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Ask Slashdot: What Should a Unix Fan Look For In a Windows Expert?
andy5555 writes "I am hardcore Unix (and recently storage) fan responsible for our server department. Most of the servers run (you guessed it) different types of Unix. For quite a long time, Windows servers played very little role, but sometimes we get applications from our business departments which run only under Windows. So it seems that we have to take it seriously and hire a few Windows fans who would be able to take care of the (still small but growing) number of Windows servers. Since I am Unix fan, I have very little knowledge of Windows (some of my teammates may have more, but we are not experts). If I have to hire such a person I would like to find someone who is passionate about Windows. It is easy for me to recognize a Windows fan, but I don't know how to test his/her knowledge. There are some sites with typical Windows interview questions, but everybody can read them and prepare. How would you recommend the hiring process to proceed? What should I ask?"
I'm not sure how you should start the interview. But I'm pretty sure starting it off by taking a holier-than-thou condescending attitude towards anyone who would sully themselves by being a Windows server admin, and referring to them as a Windows "fan" instead of a Windows professional, is definitely the way to NOT start the interview.
Believe it or not, there are plenty of professionals out there with significant admin experience with both Unix and Windows. Being a Windows professional doesn't make you some sort of dirt-eating Tauron, nor does it necessarily make you a "fan" who's chosen his side in some nerd-rage fight to the death.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
What is this 'fan' shit? You want to hire someone who has studied Windows architecture and know how it works. Not someone who wants to blow the OS.
Fuck... slashdot is becoming reddit!!!
The answers I ask when hiring a system admin are typically not OS or vendor specific. I'd rather have someone intelligent and clever, who can then pick up any technology thrown at them. This philosophy has worked incredibly well. But, if you want someone that has memorized the MCSE tests, then ask the Windows-specific questions. But when it comes to troubleshooting or real-world environments, you have no guarantees.
There's plenty of Windows people who know how to click "Next... Next... Next..." but no more than this.
Well and good if that's all you need, but you'll get someone a lot more productive if they know a bit of Powershell, VBS and batch scripting.
: Are all these "stories" posed as questions really fooling anybody? I see less and less interesting news and more stories designed purely to provoke chatter. Oh boy, Unix vs Windows should get lots of posts! Maybe next time you can work Apple in there too.
It's like the blogger feedback ploy - end your crappy blog with a question and more people will respond.
Ask him if he know:
1) How to use regedit.exe
2) What is a GPO
3) DCOM
4) WMI(this shit will help a lot if you need his help on monitoring)
5) WSUS, ISA and PowerShell
--- and you will obtain a medium-level professional --
And will filter 80% of the Windows guys on your "audition"
Religiosity in Operating Systems is a character flaw, not a strength. Clearly this is going to be a hard concept for you to work your head around because you yourself are evangelical about UNIX. If you find somebody who is evangelical about Windiows, you're basically asking for interpersonal conflict as this engineer with "passion" for Windows is going to feel outnumbered and isolated if your whole team uses emotional language like you do.
What you' are REALLY looking for are skills and atrributes that are OS-agnostic while still demonstrating serious practical experience with Microsoft server products:
If you don't feel comfortable saying "yes" to all the above questions, then all the nuts and bolts technical stuff means nothing. Once these fundamental questions have been answered, there are some specific technical avenues to explore with your future Windows sysadmin:
There are a bunch of technical questions you probably need to ask that I can't possibly suggest to you, because I don't know the details of your envirionment. But these two are mandatory. Powershell is a scripting language developed to handle all kinds of administrative and automation needs for a system administrator, and it was written by two UNIX guys. If your future Windows admin understands and appreciates Powershell, they not only have a skillset that is going to be demonstratably useful in the future, they will be more likely to "think like a UNIX guy" than someone who went to an MSCE puppy mill. The AD/LDAP integration question is the one thing I know about your environment. If you're going to operate UNIX and Windows servers in the same ecossytem, some level of integration is inevitable and making sure the guy on the Windows end has the technical chops is essential.
A good Windows admin will "work around" the Windows-ism of it all and use the more UNIX-y features of it (they won't think of it that way, but they will). See how they are at whipping up quick VB or PowerShell scripts to do some little task (the same way you would whip up a Perl or Bash script). Check their problem-diagnosis skills - give them a hypothetical scenario (some weird proprietary service isn't starting at boot) and keep throwing up obstacles ("Guy: Well, I would check the services panel, make sure it was set to start automatically"; "You: Alright, you check that, and it is set to, but it's marked as 'stopped' and halts as soon as you try to start it"). Eventually he'll give up and say "there's obviously something wrong that's beyond my ability to fix, I would have to contact their support people", but see how many things he can think of to check. If he can think of a lot of ways something can go wrong, he likely has both experience and wisdom (unless he's rattling off bullshit, of course).
Another thing to look at is his WindowsUNIX skills. I'm working on a project now that involves getting applications running on both to work with each other, and that's not easy. Having a Windows guy who can grok Unix-speak would definitely be a plus for you.
By this logic, any of the current Unix experts they employ would also be the right people for the Windows server support, yet clearly they already know that isn't the solution. Here the OS distinction matters, because they want to hire based on that distinction (and for good reason). If you're hiring your first admin, you might want them to use any technology thrown at them. By the time you employ several experts in one area but lack experts in a new area, you're better off getting people with expertise in that new area.
I don't know any of your questions and I've been installing and maintaining a Windows server farm with 600-800 standalone Windows servers and clusters from Windows 2000 to Windows 2008 R2 for at least 10 years. Your questions are test level, not real administration and engineering level. Should you know about SMBv2 and potential conflicts with a WAN accelerator? If it is in your environment, yes. The kernel name of Windows 7? Who gives a shit. That's a test question that has no impact on anything you will encounter.
I can honestly say I'm familiar with every technology you mentioned, but I would still be unqualified for a job running Windows servers. There's a big difference between these two interview questions:
"How long have you been using Microsoft SQL?"
"How would you write a query in SSMS 2005 that pulls data from an Access database on a different server?"
Unless you actually had some background, you wouldn't know to ask the second question, which would give you a lot more information. I'm only using SQL as an example, the same would apply with AD or Exchange server management.
One possibility - hire a consultant to sit in on the interviews. You evaluate the general technical skills and personality, the consultant probes the specific Windows technical skills.
Support microSD: in a post 9/11 world, it is unwise to carry your data on media that you cannot comfortably swallow.
Best ask yourself why there are so many articles advertising Microsoft today.
Maybe they are releasing a new product?
Slashdot became reddit before reddit existed. You can bet your hot grits on it.
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