Greetings!
On Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:31:42 -0500
Rami.Prescott@frostbank.com wrote:
Would anyone know of a good place to find information on how large a
system administrator/ network engineering department should be?
The general rule of thumb I've heard is 1 system administrator/network
engineer for every 250 users. Is this generally true in practice?
It heavily depends on the business, users and systems. A single admin
can run hundreds of POS/cashier systems without much hassle (1:1000 or
so), while in hosting facilities the admin-to-worker ration usually is
quite different (10:1?).
You need enough admins to keep the systems running and current. There
are ways to limit workload (e.g. standardization of workstation,
thin-client, system choice) or service (we only do net and servers and
each worker is responsible for his own workstation) and thus number of
admins, but there is no fixed ratio.
Another factor coming in is time coverage. To run a 24/7/365
administration you need at least 4 admins (3x 8h plus stand-in for
illness/holiday/overtime) - regardless number of users or machines.
In small shops you have - by their nature - a much higher ratio. Even in
a 10 people shop one is the admin - even if probably only part-time.
Thus they'll have a 1:9 ratio statistically.
And of course you need more admins for more service.
We define system administrator/network engineer as someone who has
5-10 years experience in all OS and who is responsible for the
operating system and hardware.
I define a system/network ADMIN by wether his main job/responsibility is
to care about the systems - regardless skill.
Defining which skillset a GOOD admin should have is a completely
different discussion.
As for qualification metrics: someone who has spent his last 10 years in
administration just with daily rebooting the Win95-"Server" in the
morning and occasional refilling printing paper is not necessarily a
good admin...
;-)
Bye
Volker
--
Volker Tanger http://www.wyae.de/volker.tanger/
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