[ale] Recommended Support Levels

Denny Chambers dchambers at snapserver.com
Thu Jan 31 12:03:12 EST 2002


I believe these numbers depend less on the platform, and more on the
following:

Number of Users
The number of users that are being supported. This number will dictate
how many server are need. The more users, the more home directories,
email, and misc. data that needs to be stored. The more servers and disk
space that need to be managed. Also, more users mean more desktops that
need to be managed. The knowledge level of you user will factor into
this as well. Managing a group of developers, is a little different than
managing a group of data entry people. And I don't care what platform
you are running on, or what the knowledge level of the user is, USERS
WILL BREAK IT. Thinking back on past experience I might suggest 1
desktop person, and 1 server admin for about every 75 - 100 users. That
is a rough estimate.


Number of remote location.
If several remote locations are being supported, managing the lans and
wans can become a full time position, so a full-time Network admin may
or may not be needed. It would depend on the work load and skill set of
you other admins.

Numbers and Size of Specialty Servers
If you have servers that handle specific functions. i.e. Email,
Databases, Peoplesoft, SAP, Mainframes, OS/400, Citrix, PBX....,
depending on the size of your applications, and the user base, these
types of servers may require dedicated personnel with particular skill
sets.

Then of course you need a manager to keeps this chaos under control.

HTH,
Denny

The number of remote location.

Thompson Freeman wrote:
> 
> The subject came up on another list I'm on, I went looking on the web, and
> I've yet to see results. For the various computing platforms &
> applications, what are current industry practices for support
> staffing? Failing that - the recommended levels?
> 
> What I'm curious about, for an office doing office stuff, how many support
> people are needed when the office is MS based? How many when Mac
> based? How many when Unix/Linux based? Likewise servers. It seems like
> these numbers should be available somewhere, but I simply haven't found
> them.
> 
> --
> ===========================================
> The harder I work, the luckier I get.
>                     Lee Iacocca
> ===========================================
> Thompson Freeman          tfreeman at intel.digichem.net
> 
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-- 
Denny Chambers
Quantum Corporation, Inc.
Network Attached Storage Division
Java Linux Engineer
Phone: 251-478-5730
Cell: 251-605-3446
IM: bugfixer at jabber.org

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