Re: Number of Admin's per Server

From: Jeremiah DeWitt Weiner (jdw_at_panix.com)
Date: 02/09/05

  • Next message: odiboy: "Re: Monitoring a binary" 
    Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 21:42:58 +0000 (UTC)

    Michael Vilain <vilain@spamcop.net> wrote:
    > "That depends" (the standard answer to overly general and not well
    > understood by the the Original Poster)

            Agreed; that's the only real answer. Just to go into a little more
    detail on this, a large factor is the homogeneity of the hardware and
    software, and the existence of tools for managing large numbers of
    servers (or the lack of such tools). If you're running 500 identical
    web servers, and they all have nicely set up centralized authentication,
    and a kickstart server for new ones, and shared storage for shareable
    stuff, then you could probably get away with two admins! On the other
    hand, if you're running ten systems but they have nothing in common and
    no means of centralized administration, you might need five admins.

            You also always want a safety factor too, in case, say, one quits
    and another one comes down with the flu before you find a replacement.
    Junior admins or newly hired ones of any skill level will also be less
    productive, and may be a short-term drain on the productivity of those
    who are teaching them. As with hardware, you have to consider what you
    need to cover your average workload, what you need to cover 95% of
    situations, what you need to cover 99.99% of situations, and so forth.

            Also consider how many problems there are and how often your admins
    will get paged in the middle of the night. Getting woken up three times
    a night every night with no perceivable chance of this changing will not
    do good things either for productivity during the day or motivation to
    actually stay at such a job.

    JDW

  • Next message: odiboy: "Re: Monitoring a binary"

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