Network/Sys Admin. Advice [CLOSED]

Operating Systems & Open Source
1

I'm currently at University doing my Bachelor of IT with a double major A) Systems Administrator - B) Network and Software Engineering

I just won two scholarships but they both have a catch. The first was $1000 but it had to be spent on "Technology" from the University store - so I grabbed a laptop (an Asus Zenbook)

The second was $500 for "Textbooks" - again have to be from the University store. However, I have already bought all my books for this year and next year as well. With that in mind, what programming languages (or similar) would be worth my while learning? I dont want to be a software engineer, or a programmer, But I suspect it would be fairly dumb to want to be a sysadmin or network engineer without at least a passing familiarity with a few languages.

Whats worth it/usefull and whats a waste of time?

I already own texts covering HTML5, CSS3, Ajax, Database systems, Computer Organization and Architecture, Helpdesk manuals and Ethics.

books MUST come from here http://www.coop.com.au/books/non-fiction/computing-information-tech
and I have $500 to burn so go nuts.

Cheers!

2

If you like working with Microsoft systems and think your career path will expose you to them then these look like good options;

  1. Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Query Tuning & Optimization By Benjamin Nevarez
  2. Professional Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Administration By Bradley Ball & Steven Wort & Ross LoForte & Brian Knight & Adam Jorgensen
  3. Mastering Hyper-V 2012 R2 with System Center and Windows Azure
  4. PowerShell in a month of lunches by Don Jones (could not see that exact one listed)

Something on Server 2012 R2 and Active Directory would also be good.

Note - I spend most of my time working with SQL Server and Azure hence my answers :-)

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3

If you don't know it already I'd start with bash scripting:

After that every system admin IMO has to know at least python, if you have some background in programming it'll be very easy to learn and it's a powerful tool to build fast solutions.

Learning python by Mark Lutz is the way to go:

Another wonderful tool to make the life of every sys admin easier is Perl, it's a really powerful scripting language that let's you automate a lot of tasks.


If you're working with Windows Server based solutions, have a look at powershell.

In all honesty there's a lot more that a sys admin has to know, but since you asked about programming languages...

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4

Yeah I am going to have to have a handle on Linux and Microsoft - Linux is used extensively for Virtualisation, but allmost the entire Government is built on Windows Server and Sharepoint

Powershell, Bash, Python and C# are on the shortlist so far - so @spidernet Perl worth it? I know I've heard @wendell talk about his love for Ruby before

5

I'd say Perl and Ruby are both worth. You'll eventually end up reading some Perl/Ruby code.
Ruby is a middle ground between Python and Perl and it has the OO style of Python. Plus Puppet and Chef are written in Ruby. Puppet and Chef are configuration managers.

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