SMS Admin interview questions...

alot of these questions are really good, however, the two things I learned way back when I was in the USAF were

1) There' s a reason they went to all that trouble to write all those manuals

2) the moment you do a non-rote routine off the top of your head is the moment you do it wrong. (in other words, you can breath without thinking, but you can' t think without breathing)

Personally, I' m more interested in the magnitude of the sites they' ve done. Some of the above questions are great if you' re needing an architect/consultant, others are great if you' re looking for a day-to-day admin. Really, what you ask depends on the position you' re trying to fill. I alos agree that pratical experinece always trumps what' s in the book.

Hello all,

I am pretty new to SMS 2003. I work with a senior SMS admin that is never in the office to answer simple questions. Can anyone help with this?

I ran a query on all non client machines in SMS. I have tried for a couple of days to do a forced install and letting it use default settings but it still doesnt install the client. What am I doing incorrectly? Please advise

Here are good client type questions I ask people who troubleshoot SMS workstations.

1. A workstation is a SMS client and although you have added the workstation to a software deployment group, the application and core advertisement do not install. Describe the steps you would take to troubleshoot the client before you called the SMS Admin.

2. Where can you go to see the success and or failures of an advertised package?

3. How would you know if your management point is down? What logs would you look at and what possible tools would you use?

4. What does the Execmgr.log, CAS.log and LocationServices.log files each tell you?

5. If you are unsure if a particular patch has been applied to the SMS client during the monthly patch deployment, where would you find the log file for a specific KB update on that workstation? Also, what is the name of the log file?

6. What are the proper steps to remove and reinstall the SMS client? Also, where is the client software located?
Say that your entire site is not receiving packages. What do you do?

7. A package has been advertised to one of your SMS clients. The package is set to download to the client but never installs. You notice an error in the CAS.log file where “hash does not meet expected”. What does that mean and how can it be fixed?

8. What does it mean when you go into the Control panel and look in the SMS Run Advertised Programs and the window is blank?

9. What tool(s) can you use to see what the status is of all advertisements on a specified workstation? There are 2 that we use.

10. How can you run an advertisement again for one workstation?

11. What is the SMS Toolkit as provided by Microsoft?

12. An AD group has been created for a new package. You add the first workstation to the group and you notice the SMS collection does not update with the workstation name, thus the package doe not install. What is the most likely reason?

13. When you RIS a workstation that has already been a SMS client, should you delete the workstation in SMS before you RIS the computer?

14. What does it mean when you have a computer that shows up twice and one says it’s “obsolete”? What does Obsolete mean? What if you had 2 workstations listed and neither were obsolete? How would you know which one to keep and which one to delete?

15. What is the default size of the SMS cache on the clients by Microsoft? What does the cache do and how can you increase the size? Why is the size important?

How ' bout this question? (I apologize if it' s already been mentioned here)

What is the first thing you do when troubleshooting unfamiliar site system and client problems?

If they don' t answer with, " Review the logs" , I' d be reluctant to hire them.

All too often, I' ve seen people start making changes to site settings, restoring WMI, doing site resets and other things that may prove to be unnecessary if the logs had first been looked at.

I highlighted " unfamiliar" because we all immediately do what' s necessary, without checking logs, if we' ve seen the problem before and know what needs to be done to fix it.

Here's a different take on the questions; rather than judging technical competency, judge the business competency and using SMS to support that.  For example:
 
1.  How would you manage the patch lifecycle for the operating system?
2.  How would you manage the application lifecycle (including patch distribution)?
3.  How would you configure SMS to support various business groups?  ie. order desk, help desk, desktop support, business analysts, management, etc.
4.  Workstation imaging/reimaging/recovery...
 
The SMS admin should be configuring the environment to allow other IT personnel to support the business... most of the people with "book smarts" know how to follow a given process (say the ITMU), but not how to define a process, enforce it, and support it.  You can follow up with further questions based on what becomes outlined (i.e. ITMU for patching- what about exception systems used for overnight batch processing?).  Technical skills can be acquired/researched, soft skills take a lot longer.

How would you automate the SMS client installaiton on the client machines? When you connect your PC into network, the SMS client must be automatically installed on it?

How to do Mac address based imaging via the SMS server

I would ask questions that display some direct knowledge only an experienced SMS admin's would know,
such as

-collecting custom data elements non-standard to SMS with custom scripting
-custom reporting using SQL enterprise / MS Access
-name a couple 3rd party tools that integrate with SMS 2003 (ie. 1E, MonInfo, SMSExpert, SMSClientSpy)
-etc..

On those lines.

I also apologize if this is duplicated somewhere in the above posts.

Late post, but since the topic's pinned I'll answer anyway.

I disagree with the lengthy in-depth technical questions.  Ask a few baseline questions to make sure that the candidate knows the technology and is not just lying flat out on their resume, but that's it.  I'm much more concerned with past experience and the quality, aptitude, and personality of the candidate overall.  One thing that's critical is that they express the importance of learning and understanding the needs of the business.  In the end SMS and IT in general is about supporting the business, and it's absolutely critical to understand what they want and what they need.  It kills me to see so many SMS admins so out of tune with their customers. 

Another big piece of the puzzle is the SMS admin's willingness to change and learn.  I see too many candidates that that want to shut themselfs away in an SMS lab and do things the same way for the next 10 years that they have for the last 5.  SMS has a ton of capability, I want someone that is willing to explore that.

Just my .02 cents.

I know I've already posted twice, so I'm probably going to be added to a ban list soon :)  However, the last post makes sense also.  I think I agree too much with everyone.  Even myself.

I would probably just ask them to describe, in high level, the process for standing up a single site and deploying clients.  See if they understand basic order of things like adding roles, setting the boundaries, configuring agents, discoveries, etc.  Then work down to more detailed things if they seem to have a good grasp of it all based on how they answered that first.  Of course, if they bring good imported beer to the interview I'd hire them regardless.

Few Questions which I have been asked :
 
1. What do you mean by MIF?
 
2. The two SMS DPS are on the same lan segment you are distributing one package to both DPs One dp get updated on 2 mins where as the other dp took 8 mins ??? where you goona find out the problem  (Answer from SMS perspective no permision issues)
 
3. If you want to have SMS hierarchy in cross forest infrastucture what all consideration you need to take care ??
 
4. What remains uncleaned with Ccmclean??? or what all process you goona follow for removing the client from worksation all possibilities with sequence , ccmclean, msiexec /x ect ect
 
5. Why the backlogs being created in the site server ???
 
6. what all are WMI classess ??
 
7. What log you goona check for one software distribution in site server ???
 
8. what is the relationship of sms and wmi ? how abt this relationship in terms of the SMS client and WMI ??
 
9. What WMi Version the SMS 2003 Sp2 use or which is the miniumum version of the WMI is required for sms client .
 
10 The Status messages from the secondary site servers are not coming to the primary site server
    case a;- When the status messages from all secondary site servers associated with the particular Primary site server is not coming
 
Case B : Couple of them are not sending it over
 
11. In the cross forest design can you configure any site system role in the forest where you dont have sms hierarchy in the place ?? How do you register MP, SLP in WINS database as per one of the requistes in cross forest design .
 
12 Differences between WBEM and WMI
 
13. Why the ITMU cab name is changed recently ?? Or otherway around how many records does the new cab support ??
 
 
 
 
 

Your questions are all fine and dandy, but I would be more curious on day to day administration and the main usage of SMS not reverse engineering the system.

Personally, I would setup an SMS/SCCM environment and then break it in more then one way and have the applicant fix it.  Actions speak louder then words after all, right?