenue. I find myself uncertain as to where I am in my journey.

Lately, I keep getting this bright idea like..”I KNOW! I’ll get MCSA certified!” or “LPIC-1” or whatever flavor. However, I don’t think that qualifies as a benchmark or true validation.

If you have taken the time to read all of this incoherent rambling, I truly thank you.

Has anyone been in this position and if so, what might be your recommendations as to which way one might go? I’d like to one day graduate from amateur status to playing in the big leagues.

Hello everyone from northern MD! Been lurking these reads for a little while now, figured it was time to join the fun! I frequent Spiceworks as well.