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MOM Admin interview questions...

 
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MOM Admin interview questions... - 10/15/2004 9:58:27 AM   
admin


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I' d like to start a thread that can be captured into a document for posting to the site. Frequently, I receive emails asking for a list of questions to ask MOM interviewees, and it would be nice to gather the best questions and make them available on the site.

Post your best interview questions here...
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RE: MOM Admin interview questions... - 10/15/2004 10:20:23 AM   
gjones


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If you have a problem with MOM, Name two web site in which you would go to find an answer to your problem.

Answer:
www.myitforum.com
http://www.momcommunity.com/
http://faqshop.com/
http://www.microsoft.com/mom/default.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/mom/community/default.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/default.mspx
http://communities2.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx ( MOM Newsgroup)


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RE: MOM Admin interview questions... - 10/18/2004 9:38:49 AM   
jhann


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Q: What are the different rule types in MOM?

A: Alert, Event, and Performance

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RE: MOM Admin interview questions... - 10/18/2004 4:22:23 PM   
jhann


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Q: How do you run scripts, cmds, notifications, and such within MOM?

A: Responses to events or alerts

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Post #: 4
RE: MOM Admin interview questions... - 10/19/2004 3:14:39 AM   
jlarsen216


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Hey all,

I just had to reflect on this discussion...

It might all be down to geographical and cultural differences but I don' t think MCP-exam like questions is the right way to interview candidates for a job. It is all well that people require the right skills to perform a given job, but if the candidate is not what I' d call a ' good learner' , there' s not much growth potential. Some of the primary concerns for a given candidate for any position I think, sould be elements such as:
- Match the culture of the company (you surely don' t want a person who will leave again after 3 months because she/he didn' t fit in, leaving you to go through the recruiting process again)
- Good learning skills (knowing certain technologies is all good, but what about adapting new technology)
- A good team-player (what good is a tech-head if he can' t communicate his knowledge)
- Commitment (you' d probably want somebody who actually cares for the job and can help move the organisation forward)
- Dedication (half-done is incomplete, right?)

My point is that the right candidate isn' t necessarily a technology specialist that knows the difference between an incident and a problem, but that you' d be much better off making sure the candidate matches all the ' softer' values, because every good techie is able to adapt new technology.

Best regards,
Jesper Rune Larsen


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RE: MOM Admin interview questions... - 10/19/2004 2:46:09 PM   
kiaralov369

 

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Hi Jesper,

How often did you get a job without any technical questions in the field you are hiring to?

Since the point of this forum lies very far from helping to become dedicated, good team-player, let' s talk about technical interview questions.

I believe it' s very useful thread.

With all my respect,

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kosta,
Canadian National Institute for the Blind

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RE: MOM Admin interview questions... - 10/20/2004 2:01:12 PM   
mrowlands

 

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I would certainly be looking for evidence of knowledge of monitoring systems in general, not just mom!. So a knowledge of snmp, scripting techniques, other monitoring tools.

I also want them to have an understanding of help desk problems and procedures. For it is helpdesks as well as
management that are mom customers

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RE: MOM Admin interview questions... - 10/21/2004 2:24:34 AM   
jlarsen216


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I' m sorry if I wasn' t clear enough in my thoughts, so I' ll try to re-phrase
I meant to say that a given candidate for a position should be technically proficient in whatever technology he/she should work with, but that it is paramount that the person matches the people who he/she will work with.
Would you consider an MCSE to be a good candidate in any case?

Best regards,
Jesper Rune Larsen

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RE: MOM Admin interview questions... - 10/27/2004 10:42:12 AM   
kwilliams493

 

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I agree that many factors determine the hiring decision....but this thread is targeting the technical details. Questions like:
(1) Explain the process of adding Management Packs to Mom
(2) What different security levels exist for support teams to access MOM
(3) Discuss ways in which MOM can provide " Proactive" vs. " Reactive" response



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RE: MOM Admin interview questions... - 10/28/2004 4:05:14 AM   
jlarsen216


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ok, maybe I was shooting with canons

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RE: MOM Admin interview questions... - 11/1/2004 12:29:26 PM   
jkappel


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Tell me your thoughts on how to design and setup MOM to be as highly available as possible?


We have a specific event occurring and we want to do nothing the first time it occurs, want it to launch a script the second time, and email the third time it happens...can mom do this? If so how.


Our developers have created a custom application that is a distributed arcitecture on 5 servers and they want MOM to monitor several events that they write to the event logs. How would you set this up?





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RE: MOM Admin interview questions... - 12/2/2004 5:37:00 AM   
mvangroesen

 

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In which file can you list computer names to override computer discovery rules except excludes?

