What do the I.T. jobs mean when they say scripting required for Network Admin jobs?

Question

I notice a lot of I.T. jobs want scripting in either perl, powershell, .vb, or some sort of language, but how much do they need you to know? I'm confused aren't these programming requirements? I am an MCSE, MCITP, and basically a systems engineer/administrator, I don't understand why I need to know programming. Do programmers need to know about server, routers, and firewalls? I'm frustrated as to why I.T. folks need to know everything in the world including programming...unless I just need to know basics.

Answer 1

Yes, you do need to know programming to do many of the functions of a system administrator. No, Microsoft does not include these in their MCSE and other certifications because they do not make or sell a scripting language, so why would they certify you to use one of the competitor's products?



PERL, Powershell, VB, Java, PHP, etc are all very much the same in the principles by which they work. They do vary on the actual syntax (wording/parameters) of their commands. If you know any one of the languages, you can quickly master the others with a syntax reference chart.



Invest in a book on one of the languages. PHP and PERL are probably the two most in demand at the time because so much administration is now done over the Internet. If you have your MCSE, you should have no trouble picking up one of the scripting languages with a little practice and a good book or two.



And yes, programmers do have to know about servers, routers and firewalls.

Answer 2

Scripting isn't really programming. It's just to automate certain tasks. Here's some examples of what you might need to do:



SCRIPT 1: Copies SQL backup files to a different server:



FOR /F "TOKENS=1* DELIMS= " %%A IN ('DATE/T') DO SET CDATE=%%B



FOR /F "TOKENS=1,2 eol=/ DELIMS=/ " %%A IN ('DATE/T') DO SET mm=%%B



FOR /F "TOKENS=1,2 DELIMS=/ eol=/" %%A IN ('echo %CDATE%') DO SET dd=%%B



FOR /F "TOKENS=2,3 DELIMS=/ " %%A IN ('echo %CDATE%') DO SET yyyy=%%B



SET date=%yyyy%%mm%%dd%







c:



cd \BackupScripts



C:\BackupScripts\robocopy "C:\SQLBACKUPS" \\superman\Backup\MSSQL /MIR /NP /ZB /R:3 /LOG:C:\BackupScripts\robo%date%.log



cscript "C:\BackupScripts\email.vbs"



SCRIPT 2: E-mails me that SCRIPT 1 ran:



on error resume next



thisYear = year(now())



thisMonth = right("00" & month(now()), 2)



thisDay = right("00" & day(now()), 2)



myFile = "C:\BackupScripts\robo" & thisYear & thisMonth & thisDay & ".log"



Set objEmail = CreateObject("CDO.Message")



Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")



Set objFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(myFile, ForReading)



Const FooterStart = " Total Copied Skipped Mismatch FAILED Extras"



Const ForReading = 1



mailbody = ""



thisline = ""



footerflag = 0



Do Until objFile.AtEndOfStream



thisline = objFile.ReadLine



if thisline = FooterStart then



footerflag = 1



end if



if footerflag = 1 then



mailbody = mailbody & thisline & chr(13)



end if



Loop



objFile.Close







objEmail.From = "MSSQLCOPY"



objEmail.To = "[e-mail]"



objEmail.Subject = "Backup Ended: MSSQL"



strBody=""



strBody= mailbody & chr(13) & _



"============================" & chr(13) & "===== End of Message =====" & chr(13) & "============================" & chr(13) & chr(13)



objEmail.Textbody = strBody



objEmail.Configuration.Fields.Item _



("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusing") = 2



objEmail.Configuration.Fields.Item _



("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserver") = _



"slo.courts.ca.gov.s7b2.psmtp.com"



objEmail.Configuration.Fields.Item _



("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserverport") = 25



objEmail.Configuration.Fields.Update



objEmail.Send

Answer 3

one does not work with out the other, scripting is used to make your task easier in managing users and processes. if programmers don't know about hardware they would be able to build powerfull distributed applications and if hardware guys did not know software well who would use a computer, are you scared or lazy to learn.

Answer 4

Your "problem" is that the first letter of your certifications is "M".