The Technology behind the Helpdesk

In today’s world of technology you will find every Organisation in the UK, using a certain set of technologies while delivering IT services to the Staff. In this article we look at the most basic technologies used in most Organisations that run on Windows platform.

With Windows OS being the most popular operating system run in the world, its quite to importance understand the basic technologies that every IT department in any Organisations (small to big sectors) will be using on a day to day basis. This article will be of utmost interest to beginners who have just started their first IT Support job in a normal to busy environment. In this article we look at the basic technologies used in companies that run on purely a Windows environment.

1) The first technology introduced here is Windows XP. In spite of the latest release of Windows 7, you will find almost every Organisation in UK have a majority of their workstations and PCs running on Windows XP. So the important bits to train on XP would include troubleshooting Windows XP, using command prompts to troubleshoot network issues (Ipconfig, ping, etc,).

2) The Next technology is Windows Server 2003. Again with Windows 2008 being the current version, you will find a majority of companies still relying on Windows Server 2003 to do most of the work. The basic use of Windows 2003 is to act as Domain Controllers for different roles and branches. Then there are other aspects such as Active Directories, DNS roles, print server, terminal server, IIS Server, Win server, among others. Not to forget virtual server (Hyper V), being used in a lot of Organisations can mean heavy reliance on this technology.

3) Exchange Server is the other server that is required for setting up mail box accounts. This server technology works along side Active Directory Users and Computers Admin Console to control email accounts.

4) Microsoft SCOM is one of the most important tools adopted by a lot of Organisations to monitor the proper functioning of all the Windows Servers running in the company. Once you understand how SCOM functions, it helps you to get a grip of the back end of the server technologies.

5) WSUS Server is the technology used to update and deploy Microsoft technologies through out your Windows environment. With 1000s of computers running in the Organisation, this one technology server can upgrade and deploy updates to all the computers within the network using its admin console that runs on a web browser-application.

6) Understanding and troubleshooting printers, photocopiers, scanners and fax machines is very important in any IT Support position.

7) Almost all Organisations will have a database server to handle vast amount of files. SQL Server 2005 is still the most popular server used in Organisations in spite of SQL Server 2008 being released.

So with the above technologies, to be successful in this line of work would require self training in these areas and being able to adapt quickly to vast amount of enquiries you get on a regular basis from users to solve IT related work.

Read Vijay Nair’s other blog:
IT Grads Vs Pros