Re: Admins to Boxes ratio

• Previous message: Holger.VanKoll_at_SWISSCOM.COM: "Re: Ulimit clarification"
• In reply to: Lieberg, Patrick: "Re: Admins to Boxes ratio"
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]

Date:         Fri, 27 Feb 2004 08:42:29 -0800
To: aix-l@Princeton.EDU

I supported an environment once where I had about 100
boxes worldwide. The remote sites had "UNIX" admins
who could do basic stuff (and the user management was
an NIS setup managed from a Sun, and so there were Sun
and HP admins who could do some stuff). I also was
able to get all the machines built and configured the
same way, so that saved me time.

I work now for an outsourcer with several AIX
customers, and have direct responsibility to 5 of
them, totalling perhaps 60 machines. That also
includes TSM, Shark, Candle, NetIQ, and some
EMC/Netbackup administration. The core of our team
has 6 guys, distributed between Ireland, India, and
the US. But -- note that we have to get involved in
weekly change control meetings (for each data center
and each customer), customer RFP work, planning new
customer migrations, performance reporting,
enhancements, etc. Generally speaking, our customers
do NOT have AIX admins local (so we do a LOT of
customer-facing work). [And you can't believe how
many hours are spent on non-technical work.]

One of the other AIX teams has four primary customers,
and they total approximately 80 machines. They too do
TSM and Shark and Candle support (we help each other
out). Their core is probably 8 people at the moment,
distributed between the US, Mexico, Ireland, and
India. We also have an extensive operations staff who
do monitoring, open tickets, etc.

Depending on one's skill level, you'll find admins
working on a lot of non-AIX activity, but I think I
see about 10 machines per FTE. That may be low
compared to other places. Personally, I'd expect a
senior AIX admin to be able to handle about 20 AIX
machines himself, at a minimum (depending on a lot of
factors). I think that if you work in a
follow-the-sun environment, you need to have a MINIMUM
of three admins in each rotation (for my situation, I
consider Mexico and the US jointly as a rotation).

My suggestion is to start documenting the number of
hours spent on break-fix activity, basic user mgmt,
enhancement planning, new projects, performance, etc.
(think of all the major tasks in your job
description). Also include time for training and
vacation and sudden emergencies. Then you'll be able
to better approach your boss with hard data.

- pAG

--- "Lieberg, Patrick" <plieberg@EV3.NET> wrote:
> I think its safe to say, it depends on environment
> and the admins involved. I've worked in a setting
> where I was the sole admin for 40+ boxes in various
> parts of the country. The applications involved
> were highly unstable (ie poorly developed) and as
> such I spent alot of time putting out fires. I was
> highly over-worked in that scenario. However, if
> the applications in question had been stable
> requiring less of my time, supporting that many
> boxes wouldn't have been an issue.
>
> If you are putting in too much overtime trying to
> keep everything up and running and projects moving
> along and your boss is happy with your abilities
> then that's what you need to bring to his attention.
> If he wants one admin only but that admin works
> 60-70 hours a week until they go insane and quit,
> that's not a good scenario for the company.
>
> As others mentioned as well, its important to have
> someone to back you up when vacation time comes or
> you have some sort of other more unfortunate
> absence.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: IBM AIX Discussion List
> [mailto:aix-l@Princeton.EDU]On Behalf Of
> John Jolet
> Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 9:21 AM
> To: aix-l@Princeton.EDU
> Subject: Re: Admins to Boxes ratio
>
>
> Unfortunately, we run a 24x7 environment, so this
> ratio is way too
> high. It's okay for just keeping the balls in the
> air, but no one has
> time to go back and do performance tuning, capacity
> planning,
> configuration issues, etc. Ideally, you want your
> admins to have some
> free bandwidth for "improvement", not just running
> full time
> homeostasis. It also sucks when someone goes on
> two-weeks vacation....
>
> Gosselin, Mark wrote:
>
> >I have about 125 boxes (mix of Solaris, AIX, HP,
> and Red Hat), and I'm all alone. Make sure you
> definitely don't tell your boss that
> >one. Previously, I worked for a company that had a
> "standard" for this. Their thought was 60-75 boxes
> per admin, which is
> >exactly what John Jolet's ratio is... I feel a
> little bit overworked (especially because I also do
> some development work), but my
> >environment is pretty stable, so another person
> would likely be kind of bored.
> >I do get a college student "intern" in the summer
> and during winter semester break, so I do get some
> time to do things that pile up.
> >I'm trying to convince my boss that we need someone
> else at least part time....
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Patrick B. O'Brien
> [mailto:pobrien@DOIT.NV.GOV]
> > Sent: Thu 2/26/2004 6:43 PM
> > To: aix-l@Princeton.EDU
> > Cc:
> > Subject: Admins to Boxes ratio
> >
> >
> >
> > Anybody have any IBM Documentation defining
> the AIX Admins to Boxes ratio?
> >
> > I'm an AIX Admin supporting some 14 AIX
> Boxes and a few RH Boxes; I think I could use some
> help. My boss wants to see if IBM agrees.
> >
> > Thank you.
> >
> >
> >
>
>
_____________________________________________________________________
> Message scanned for viruses

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Get better spam protection with Yahoo! Mail.
http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools

• Previous message: Holger.VanKoll_at_SWISSCOM.COM: "Re: Ulimit clarification"
• In reply to: Lieberg, Patrick: "Re: Admins to Boxes ratio"
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]