SysAdmin Survey. How does your org assign responsibilities?

Quick survey, for medium to large businesses or organizations. How is access
to equipment for configuring/troubleshooting assigned where you work? Does
your company split responsibility between different servers, equipment type,
locality? If so what is the staff to server/node ratio?

John Smith

I'n my department we currently support 250 or so UNIX servers. 90% Solaris
10% Linux on mainframe.

Our group UNIX infrastructure has about 20 sysadmins split in 4 groups

Operations (5) Monitoring, Level 1 trouble shooting, system patching, tape
monkeys, server racking etc..
Production Support (7) Application/System administrators "Web
Servers,DBA's,Middleware apps etc.."
Product Specilist (4) Big Iron, Clustering, BigIron Storage (SAN)
Project Leads (4) System Architects

I think this model works really well every now and then we give the Jr guys
more responsibilites and as new projects come in everyone plays a part keeps
the structure very well.

- RB



"John Smith" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Quick survey, for medium to large businesses or organizations. How is
access
> to equipment for configuring/troubleshooting assigned where you work?
Does
> your company split responsibility between different servers, equipment
type,
> locality? If so what is the staff to server/node ratio?
>
>

Rodrick Brown

"Rodrick Brown" <rbrown@[remove]doitt.nyc.gov> wrote in
news:IHpLb.66376$:

> I'n my department we currently support 250 or so UNIX servers. 90%
> Solaris 10% Linux on mainframe.
>
> Our group UNIX infrastructure has about 20 sysadmins split in 4 groups
>
> Operations (5) Monitoring, Level 1 trouble shooting, system patching,
> tape monkeys, server racking etc..
> Production Support (7) Application/System administrators "Web
> Servers,DBA's,Middleware apps etc.."
> Product Specilist (4) Big Iron, Clustering, BigIron Storage (SAN)
> Project Leads (4) System Architects
>
> I think this model works really well every now and then we give the Jr
> guys more responsibilites and as new projects come in everyone plays a
> part keeps the structure very well.
>
> - RB
>
>
>
> "John Smith" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>> Quick survey, for medium to large businesses or organizations. How is
> access
>> to equipment for configuring/troubleshooting assigned where you
>> work?
> Does
>> your company split responsibility between different servers,
>> equipment
> type,
>> locality? If so what is the staff to server/node ratio?
>>
>>
>
>

wow. that's a nice setup. i wish i worked there. at my place i do
"everything". no seperation of duties as far as traditional management
models go.

--
Rowdy Yates
MCSE, Security+, Linux+
I am Against-TCPA
http://www.againsttcpa.com

Rowdy Yates

"John Smith" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Quick survey, for medium to large businesses or organizations. How is
access
> to equipment for configuring/troubleshooting assigned where you work?
Does
> your company split responsibility between different servers, equipment
type,
> locality? If so what is the staff to server/node ratio?

It varies incredibly depending on the expected services. For full system
support, including data backups, security management, networking, and most
especially designing new solutions for new demands from the user community,
figure roughly (1 hour/week)/machine. If you refuse to be cutting edge in
any way and maintain no heavily customized services and tell users "we don't
support your individual software, all software gets re-installed every time
you log out", you can cut it down to half or less. But no one likes working
that way, and your paperwork handlers will often put you to the test on this
because they really, really need the extra support and will get it from
anyone they can. This hides the manpower costs iinside their own department.

If you're supporting a highly customized environment, with Beowulf cluster
development, an entirely new hardware platform every week, local kernel and
compiler developers, and supporting the under-priced "clearance" crap from
local garage sales, multiply that hour by a large number.

Nico Kadel-Garcia