What skills and knowledge do you need to be a network administrator?

Work content is the first topic to talk about. After a junior network manager knows his daily work, he can learn and strengthen his knowledge and skills in a targeted manner.

Generally speaking, the business content of network management includes three aspects: network construction, network maintenance and network service. Building a local area network (including planning topology, physical hardware implementation and network protocol setting), adding or upgrading network equipment and planning network development are the specific contents of network construction; General network maintenance includes network fault detection and maintenance (including hardware and software), network security protection and management; As for network services, they can be completely different according to different network uses, but the most common ones are remote login, file transfer, e-mail and resource sharing. Of course, we can also focus on one or several aspects. In addition, the production and update of website homepage, the construction and management of BBS platform, etc. It can also be included in the business scope of network management. In short, the so-called "network manager" is just the person who builds and manages the network.

Here, the primary network management we focus on is faced with a relatively low-end application environment and relatively few technical support objects. For example, a small and medium-sized company has less than 100 PC clients, 2-3 servers, simple routing and switching equipment, more than a dozen printers, photocopiers and other PC peripherals, and usually there is a telephone switching equipment with lines below 100. Well, our junior network management will focus on these aspects in the future.

After understanding the work object, let's briefly talk about the work content and process:

* For the PC client, it is mainly to maintain the normal operation of the client, including user account allocation, simple data backup, system performance optimization, client software and hardware troubleshooting, client application technical support, client virus killing, etc. These jobs take up a lot of time of network management, and most of them are unexpected jobs. Only by making good work arrangements and formulating simple and clear workflow can junior network managers avoid becoming "firefighters" of the company.

* Servers and routing switching equipment: generally, routing switching equipment has been debugged by professional system integration companies. These equipment work stably, so it is unnecessary for our network management to spend more time on it. Comparatively speaking, there is a lot of work done on the server, mainly including the installation and debugging of software system, the operation and backup of data system, the installation and operation of application programs (such as enterprise mail system) and data backup. There is also a very important job, that is, network security protection. In this regard, junior network managers may not have specific work, but they should be familiar with the technical principle of firewall, security planning and layout structure of security equipment.

* Peripheral equipment, mainly some printers, photocopiers and fax machines. Network administrators should be familiar with the construction and daily maintenance of network printing environment. For copiers, many companies are using digital copiers, which are expensive and difficult to operate. Network management should learn how to use it first, and then organize employees to study collectively, otherwise everyone will ask you to operate the copier, which will kill you! And a fax machine. If you have the ability, you can try to build a networked fax system with software. The improvement of work efficiency will surprise your boss. In addition, the management and replacement of consumables required for various peripherals is also your statistics and daily inspection.

* Junior network managers are sometimes responsible for the maintenance and management of small telephone exchanges in enterprises. Generally speaking, the telephone switches and jumpers of an enterprise will be placed in the same cabinet as the routing switching equipment. Daily staff station adjustment will inevitably require jumpers on the jumper frame, so network administrators need to be familiar with some telecom exchange knowledge.

Now let's talk about the skill requirements for network administrators, which is the basis of network administrators' work. For a network administrator who enters the field of network management for the first time, to do a good job in serving small and medium-sized enterprises, he must first have a certain technical foundation. This does not mean that you must have a bachelor degree or above in computer or related major as required in many recruitment materials, but you must have some understanding and practical experience in the planning, construction and debugging of PC terminals and simple small and medium-sized local area networks.

An excellent network administrator has a very important quality, that is, savvy, that is, a feeling and understanding of the network, which is a relatively empty thing and difficult to say clearly. Because there is too much knowledge involved in the field of network management, and most of them are aimed at manufacturers and products, manufacturers are constantly changing and products are always upgrading. Poor network managers can only continue to study and study hard. If you have extraordinary comprehension ability, you can easily straighten out the relationship between old and new knowledge, quickly complete the knowledge upgrade and master the new knowledge structure.

So besides these seemingly illusory things, what basic skills should a new network administrator have?

First of all, junior network managers should be familiar with at least one network operating system platform, such as Linux, Win2000, Unix, Solaris and so on. It is best to be very proficient in Win2000. After all, Windows series is the most widely used operating system platform for SMEs. If you have participated in the training or study of MCSE2000, your knowledge will be more systematic, organized and clear. If you can carefully complete every experiment in the training, it will be good for your future work.

Secondly, junior network administrators should be familiar with some common applications of clients, such as the application of OFFICE series software, data decompression, picture browsing and modification, and network application tools.

Finally, we think that junior network administrators should have rich knowledge of PC and LAN hardware and maintenance experience, such as PC hardware disassembly, simple fault handling and LAN connectivity fault debugging. Enterprises will want you to be a DIY expert in computers and networks.

As a good network administrator, after understanding the general network management workflow, he should also explore a set of his own scheme to make the network environment not blocked, with fewer faults and reduce his workload. In all networks, the same problems will be related at the same time: bandwidth, resources, security and convenience. I think if we can do these four things well, we will be half successful.