No, im not trolling lemmy users…
So in looking for jobs, I do see a lot of them require windows server experience. I’ve been immersing myself fully in linux learning but figure that is kind of useless for me since a ton of places also use windows for networking.
Will many of the skills transfer? Are there specific large differences to watch for? Also, can one even mess with windows server since it’s expensive and enterprise only?
The real lemming has arrived xD
You seek the forbidden knowledge!
I would suggest looking at MS certification programs, even if you don’t want to take the exams. I haven’t taken a Windows Server exam in a while, but looks like the latest one is Windows Server Hybrid Administrator Associate. You’ll also want to look into things like Active Directory, Group Policy, printing and print servers, and domains and domain controllers. As you mentioned, some networking can be handled Windows-side, like DHCP and DNS, but depending on the org, may be handled by other solutions.
As far as getting your hands on Windows Server software, you can download from MS, and it will have a 180 day trial before activation, which can be extended.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/download-windows-server-2022
Microsoft Learn is a good starting point. In addition to the comment above about certification tracks.
Not a fan of Microsoft by any means but, I do understand where OP is coming from. If they’re going to go that route, might as well learn directly from Microsoft.
I second this one. Ms has a bunch of resources available For free
I’ve worked with Windows environments from 2003 until still today migrating to azure. The biggest skills gap with technicians and engineers administrating Windows is actually networking. This single point connects every single service server and user and yet dns, dhcp, routing and it’s protocols, link layer technologies like vlans interface configurations aggregation and more is so poorly understood that engineers and technicians often significantly mistake problems. Almost all issues happen around network layers 2-4 or layer 8 (the end user).
It doesn’t need to be first but no matter what os or component, networking is core and the single biggest return on investment for systems admin types.
Sure other basic skills are required but just being able to test TCP by telnet or understand each hop, and is the server listening? What process ID is listening? Did someone configure rdp off 3389 and that’s why it doesn’t work? Was the host file edited and that’s why it’s resolving some old ip for this hostname? Why is it going out the wan interface of the router when it should be going over an ipsec tunnel?
All this and more has nothing to do with Windows, and yet, anything that isn’t just user training or show and tell about how to do something, there’s a good chance it requires you to follow the networking layers to make sure behaviour is expected.
