Transition from Desktop to Server

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I currently have 1 year experience in 2nd line desktop support.

I'd like to move into server admin but my current role is purely desktop so I have no practical experience in that.

I have no certs but have just started studying for them.

Realistically in 12 months, I'm hoping to achieve the MCDST, 70-270 and 70-290.

What are my chances with the above certs and 2 years purely desktop experience of landing a junior server role in another company (having spoken to our server manager, anything coming available in his area is unrealistic)?

I'm willing to take a paycut or even volunteering in the meantime to get the experience.

Thanks.

 

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Well you have to start somewhere and you seem to have the right attitude and you are going for decent certifications. Clearly whilst studying for the server exam, you will get hands on experience with server products as it's a necessity to pass the exam. You need to either build a home lab or create a home lab in a virtual environment VMWare/Virtual PC etc using eval copies of current server products.

Once you have that knowledge you need to be able to get some real hands on with real production servers and that difficult because IT people are reluctant for obvious reasons to allow people to touch their servers without any experience - that is the conundrum we have all had to face. You need to gain trust, then hopefully someone will allow you to do easy things with system administration and build the trust from there. It won't happen overnight of course, the same with all jobs, you need to pay your dues before you get to do the interesting bits.

Pete

 

thanks for the vote of encouragement and the frank advice.

i'll take it all fully onboard.

since i;m going to be going for a very low level server side role in the 1st place i might read up on linux as i have basic command line knowledge there.

whichever one i get into 1st will probably be the route i'll follow on the server/admin side.

i don't mind if it is windows or unix as i have interest in both so that choice won;t be difficult.

 

It's a good idea to keep your options open. Certainly knowledge of Linux will be very useful at some point or another you can't go wrong.

Good luck!