Answer:Manualmc.txt

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RE: MOM Admin interview questions... - 2/15/2005 10:05:14 AM   
adominey


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How about, " Explain the process used to configure the Exchange 2000/2003 Management Pack to successfully collect Exchange Mailbox and Database information."

A correct answer will include the configuration of the Mailbox Access Account, the running of the Exchange Management Pack Configuration Tool and testing but the applicant will also need to know how to manually configure the Store Mailbox accounts and will need to know the correct permissions to set etc. to get the collection rules working correctly.

I can elaborate if required.

Thanks,

Andy.

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RE: MOM Admin interview questions... - 3/1/2005 7:40:27 AM   
adominey


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Ok, got another.

How about:

Q: Explain the process of correctly monitoring Microsoft Windows Clusters using MOM 2005.

A: Import the Windows Base OS and Windows Server Cluster MP' s, roll the agent out to all cluster nodes and go into Admin console and go to Windows Server Computers, right click on the cluster virtual server(s) (once they have appeared - may take some time) and select Start Managing.
Bonus points if they mention the Best Practice of disabling event log repliaction to prevent duplicate events being generated.

Cheers,

Andy.

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RE: MOM Admin interview questions... - 3/15/2005 11:26:58 AM   
alarkin


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Jester,

I would have to agree with you on this one. Several interviews that I have been on lately have not focused on my actual computer skills but on my personality and ability to communicate than on the Microsoft skill set. I have found that with Microsoft technologies there are most of the time more that one way to skin the cat so if the interviewer hasnt seen the way the interviewee was describing the way it was done in the environment he is leaving he could be dinged for an incorrect answer.

Thanks

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Please rate posting!

Thanks

Alexander Larkin
CCEA, MCSE, MCSA.
Senior Enterprise Consultant
alexlarkin@att.net

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Post #: 15
RE: MOM Admin interview questions... - 4/22/2005 3:25:13 PM   
twright697


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I think it would be interesting to ask the following questions which would help evaluate if the candidate really understand the value of MOM and how it fits in the operations world:

What are the three most important capabilities or features of MOM and why?

If you were in charge of choosing the feature set of the next version of MOM what would you include?



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Microsoft Operations Manager

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RE: RE: MOM Admin interview questions... - 6/10/2005 5:35:04 PM   
bmengotto


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MOM is still a new and growing product. I' ll throw out some serious questions, but I have to mix it up a bit..Nonetheless, if they wanted a MOM admin/dev I would ask the following:

Q:What monitoring products have you used, what did you like/didn' t like and what shortcomings did you discover?

A:Open ended obviously, but a good primer.

Q:Who is your favorite PM in the MOM team?

A:They wouldn' t have to know this, but if they said: Unsure, I have been blacklisted from emailing them anymore. :o) This answer would inidcate that the person you are interviewing may know very little and spams the PM' s all the time with setup questions (/looks at self in mirror), or possibly has an infactuation with one of the PM' s - STALKER!

Q:What was your first experience with Operations Manager.

A:If you get an answer from the person that goes back before MSFT picked up the product, then this could be a very valuable candidate.

Q:Why is MOM better at monitoring MSFT/Wintel then the other players in the market. If it is not, then why do you feel this way, share some examples.

A:Product teams develop the MP' s. Easy to deploy and maintain. Toolset, not just a monitoring tool. Out of the box reporting. User friendly for .Net programers and developers comfortable with MS Scripting languages and WMI. Etc., etc. Pretty colors. ;o) MSFT intergration in furture product releases (Longhorn will have a MOM agent installed as a service - perhaps? E2K3 has parts of the E2K3 MP bits in place when you roll E2K3, less work for you when deploying agent).

Q:Can MOM integrate into other frameworks, and if so how?

A:Connectors, and 3rd party vendor connectors. Ticketing systems, HPOV, CA, Tivoli, BMC.. Then of course eXc and their slew of connectors for various platforms.

Q:Is it ok to deploy MOM into production with out of the box management packs? If not why and what should you do?

A:NO. Alert storms, perf storms, performance will suffer defeating the purpose of a monitoring system. You should do MP tuning and collect what is important and needed, anything else turn off and use only when troubleshooting that particular issue.

Q:Our Corp Security hates IIS. They have condemned IIS servers to live alone on their own servers. Our SVP wants a web console to view MOM alerts. Can we tell our SVP this will happen?

A:NO. Web console has to sit on the management server. This requires IIS, but I have worked out a way to get it to work with Apache on a virtual machine running on the management server using RedHat 5.0 and Vmware. (just for mentioning Apache, despite the fact that CIS hates IIS, this person was fired before even being hired, then later picked up by the unix mail gateway team). ;o)

Q:Sally from the Exchange operations team tried to view reports from the reporting server. She goes to the web console but only sees HOME and gets some issue about access denied. You tested reporting after you installed it and it worked. What step did you miss?

