[ale] Recommended Support Levels

[rhiannen]

I tend to agree that it's more to do with the type of work/users than
with the OS in questions.  Users break things - often - period.

When we were just coming in as the outsourced IT support, I ran across
some research analysis, or marketing research, whatever that was being
used as a basis for the amount of staffing required for a job.  I
believe the *proposed* numbers for our shop, 2/3 field/laptop scattered
in all 50 states plus 4 foreign countries, 1/3 local/desktop, 5 remote
offices, were 1 support per 40/50 users, 1 server admin per 75/85
users.  (the balance changed to 1 per 100+ users for both during the
layoffs, go figure.)

Along with the variables Denny listed (Number of users, number of remote
locations, and number of specialty servers), there is also the need to
take into account how much and what level of support the support
personnel offer.  If they only do 1st and maybe a little 2nd, and
handoff trickier issues or standards "upstairs", then you get by with
less support, but add an admin.  If the support crew handles everything
but true server/network issues*, then you increase the support personnel
and theoretically can get by with less admin. 

*Our shop was the latter.  We did Everything client side; hardware,
software, standards, troubleshooting, repair, replace, builds, testing
new software/hardware, inventory, you name it, and we actually did quite
a few tasks that were more typically admin related; creating user
network and email accounts, monitoring mailbox size, etc. We called in
admins ONLY for pure server problems or network issues. 

I wish I could find the documentation, but it was hard copy, 2 years
ago.  But, hey, at least it gives me my 'search for the day'. ;)

-- 
rhia
knowledge is power - arm yourself


Denny Chambers wrote:
> 
> 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.
> >

---
This message has been sent through the ALE general discussion list.
See http://www.ale.org/mailing-lists.shtml for more info. Problems should be 
sent to listmaster at ale dot org.