A:Forgot to set up access to the SQL Reporting web site from the site access page. Go to the home page, and grant a AD global group access to view and run reports. This should be the SC DW reader group.

Q:How can you limit views to certain applications so that Exchange admins see only alerts for Exchange servers, AD sees only alerts with AD servers?

A:Console Scopes.

Q:Base salary for a MOM admin/developer is?

A:Not enough. Please sell more copies!

Q:How many configuration groups can report to a top tier config group?

A:10.

Q:If your server side hardware support team is telling you there are no issues with hardware and your servers are A-OK, how can you show them they are wrong?

A:Create a new notification group, create a new operator. Add their DG email address as the email address of the operator. Create a Rule group. Create an alert notification rule in that rule group for Error or higher. Associate that rule group with the Windows 2000 Server computer group. Push changes and turn off your cell phone and set out of office on Outlook. Then go on paternaty leave for 8 weeks.

Q:Do you have to use the E2K MP Config wizard to create mom test mailboxes?

A:NO, but you do have to use it to store the credentials locally to the server for the mailbox access account.

Q:Can managers read MOM reports now?

A:Yes, they come in a variety of pretty colors. There are line and bar graphs, pie charts, and..unfortunately..some reports with just text. We are working on eliminating those. One DCR was submitted to the MOM team that requested a customizable color swatch to be available when running reports, so managers who hung them on the walls could do so without causing a problem with the color scheme of their office. ;o) There are talks about a plan to incorporate some sort of wizard or office assistant that will pop up after you run a report that will play " Where is the performance bottle neck in this report?" . Managers will compete with other managers and the winner at the end of the week will get the ability to subscribe to a report of their choice (no more phone calls to the Exchagne team asking for an increase in his/her mailbox size).

Ok, that' s enough of my goofing around. Keep in mind I was trying to spice it up a bit, so don' t take some of those answers for being correct..had to add some comic relief. Does McDonalds use MOM to monitor the fry machine? If my management reads this post I might be looking for a new job!



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Blake mengotto AT hotmail.com
My MSN Space|MOM Resources and MORE
Silect Software|MOM HealthReporter & MP Studio Express

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RE: MOM Admin interview questions... - 7/29/2005 12:52:59 PM   
bcady

 

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There are several questions listed above that will test the users knowledge, and ability to think creatively. I believe in looking for a good team dynamic and fit, and asking technical questions to see how candidates work at resolving them. A couple questions that I did not see are as follows:

Q - What is the maximum size recommended for a MOM DB? (easy)
A – 30 GB. It can go much larger, but performance suffers.

Q - If an event storm fills the DB and you need to reduce the size to run the groom jobs, what tables can you truncate without damaging the DB? (harder)
A - I do not recommend doing this, but I have truncated the Event, EventParam, SampledNumericData, Alert, & AlertToEvent tables successfully. Your mileage may vary.

To answer one question from above, I do not feel that being a MCSE would qualify someone for a MOM Admin position. Several of the MS tests were too easy, and there are still no industry standard monitoring exams or certs. I have interviewed too many MCSEs who were not qualified for basic phone support.

When interviewing, I strive to find a balance between aptitude, drive, and knowledge. In my experience, aptitude and drive will outperform knowledge every time, but I do want to make sure that knowledge claimed on a resume is not misrepresentation.

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RE: RE: MOM Admin interview questions... - 7/29/2005 3:02:22 PM   
bmengotto


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@bcady

Need a MOM admin who has the old school NT 4.0 MCSE?

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Blake mengotto AT hotmail.com
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Silect Software|MOM HealthReporter & MP Studio Express

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RE: RE: RE: MOM Admin interview questions... - 7/29/2005 6:21:29 PM   
bcady

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: bmengotto

@bcady

Need a MOM admin who has the old school NT 4.0 MCSE?


I wish I could, but I can' t even get approval to fill positions when people leave the company. Sooner or later things have to get better, but it doesn' t look like it will be real soon.

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RE: RE: MOM Admin interview questions... - 4/27/2007 5:59:39 AM   
kstander

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: bmengotto

@bcady

Need a MOM admin who has the old school NT 4.0 MCSE?



Finally someone else who didn't bother with exams post NT4 MCSE......

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RE: RE: MOM Admin interview questions... - 3/14/2008 5:48:44 AM   
ramzirafeeq

 

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hi I am new joing this forum my it forum.

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RE: RE: MOM Admin interview questions... - 3/14/2008 5:52:27 AM   
ramzirafeeq

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: ramzirafeeq

hi I am new joing this forum my it forum.


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